Page:On papal conclaves (IA a549801700cartuoft).djvu/196

 180 aught in the oath so taken which puts it beyond the range of the Pope's dispensing power to absolve himself therefrom, we must consider it a quite false reading of its obligations to refer them to a limitation of the Pope's sovereign authority for surrendering territory in deference to dictates of policy and expediency. The whole scope of the Constitution was to set a check upon a prevailing system of scandalous favouritism by which habitually Popes enriched their relatives with possessions diverted, it might he said fraudulently, from their legitimate purport. The monstrous custom of Nepotism, which attained proportions that scorned all pretence to clandestineness, and stood forth in shameless nakedness, was the object aimed at in the stringent provisions of these pontifical decrees, as results conclusively from the text for everyone who is not actuated with a sense of special pleading. It is impossible for a candid mind to mistake the plain meaning of the very explicit and precise prohibitions levelled against making grants of Church property for the benefit of individuals, and against nothing else. The limitation of the sense attached to these decrees is so absolute, and so