BULL OF OUR HOLY LORD PIUS IV., BY DIVINE PROVIDENCE POPE.
Pius, bishop, servant of the servants of God, for the perpetual memory hereof.
Appointed to the see of the prince of the apostles, how inferior soever in deserts, we can do nothing either more wholesome for the universal Church committed unto our care and solicitude, or more becoming the office of the apostolic service enjoined on us, than [to take care that] the œcumenical Council of Trent, as it has chiefly under our auspices, terminated happily, and amid the greatest unanimity of the holy fathers, through the mercy of God, so by the ministry of our care it may be everywhere received by all who are reputed for Christian piety, and, all obstacles removed, be equally observed by all. Whereas, therefore, very many decrees and statutes of a wholesome nature, and extremely conducive to the universal reformation of morals, have been put forth in the said council, preceded by the matured examination of those present, to which many and different privileges, exemptions, immunities, dispensations, faculties, conservatories, indults, and confessionals, as they call them, and the great sea,[1] and other graces, which have been granted to various cathedral, metropolitan, as well as to collegiate churches, monasteries, convents, and other religious houses and orders, even to those of mendicant brethren, and also to those of the Holy Ghost in Saxia, of St. John of Lateran,and of the Incurables of the City, of St. Anthony of Vienna,and of St. Bernard of Jura, and other hospitals, mintary orders, and their chapters and convents, and universities, even to colleges of general studies, as well secular as ecclesiastic, to confraternities,
- ↑ Cf. Concil. Lai. Y. Sess. xi. p. 1835. "Seu aliquod prsemissorum eisdem ordinibus concessis, etiam in mari magno conientis. This name was applied to a specific bull. See the indexes to Harduin's Concilia, and Thomasinus de Disciplina Ecclesiastica.
