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authority in Papal countries.[1] In non-Papal countries it is to be expected that such things will be kept out of public sight, or neutralised, or disguised. However, that even in the United Kingdom, and in the present age, this bull supplies the authorised rule and matter of the inquiries in the Confessional, is established past a doubt, by the volumes of Peter Dens, republished in 1832 by the express and proclaimed authority of the Supreme Ecclesiastic Ruler in the Papal Church of Ireland, as "the surest guide of his clergy," and the text-book for their conferences. The repudiation of these portentous volumes, on their first discovery and exposure, succeeded, as it has been, by a shuffling, but very intelligible and real re-embracement, has done all that could be wished by the friends of truth for settling their character, as the absolute and authorised standard
- ↑ The intimate, or rather necessary, connexion of the bull in question with the duty of confession is decisively and strikingly established by the fact, with which Ferrari, in his Prompta Bibliotheca, acquaints us, under Visitare, &c. ix. 272, that, among the articles for inquiry by the visitors of churches, besides others of very significant importance, under the subdivision, Pœnitentia, stands the following — An in Sede Confessionali sit affixa tabella Casuum Reservatorum, & SumMarium Bulle In Cænæ Domini? — This Summarium is found in Dens, as will be immediately seen.
