# Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent/Second Part/Bull of our Holy Lord Pius IV.

Incipit: In Principis Apostolorum Sede
BULL OF OUR HOLY LORD PIUS IV., BY DIVINE PROVIDENCE POPE.
Pius, bishop, servant of the servants of God, for the perpetual memory hereof.
Appointed to the see of the prince of the apostles, how inferior soever in deserts, we can do nothing either more wholesome for the universal Church committed unto our care and solicitude, or more becoming the office of the apostolic service enjoined on us, than [to take care that] the œcumenical Council of Trent, as it has chiefly under our auspices, terminated happily, and amid the greatest unanimity of the holy fathers, through the mercy of God, so by the ministry of our care it may be everywhere received by all who are reputed for Christian piety, and, all obstacles removed, be equally observed by all. Whereas, therefore, very many decrees and statutes of a wholesome nature, and extremely conducive to the universal reformation of morals, have been put forth in the said council, preceded by the matured examination of those present, to which many and different privileges, exemptions, immunities, dispensations, faculties, conservatories, indults, and confessionals, as they call them, and the great sea, and other graces, which have been granted to various cathedral, metropolitan, as well as to collegiate churches, monasteries, convents, and other religious houses and orders, even to those of mendicant brethren, and also to those of the Holy Ghost in Saxia, of St. John of Lateran,and of the Incurables of the City, of St. Anthony of Vienna,and of St. Bernard of Jura, and other hospitals, mintary orders, and their chapters and convents, and universities, even to colleges of general studies, as well secular as ecclesiastic, to confraternities, ​societies, and as well to buildings of the prince of the apostles of the city, as to other manufactories, those of the holy cross, and other pious places and works, as also to patriarchs, arch-bishops, bishops, prelates, abbots, abbesses, priors, provosts, and to other ecclesiastics as well seculars as regulars of different orders and military services, and even to lay persons of what dignity and state and degree soever, and of distinction, and also to persons of both sexes distinguished by ducal, royal, and imperial dignity, and also to some notaries, and also to legates de latere and nuncios, as well perpetual as temporary, by several Roman pontiffs our predecessors, and ourselves and the Apostolic See and its legates, even by our own proper motion, and with the certain knowledge and out of the fulness of the apostolic power, or even with the contemplation and in the sight of emperors, kings, dukes, and other princes, in various ways, and at different periods, generally or specifically, under any even fair pretext, and also have been confirmed or renewed several times, are in most particulars opposed: We, to whom it is especially at heart, that so holy and most wholesome decrees of the Church of God should, as is meet, everywhere obtain their due effects, and be observed obediently by all, holding by these presents as sufficiently expressed and fully inserted, the tenor of the privileges, exemptions, immunities, faculties, conservatories, indults, confessionals, the great sea, and the other graces aforesaid, and of all apostolic and other letters soever drawn up thereon, and of processes and decrees and whatever else have followed from them, as if they were inserted word for word, by our proper motion, and from our certain knowledge, and from the fulness of the apostolic power, by the apostolic authority, by the tenor of these presents declare, and even decree and ordain, that the same privileges, all and every one of the exemptions, immunities, faculties, dispensations, conservatories, indults, confessionals, the great sea, and other graces in each and every point in which they are at variance with the statutes and decrees of the council, are by right revoked, made null and void, and reduced to the terms and limits of the council itself, and should be considered as such, and that nothing is in any respect to support them in opposition to the decrees and statutes themselves, so that they should not be observed ​everywhere and among all, but that they ought to be held and accounted as though they hod never gone forth. Decreeing, nevertheless, that all and every one of those particulars which were transacted and done in any manner soever, and shall for the future be done by virtue of privileges, exemptions, immunities, and dispensations, faculties, conservatories, indults, confessionals, and any other boons soever of this kind, after the time when the council began to be binding, are and are deemed to be, null, void, and invalid in those points in which they are opposed to the decrees of the aforesaid council, and that they can and ought to support no one, however circumstanced or qualified he may be, as well in the forum fori, as they say, as in the forum conscientia, and that it ought to be so judged and defined in both forums by all the ordinaries of the several places whatsoever, and the other judges and commissaries whatsoever exercising authority, likewise by the cardinals of the holy Roman Church, the power of judging otherwise being taken, from them, and from any of them, and whatever may happen knowingly or ignorantly to be attempted by any one, of what authority soever, we decree to be null and void; notwithstanding what may have preceded, and the apostolic constitutions and ordinances, and other contrary [enactments]. Wherefore let it be lawful for no one soever to infringe this page of our declaration, statute, ordinance, and decree, or by rash daring to contravene it. But if any one shall presume to attempt this, let him know that he will incur the indignation of Almighty God, and of his blessed apostles Peter and Paul.
Given at Rome, at Saint Peter's, in the year of the incarnation of our Lord 1565, the 13th of the calends of March and the sixth year of our pontificate.
Cae. Glorierius, P. Bishop of Narnt. H. Cumyn
In the year from the nativity of our Lord 1565, on the 6th indiction, on the 24th day of February, in the sixth year ​of the pontificate of our most Holy Father in Christ and our lord Pius IV., by divine providence Pope, the apostolic rescript was affixed and published in the Campo di Fiore, and on the doors of the Apostolic chancery, by us, Niccolo de Mattheis and Camillo Gherubini, ushers of our holy lord the Pope.
Philibertus Phapuis, Master of the Ushers.
* ↑ Cf. Concil. Lai. Y. Sess. xi. p. 1835. "Seu aliquod prsemissorum eisdem ordinibus concessis, etiam in mari magno conientis. This name was applied to a specific bull. See the indexes to Harduin's Concilia, and Thomasinus de Disciplina Ecclesiastica.
* ↑ I. e. the real court of justice, opposed to the supposed one of conscience. The phrase "forum pœnitentiæ" is also in use. Cf. Du Cange, vol. iii. p. 654.