These clerical individuals merit especially severe punishment when they are hard of heart and disbelieving, because it is an extraordinary honor to be selected by God and called into the spiritual nobility of a clerical life. My children, we, the elected, accordingly owe God great love and above all things extreme gratitude.Thus the Lord punishes these people for their lack of faith and their hardness of heart.
–Johannes Tauler (1300-1361)
