The Necessity of Assent

Diogenes, republishes an address by C.S. Lewis to Anglican clergymen regarding the necessity for assent to Church teaching among the clergy for proper Church order. Lewis and Diogenes lead us to the edge to understanding that to attempt to be a dissenter from within the Church is to place oneself outside the Church, usually above the Church in judgment.

For this reason, the Church teaches what she believes, and requires her priests to profess it. If God is calling a man to the priesthood, the man is being called to the fullness of the truth, and to teach it to the best of his ability. This does not mean, perhaps, that the priest knows everything and understands with perfect clarity the faith, but that he gives his full assent to the faith, and willingly submits to the Church. Anything else is less, and certainly to say that one can know better than the 2000 years of Tradition is to yield to a spirit of arrogance!