Page:Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent Buckley.djvu/274

Rh college into church; as also faculties and privileges, whether grouted so as to have the force of patronage, or, by virtue of any other right soever, to nominate, elect, present to the said [benefices] when they are vacant, excepting the rights of patronage which belong to cathedral churches, and excepting such others as appertain to the emperor, to kings, or to those who possess kingdoms, and to other high and supreme princes who possess the rights of sovereignty within their own dominions, as also those which have been bestowed in favour of places of general studies, shall be understood to be wholly abrogated and made void, together with the quasi-possession which is consequent thereupon. And benefices of this kind shall be conferred, as being free, by the collators thereunto; and such appointments shall obtain full effect. Furthermore, it shall be lawful for the bishop to reject the persons presented by the patrons, if they be not competent. But it the institution appertain to inferiors, they shall, nevertheless, be examined by the bishop, according to what has been elsewhere ordained by this holy synod; otherwise the institution made by those inferiors shall be null and void. But the patrons of benefices, of what order and dignity soever they may be, even if they be communities, universities, or any colleges soever, whether of clerks or laymen, shall not in any way, nor for any manner of cause or occasion, interfere in the receiving of the fruits, incomes, or revenues of any benefices soever, even though those benefices be truly, by foundation or endowment, under their right of patronage; but shall leave them to the free disposal of the rector, or of the beneficiary, any custom whatever to the contrary notwithstanding. Nor shall they presume to transfer to others, contrary to the sanctions of the canons, the said right of patronage, by sale, or under any other title soever. If they shall act otherwise, they shall be subjected to the penalties of excommunication and interdict, and shall be by the very fact deprived of the aforesaid right itself of patronage. Moreover, those accessions made by way of union of free benefices with churches subject to the right of patronage, even of laymen, whether those churches be parochial, or benefices of any other kind soever, even such as are simple, or are dignities, or hospitals, in such wise that the free benefices aforesaid are made to be of the same