"
The audience swayed confusedly, drawn in different directions. Benedetto
covered his face with his hands, while he collected his thoughts.
"You ask me what you are to do?" he said uncovering his face.
He reflected a moment longer and then continued:
"I see, In the future, Catholic laymen striving zealously for Christ
and for truth, and finding a means of instituting unions different from
those of the present. They will one day take arms as knights of the Holy
Spirit, banding together for the united defence of God and of Christian
morality in the scientific, artistic, civil, and social fields; for the
united defence of legitimate liberty in the religious field. They shall
be under certain special obligations, not however of community of
living, or of celibacy, integrating the office of the Catholic clergy,
to which they will not belong as an Order but only as persons, in the
individual practice of Catholicism. Pray that God's will may be made
manifest concerning this work in the souls of those who contemplate it.
Pray that these souls may willingly strip themselves of all pride
in having conceived this work, and of all hope of witnessing its
completion, should God manifest disapproval of it.
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