Page:Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent Buckley.djvu/267

234 court, it shall be lawful for them, if it shall seem to be expedient, to proceed against all persons soever, even laymen, and to terminate suits, by means of pecuniary fines, which, by the very fact of being levied, shall be assigned to the pious places there existing; or by distress upon the property, or seizure of the person, to be made either by their own or other officers; or even by deprivation of benefices, and other remedies at law. But if the execution cannot be made in this manner, either upon the person or property of the guilty, and there be contumacy towards the judge, he may then, in addition to the other penalties, smite them also with the sword of anathema, at his own discretion. In like manner, in criminal causes, where an execution can, as above, be effected upon the person or property, [the judge] shall abstain from censures. But if there cannot easily be opportunity for that execution, it shall be lawful for the judge to employ the said spiritual sword against delinquents; provided, however, the quality of the offence so require, and after two monitions at least; and even this by public edict. And it shall be a crime for any secular magistrate to prohibit an ecclesiastical judge from excommunicating any one; or to command that he revoke an excommunication issued; under pretext that the things contained in the present decree have not been observed; whereas, the cognizance hereof does not appertain to seculars, but to ecclesiastics. And every excommunicated person soever, who, after the lawful monitions, does not change his mind, shall not only not be received to the sacraments, and to communion and intercourse with the faithful; but if, being bound with censures, he shall, with obdurate heart, remain for a year in the defilement thereof, he may even be proceeded against as suspected of heresy.

Where the Number of Masses to he celebrated is excessive, Bishops, Abbots, and Generals of Religious Orders shall ordain what shall seem to them expedient.

It often happens, in certain churches, either that so great a number of masses is required to be celebrated on account of various legacies from persons deceased, that it is not