to his upper and his lower
seminary: here are two indispensable nurseries of which he is the head
gardener, attentive to filling annual vacancies and seeking proper
subjects for these throughout his diocese, ever verifying and
cultivating their vocations; he confers scholarships; he dictates rules
and regulations; appoints and dismisses, displaces and procures as he
pleases, the director and professors; he takes them, if he chooses, out
of his diocese or out of the body of regular clergy; he prescribes a
doctrine to them, methods, ways of thinking and teaching, and he keeps
his eye, beyond his present or future priests, on three or four hundred
monks and on fourteen hundred nuns.

As to the monks, so long as they remain inside their dwellings, in
company together and at home, he has nothing to say to them; but,
when they come to preach, confess, officiate or teach in public on his
ground, they fall under his jurisdiction; in concert with their superior
and with the Pope, he has rights over them and he uses them. They are
now his auxiliaries assigned to or summoned by him, available troops and
a reinforcement, so many chosen companies expressly ready, each with
its own discipline, its particular uniform, its special weapon, and
who bring to him in following a campaign under his orders, distinct
aptitudes and a livelier zeal. He needs them[5253] in order to make
up for the insufficiency of his local clergy in arousing the spirit
of devotion in his parishes and in enforcing sound doctrine in his
seminaries. Now, between these two forces a common understanding is
difficult; the former, adjuncts and flying about, march in front; the
latter, holding the ground and stationary, look upon the new-comers as
usurpers who lessen both their popularity and their fees; a bishop must
possess great tact as well as energy to impose on both bodies of
this clergy, if not an intimate union, at least mutual aid and a
collaboration without conflict.--As to the nuns,[5254] he is their
ordinary, the sole arbiter, overseer and ruler over all these cloistered
lives; he receives their vows, and renders them free of them; it is he
who, after due inquiry and examination, authorizes each entrance
into the community or a return to society, at first each admission or
novitiate, and next each profession of faith or assumption of the veil,
every dismissal or departure of a nun, every claim that one makes,
every grave act of severity or decision on the p