Should not Priests have the power to heal as well as to forgive sin?

No. The chief thing in Christianity is the forgiveness of sin to secure salvation, not the healing of the body to put off a little longer the death, which must come sooner or later. Christ gave the Apostles the power to forgive sin and to heal. The power to forgive sin was essential and necessary, and it has passed to all succeeding Priests of the New Law. The power of healing was not meant to be transmitted. God gave it to some in the early Church after the Apostles, but not to all. St. Paul says, “To one is given the word of knowledge; to another the grace of healing; to another, etc.” 1 Cor. XII., 8-10. The Bible proves that the power of forgiving sin was to be handed on to the successors of the Apostles, and nowhere does it hint that this power was not to be given to all such successors. But St. Paul clearly shows that the gift of healing was not given to all. It is a secondary gift, not for the sake of restoring health, but to prove the mission of the Church. In I. Cor. XIV., 22, St. Paul says that the gift of tongues is “for a sign, not to believers, but to unbelievers.”

Radio Replies Volume 1 by Rev. Dr. Leslie Rumble MSC and Rev. Charles Mortimer Carty