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Summary. Alienation of
ecclesiastical properties by laymen without the legitimate 3sent of
ecclesiastical authority is forbidden.
Text. Since no power to
dispose of ecclesiastical properties has been given to laymen, even though they
be pious, their duty being to obey, not to command, we regret that in some of
them charity has grown so cold that they do not fear in their laws or rather
monstrosities (confictionibus) to attack the immunity of ecclesiastical
property, which not only the holy fathers but also the secular princes have
fortified with many privileges; presuming illicitly that power not only in the
matter of the alienation of fiefs and other ecclesiastical possessions and of
the usurpation of jurisdictions, but also in the matter of mortuaries and other
things that seem annexed to the spiritual right. Wishing, therefore, in this
matter to secure the churches against loss and to provide against such
injustice, we decree with the approval of the sacred council that laws of this
kind and appropriations of fiefs and other ecclesiastical properties made
without the legitimate consent of ecclesiastical persons under pretext of lay
power, do not hold, since they cannot be called laws but rather want of law or
destruction and usurpation of jurisdiction, and those having recourse to such
presumptions are to be checked ecclesiastical censure.
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