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DECREE CONCERNING
INDULGENCES.
Whereas the power of conferring Indulgences was granted by Christ to the
Church; and she has, even in the most ancient times, used the said power,
delivered unto her of God; the sacred holy Synod teaches, and enjoins, that the
use of Indulgences, for the Christian people most salutary, and approved of - Page 278 -
by the authority of sacred Councils, is to be retained in the Church;
and It condemns with anathema those who either assert, that they are useless;
or who deny that there is in the Church the power of granting them. In granting
them, however, It desires that, in accordance with the ancient and approved
custom in the Church, moderation be observed; lest, by excessive facility,
ecclesastical discipline be enervated. And being desirous that the abuses which
have crept therein, and by occasion of which this honourable name of
Indulgences is blasphemed by heretics, be amended and corrected, It ordains
generally by this decree, that all evil gains for the obtaining
thereof,--whence a most prolific cause of abuses amongst the Christian people
has been derived,--be wholly abolished. But as regards the other abuses which
have proceeded from superstition, ignorance, irreverence, or from what soever
other source, since, by reason of the manifold corruptions in the places and
provinces where the said abuses are committed, they cannot conveniently be
specially prohibited; It commands all bishops, diligently to collect, each in
his own church, all abuses of this nature, and to report them in the first
provincial Synod; that, after having been reviewed by the opinions of the other
bishops also, they may forthwith be referred to the Sovereign Roman Pontiff, by
whose authority and prudence that which may be expedient for the universal
Church will be ordained; that this the gift of holy Indulgences may be
dispensed to all the faithful, piously, holily, and incorruptly.
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