According to Catholic doctrine grace is imparted to the believer by means of certain rites: baptism, confirmation, the eucharist, penance, extreme unction, holy orders, and matrimony.

Baptism is the necessary prerequisite to the enjoyment of the others, for without it the unwashed soul, whether heathen or child of Christian parents, would go to eternal fire; but the "most excellent of the sacraments" is the eucharist, in which Christ is mysteriously sacrificed by the priest to the Father and his body and blood eaten and drunk by the worshippers.

Without these rites there was no salvation, and they acted automatically (_ex opere operato_) on the soul of the faithful who put no active hindrance in their way.

Save baptism, they could be administered only by priests, a special caste with "an indelible character" marking them off from the laity.

Needless to remark the immense power that this doctrine gave the clergy in a believing age.
They were made the arbiters of each man's eternal destiny, and their moral character had no more to do with their binding and loosing sentence than does the moral {28} character of a secular officer affect his official acts.