[29]. Serious suggestions have been made to us that communities in certain places, to the divine displeasure and injury of the neighbour, in violation of both divine and human law, approve of usury. By their statutes, sometimes confirmed by oath, they not only grant that usury may be demanded and paid, but deliberately compel debtors to pay it. By these statutes they impose heavy burdens on those claiming the return of usurious payments, employing also various pretexts and ingenious frauds to hinder the return. We, therefore, wishing to get rid of these pernicious practices, decree with the approval of the sacred council that all the magistrates, captains, rulers, consuls, judges, counsellors or any other officials of these communities who presume in the future to make, write or dictate such statutes, or knowingly decide that usury be paid or, if paid, that it be not fully and freely restored when claimed, incur the sentence of excommunication. They shall also incur the same sentence unless within three months they delete from the books of their communities, if they have the power, statutes of this kind hitherto published, or if they presume to observe in any way these statutes or customs. Furthermore, since money-lenders for the most part enter into usurious contracts so frequently with secrecy and guile that they can be convicted only with difficulty, we decree that they be compelled by ecclesiastical censure to open their account books, when there is question of usury. If indeed someone has fallen into the error of presuming to affirm pertinaciously that the practice of usury is not sinful, we decree that he is to be punished as a heretic; and we strictly enjoin on local ordinaries and inquisitors of heresy to proceed against those they find suspect of such error as they would against those suspected of heresy.
[30]. Complaints, loud, frequent and incessant come to us from certain religious that very many prelates -- bishops, their superiors and others-unjustly disturb in many ways the peace of the religious. Some of them seize and imprison exempt religious when the law does not permit this. Some, by threat of severe penalties, hinder those who owe tithes or revenues to exempt religious from paying and prevent people from hearing their masses. They suspend, interdict and excommunicate without reasonable cause the millers of the religious, their cooks, servants, vassals, and members of household, and anyone who has any relation with them, occasionally also seizing unlawfully their goods. They in no way submit to the appeals which the said exempt religious sometimes make with good reason, because of the foregoing or other oppressions. They now and then seize the appellants on the occasion of these appeals, or they have them seized and thrown into prison.
There are some prelates, moreover, who without lawful cause do not permit chaplains to celebrate nor to administer the sacraments to the parishioners in churches belonging fully and lawfully to the exempt religious. There are even some prelates who with indiscreet haste unjustly suspend, excommunicate, seize and imprison exempt abbots, monks and laybrothers, as also clerics legally subject to them, and lay under interdict their churches and houses, if they do not obey even in matters where there is no obligation. In addition, the prelates exceed all measure in claiming charitable aid from the exempt religious themselves and from those subject to them. Contrary to law they make demands which are unjust and unusual. They lay new taxes and unfair burdens on parish churches in which exempt religious have the right of patronage. They do not permit legal actions and decisions justly made in favour of the exempt religious, by delegates of the apostolic see or by conservators, to be made public or to be put into execution by their subjects. They restrain public notaries from drawing up instruments, judges from administering justice, and lawyers from giving counsel or aid in the suits or legal business of the exempt religious.
The prelates also refuse to admit to orders or benefices those presented by exempt religious who have the right of presentation, unless the presenters profess obedience in the greeting of the letter of presentation. Furthermore, these prelates, when the churches for which monasteries have the right of patronage become vacant, turn away the suitable persons presented to them and appoint people who are incompetent and unworthy. Certain prelates confer churches, which have the cure of souls and belong to the table maintenance of abbots, and the revenues of which they sometimes hand over for a rent to secular clerics, on their own clergy at the death of those secular clerics, even though the churches because of this are not truly vacant. Some prelates appropriate unjustly for themselves the rights of monks in churches belonging to monasteries, and so regulate the disposal of the revenues that not enough remains for the livelihood of the rectors.
Some prelates, armed and with standards hoisted, destroy the mills and other property of exempt religious, disregarding all justice, even when the religious have been in possession from time immemorial. Prelates also often send their relatives and nephews to the monasteries in their cities and dioceses, occasionally with their animals and herdsmen, with the demand that they be provided for. Often also prelates compel abbots and priors of monasteries to grant the possessions of their monasteries or priories to their kindred and nephews either perpetually or for a period; these grants or pensions we wish to be of no consequence in law. They also compel the abbots and priors to present to them for vacant churches in which the monks have the right of patronage, and occasionally to receive into their order, their friends, kindred and nephews. Frequently also they permit and tacitly consent to the seizure, in the prelates' temporal domains, of movable and immovable property of the monasteries in cases not permitted by law, by the prelates' soldiers, vassals and secular officials. They also outrage in various other ways both the clerical and lay persons of the monasteries.
