Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 7.djvu/788

 IN C(ENA

718

IN CCENA

and then in Italian by a cardinal-deacon. When the reading was over the pope flung a lighted waxen torch into the piazza beneath. The Bull contained a col- lection of censures of excommunication against the perpetrators of various offences, absolution from which was reserved to the pope. The custom of periodical publication of censures is an old one. The tenth canon of the Council of York (1195) orders all priests to publish censures of excommunication against perjurers with bell and lighted candle thrice in the year. The Council of London (1200) commands the yearly publication of excommunication against sorcerers, perjurers, incendiaries, thieves, and those guilty of rape. The first list of censures of the " Bulla Coen* " appeared in the fourteenth century, and was added to and modified as time went on, until its final revision under Urban VIII in the year 1627, after which it remained practically unchanged till its formal abrogation in the last century. Under Urban V (1363) the list contained seven cases; under Greg- ory XI (1372) nine; under Martin V (1420) ten; under Julius II (1511) twelve: under Paul III (1536) seventeen; under Ciregory XIII (1577) twenty, and under the same pontiff in the year 15S3 twenty-one; under Paul V (1606 and 1619) twenty; and the same number in the final shape given to it by Urban VIII. The main heads of the offences struck with ex- communication in the Bull are as follows: (1) Apostasy, heresy, and schism. (2) Appeals from the pope to a general council. (3) Piracy in the papal seas. (4) Plundering shipwrecked vessels, and seizure of flotsam and jetsam. (5) The imposition of new tolls and taxes, or the increase of old ones in cases where such was not allowed by law or Ijy per- mission of the Holy See. (6) The falsification of Apostolic Briefs and' Bulls. (7) The supply of arms, ammunition, or war-material to Saracens, Turks, or other enemies of Christendom. (8) The hindering of the exportation of food antl other commodities to the seat of the Roman court. (9) Violence done to travellers on their way to and from the Roman court. (10) Violence done to cardinals, legates, nuncios, etc. (12) Violence done to those who were treating matters with the Roman court. (13) Appeals from ecclesiastical to secular courts. (14) The avocation of spiritual causes from ecclesiastical to lay courts.

(15) The subjection of ecclesiastics to lay courts.

(16) The molestation of ecclesiastical judges. (17) The usurpation of church goods,- or the .sequestra- tion of the same without leave of the proper eccle- siastical authorities. {IS) The imposition of tithes and taxes on ecclesiastics without special leave of the pope. (19) The interference of lay judges in capital or criminal causes of ecclesiastics. (20) The invasion, occupation, or usurpation of any part of the Pontifical States. There was a clause in the older editions of the Bull, ordering all patriarchs, archbishops, and bishops to see to its regular publication in their spheres of jurisdiction, but this was not carried out, as we learn from a letter of Pius V to the King of Naples. The efforts of this pope to bring about its solemn publica- tion in every part of the Church were foiled by the opposition of the reigning powers. Philip II, in the year 1.5S2, expelled the papal nuncio from his king- dom for attempting to publish the Bull. Its pul)li- cation was forbidilcn in France and Portiigal. Ru- dolf II (1576-1612) likewise oiipo.sed it. In spite of the opposition of princes it was known to the faithful through <liocesan rituals, provincial chapters of monks, and the promulgation of jubilees. Confessors were often ordered to have a copy of it in their possession; St. Charles Borromeo had a copy of it posted up in every confessional in his diocese. In Rome its solemn publication took place year after year, on Holy Thursday, until 1770. whe\i it was omitted by Clement XIV and never again resumed.

A widespread and growing opposition to papal pre-

rogatives in the eighteenth century, the works of Febronius and Pereira, favouring the omniiiolence of the State, eventually resulted in a general attack on the Bull. A very few of its provisions were rooted in the old medieval relations l)etwecn Clnireh and State, when the pope could effectually champion the cause of the oppressed, and by his sjiiritual power remedy evils, with which temporal ruUrs were power- less or unwilling to deal. They had outlived their time. The excommunication of Ferdinatid, Duke of Parma, by Clement XIII on 30 January, 1768, proved the signal for a storm of opposition against the Holy Thursday Bull in almost all the European states. Joseph I of Portugal issued an edict on 2 .April, 1768, declaring it trea.son to print, or sell, or distribute, or make any judicial reference to the Bull. Similar edicts followed in the same year from Ferdinand IV of Naples, the Duke of Parma, the Prince of Monaco, the free states of Genoa and Venice, and Maria Teresa, Empress of Austria, to her subjects in Lombardy. Jo.seph II followed the lead of his mother, and on 14 April, 1781, he, pope-like, informed his subjects that " the power of absolving from the cases reserved in the 'Bulla Coense', which the pope had hitherto given in the so-called quinquennial faculties, was now and henceforth entirely withdrawn ". On 4 May of the same year he ordered the Bull to be struck out of the rituals, and no more use to be made of it. In 1769 appeared Le Bret's well-known attack on the Bull in four volumes, under the title " Pragniatische Ge- schichte der so berufenen Bulle in Coena Domini, und ihrer fiirchterlichen Folgen fur Slaat und Kirche " (Frankfort, 1769). Towards the end of the work he appeals to the humanity, wi.-^dom, and magnanimity of the newly-elected pontiff, Clement Xl\', to sup- press it. Clement, who already as cardinal had ex- pressed his view as to the necessity of living in iieace and harmony with the heads of Christian states, omitted its publication, but did not formally abrogate it. St. Pius V had in.serted a clause in it, which stated that it would continue to have the force of law until the Holy See should substitute another in its place. In the quinquennial faculties delivered to bishops the pope continued to grant power to absolve from its cases. This was done .so late as 1855 by Pius IX. For these rea.sons theologians and canonists commonly held that the main provisions of the Bidl were still in force. Nevertheless, there was good ground for supposing that the few obnoxious chni.«es that had outlived their purpose, an<l in the changed times were no longer applicable to the Christian comnumity, had cea.sed to have any binding force. The Bidl was formally abrogated by Pius IX through the issue of the new Constitution "Apostolica' Sedis" (q. v.), in which the censures against piracy, against ap- propriating shipwrecked goods, agamst supplying infiilels with war-material, and against the levying of new tolls and taxes find no place. In the preamble to the Constitution the pope remarks that, with altereil times and customs, certain ecclesiastical censures no longer fulfilled their original purpose, and had ceased to be useful or opportune.

In the controversies that arose at the time of the Vatican Council about papal infallibility, the Bull "In Coena Domini" was dragged to the front, and Janus siiid of it that if any Bull bears the stamp of an ex cather/i*^/*'j-.. s. V. Bulla in Crmn Domini: HlNsruies. Da« Kirrhcnrerht der Kntholihen und I*rote-Bt(inten in Dcutarldtind, V (Berlin, I89.'>): Her(enrother, Catholic Church and Cliristian Slale (London, 1876). John Prior.