might be wholly, or in part, restored to him; any privileges soever, granted to any college or fabric, notwithstanding.
The same also, both as regards the guilt, the loss of fruits, and the penalties, the sacred and holy synod wholly declares and decrees, in regard to inferior curates, and all others soever who hold any ecclesiastical benefice having cure of souls; in such wise however, as that, whensoever it shall happen that they are absent for a cause that has been first made known to, and approved by, the bishop, they shall leave, with a due assignment of stipend, a suitable vicar, to be approved of by the said ordinary. And they shall not obtain permission to be absent, which is to be granted in writing and gratuitously, beyond a period of two months, except for some weighty cause. And if, after having been cited, even though not personally, by an edict, they shall be contumacious, [the synod] wills, that the ordinaries be at liberty to constrain them by ecclesiastical censures, and by the sequestration and subtraction of fruits, and by other legal remedies, even as far as deprivation; and that the execution hereof shall not be able to be suspended by any privilege soever, license, claim as a domestic, exemption, though even upon the ground of any maimer of benefice, by any compact, or statute, even though confirmed by oath or by what authority soever, by any custom, even though immemorial (which is to be looked upon rather as a corruption), or by any appeal, or inhibition, even in the Roman Court, or by virtue of the constitution of Eugenius. Finally, the holy synod commands, that both that decree under Paul III., and this present, shall be published in the provincial and episcopal councils; for it desires that things which so nearly concern the office of pastors, and the salvation of souls, be frequently impressed upon the ears and minds of all men; that so, with God's help, they may never hereafter be abolished through the injury of time, the forgetfulness of men, or by desuetude.
