This they did in a letter to Innocent XII., in which they say: 'We declare that we vehemently, and beyond all that can be expressed, lament from our hearts the acts which were done in the aforesaid assemblies, which have so profoundly displeased your Holiness and your predecessors. And therefore, whatsoever things can be held as decreed by those assemblies respecting the ecclesiastical power and the authority of the Pontiffs, we hold as not decreed, and declare that they ought so to be esteemed.' Lastly, they conclude as follows:—'Meanwhile, to your Holiness, as to the successor of blessed Peter, Prince of the Apostles, to the Vicar of Christ our Lord, and to the Head of the whole Church militant, that same true and sincere obedience which we have already promised, we again promise, vow, and swear.'[1]
Further, the same might be confirmed by the allocution of Innocent XII., and the briefs of Clement XI. of June 15 and August 31, in 1706. But enough has been said. I will add only the three following facts:—First, that in the Constitution Auctorem Fidei, Pius VI. condemns the Synod of Pistoia for incorporating the four Gallican Articles in its decrees, expressly because they had been already condemned by Pontifical authority; and declares that the insertion of those Articles in the Synod was 'temerarious, scandalous, and greatly injurious to the Apostolic See.'[2]
D
