To Boniface, Bishop.

Gregory to Boniface, Bishop of Regium (Reii).

It is a shame for priests to be admonished about matters of divine worship.  For they are then to their disgrace required to do what they ought themselves to require to be done.  Yet lest, as I do not suppose, thy Fraternity should neglect in any respect the things that pertain to the work of God, we have thought fit to exhort thee specially on this very head.  We therefore admonish thee that the clergy of the city of Regium be to no extent released by the indulgence of thy Fraternity in duties demanded by their office.  But in the things that pertain to God let them be most instantly and most earnestly compelled.  We desire thee also to study the reputation of the aforesaid clergy, that nothing bad, nothing that at all contravenes ecclesiastical discipline, be heard of them; seeing that it is to its adornment, not to foulness of deeds, that their office appertains.  Further, we decree that what we determined in the case of the Sicilians be observed by thy subdeacons¹⁵²⁷

1527 See I. 44, p. 91; also below, Ep. 36.

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