Page:Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent Buckley.djvu/278

Rh on all, of what rank and condition soever they be, to whom the payment of tithes belongs, that they henceforth pay in full the tithes, to which they are bound in law, to the cathedral church, or to what other churches, or persons soever, they are lawfully due. And they who either withhold them, or hinder them [from being paid], shall be excommunicated; nor be absolved from this crime, until full restitution has been made. It further exhorts all and each, that of their Christian charity, and the duty owed to their own pastors, they grudge not, out of the good things bestowed on them by God, bountifully to assist those bishops and parish priests who preside over the poorer churches; to the praise of God, and to maintain the dignity of their own pastors who watch for them.

CHAPTER XIII.

Cathedral or Parish Churches shall receive the Fourth of Funeral [Dues].

The holy synod decrees, that in what places soever, forty years ago, a fourth, as it is called, of funerals, was accustomed to be paid to the cathedral or parish church, but has subsequently, by virtue of what privilege soever, been granted to other monasteries, hospitals, or any other kind of pious places; the same shall henceforth, with full rights, and in the same proportion as was formerly usual, be paid to the cathedral or parish church; all grants, graces, privileges, even those called mare magnum, or any others soever, notwithstanding.

CHAPTER XIV.

The Manner of Proceeding against Clerks guilty of keeping Concubines is prescribed.

How shameful, and how unworthy it is the name of clerks who have devoted themselves to the divine service, to live in the filth of immodesty, and unclean concubinage, the thing, itself doth sufficiently testify, in the common offence of all the faithful, and the extreme disgrace entailed on the clerical order. To the end, therefore, that the ministers of the Church may be recalled to that continency and integrity of life which becomes them; and that the people may hence