Besides, the prelates occasionally deprive unjustly of their benefices abbots, priors and others, so that if they can take the revenues of the benefices in the first year, under pretext of a privilege which they claim to have, then they may be able to receive the first year's revenues of vacant benefices for a certain time. Not content with this, they seize unlawfully horses, cattle, treasure and other property of monasteries and vacant benefices which should be reserved for posterity. Some prelates sell for a time to knights and other powerful persons the revenues and incomes of their dignities, in order to oppress the neighbouring exempt religious more heavily by means of these people. Some even destroy monasteries without just cause. Others often seize houses, hospitals and other property of the monasteries, both movable and immovable, and retain what they have seized. Many times also, without just cause, they prevent exempt religious from repairing their houses. Certain prelates enact statutes derogatory to the privileges of the exempt religious. And in general, very many prelates unjustly inflict grave injury and loss on religious, especially on those who are exempt and have privileges: on their persons, property and rights, both spiritual and temporal.
Since however there is for both regulars and seculars, for superiors and subjects, for exempt and non-exempt, one universal church, outside of which there is no salvation, for all of whom there is one Lord, one faith and one baptism, it is right that all who are of the same body should be of one will, and as brethren bound to one another by the bond of charity. It is right therefore that both prelates and others, exempt and non-exempt, should be content with their rights and abstain from inflicting injury or loss on one another. We therefore strictly command, by the present decree, all prelates of churches that they desist altogether from the oppression described above, and see to it that their subjects do likewise. They are to treat religious men, whether exempt or having privileges or non-exempt, both mendicant and non-mendicant, with charity, and they are to encourage them. They are to respect their rights and privileges as inviolable. And since what is specially forbidden is feared more than what is forbidden merely in general, we forbid most strictly that prelates presume to hinder in any way abbots, priors and other religious from going to their general or provincial chapters.
[31 ]. Religious who presume to administer the sacrament of extreme unction or the eucharist to clerics or lay people or to solemnise marriages, without the special leave of the parish priest, or to absolve those excommunicated by canon law, except in cases expressed in law or granted to them by privilege of the apostolic see, or those excommunicated by sentences promulgated by provincial or synodal statutes, or (to use their own words) to absolve anyone from punishment and guilt, incur automatic excommunication. They are to be absolved only by the apostolic see. The local ordinaries are to announce publicly that they are excommunicated, once this is established, until notified of their absolution. The religious can make no valid appeal in this matter to any exemption or privilege. We also strictly forbid religious, in virtue of holy obedience and under threat of eternal malediction, to disparage prelates in their sermons or to draw the laity away from their churches, to publish false indulgences, to restrain testators, when present at the making of their wills, from making due restitutions or legacies to their mother churches, or to bring about that money legacies, or money owed or perhaps unjustly taken, should come or be bequeathed to themselves or to other individuals of their order, or to their houses, to the detriment of other people. Nor are they to absolve anyone in cases reserved to the apostolic see or to the local ordinaries. They are not to annoy unreasonably ecclesiastical persons who prosecute justice against them, especially before judges delegated by us, nor are they to bring them to court in more than one place, especially if these places are distant.
Those who presume to act contrary to this decree are subject for two months to the penalties usually imposed by their rule or statutes on those who commit grave crimes or faults. Dispensation shall not be granted without manifest necessity. Their superiors, besides, unless after these excesses they make full satisfaction within a month to the churches or ecclesiastical persons harmed or offended, after being required to do so, incur automatic suspension until they have made due satisfaction, notwithstanding statutes or privileges of whatever tenor. Of course the religious who have been granted permission by the aposto lic see to administer the sacraments to members of their household or to the poorin their hospices, are not affected by this decree.
[32]. With the approval of the sacred council, we grant by this present constitution to an archbishop passing through, or perhaps turning aside, to exempt localities of his diocese to have the cross carried openly before him, to bless the people, to hear the divine offices there privately or publicly, also to celebrate them in pontificals and to have them celebrated in his presence without pontificals, notwithstanding any contrary privilege. In like manner we grant to a bishop that in exempt localities of his diocese he may bless the people, hear the divine offices and celebrate them there, as also have them celebrated in his presence. Under pretext of this concession, however, the archbishop or bishop may exercise no other jurisdiction in the exempt or privileged localities. He is not to annoy the exempt or privileged persons, there should be no cause for complaint and nothing prejudicial to the exemption or privileges of the religious. The archbishop or bishop does not acquire by this decree any other right.
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