Melkites to turn Maronite.[1] The same law, even more severely, applies to Latin missionaries. "Moreover, we expressly forbid all and each of the Catholic Melkites who use the Greek rite, to pass over to the Latin rite. We command severely that all missionaries, under pains named below, and under others to be inflicted according to our pleasure, shall not dare to persuade anyone of these to pass from the Greek to the Latin rite, or shall even allow them to do so, if they wish it, without having first consulted the Apostolic See."[2] The pains are deprivation of active and passive voice in elections, and inability for any office or degree in their Order or Congregation.[3]
There were, then, ambiguous people, who followed both rites, Roman and Byzantine, on various occasions. This must stop. Such persons are to make a final statement as to the rite to which they wish to belong, without further delay, and then to keep to it exclusively as long as they live.[4] The decree contains many other wise and tolerant rules about the children of mixed marriages,[5] children of Melkite parents who by accident have been baptized by a Latin priest, and so on. The Pope ends: "We do not doubt but that you will recognize that we have no other intention but that the venerable rites of the Greek Church and its customs shall persist in all their force; and that the due obedience of your people and your authority and jurisdiction over them shall be kept whole and entire."[6] And again: "We wish all the rights, privileges, and free jurisdiction of your Fraternities[7] to remain intact, that you may rule the sheep committed to your care, and may direct them by the paths of the laws of God, with the help of his grace, to the goal of eternal salvation."[8]
But the most important legislation of Benedict XIV on this subject is contained in the Encyclical Allatæ sunt of July 26, 1755.[9]
This is addressed to missionaries in the "East," meaning chiefly in Syria and Asia Minor. It is a long document. First, the Pope explains at length the care his predecessors have always had to preserve the Eastern rites unchanged and unhurt.
He sums this up accurately by saying that hitherto union with the Eastern Churches has always been arranged so that "errors opposed to the Catholic faith were rooted out; but it
