An Historical Sketch of Sacerdotal Celibacy in the Christian Church

by Henry Charles Lea

[1495] Bernard. Diaz de Luco Pract. Crimin. Canon. cap. LXXV., LXXVI. (Ed. 1543, pp. 72-3).

[1496] Llorente, Hist. de l’Inquisition d’Espagne, Ch. XXVIII. Art. i. No. 4.

[1497] Bull. Cum sicut nuper (Mag. Bull. Rom. II. 4. Ed. 1742).

[1498] Reg. Gonsalvii Montan. Inquisit. Hispan. Exemplis Illustrata, pp. 184 sqq. (Ed. Heidelbergæ, 1567).

[1499] Llorente, loc. cit. Nos. 6-8.

[1500] Bull. Universi Dominici Gregis. (Mag. Bull. Rom. III. 484).

In Spain, by the Carta Acordada of Aug. 3d, 1629, the Bull of Gregory XV. was to be referred to in the Edict of Denunciation; and by the Carta of Sept. 12th, 1634, a clause was to be added to the Edict to the effect that notwithstanding the Bull, the offence was reserved exclusively to the Inquisition.—Breve Resumen de las Cartas Acordadas antiquas y modernas, dispuesto por Abecedario, s. v. Solicitante (MS. Bib. Reg. Hafniens. No. 218b, p. 264). That the Court of Rome kept faith in the matter of solicitation would seem to be proved by a case occurring in 1695, when Dr. Augustin Velda, rector of La Sallana in Valencia was accused before the Inquisition, and fled to Rome, where he presented himself to the Sacred Congregation and was ordered to return. This he did, but with what result is not noted (Ibid. p. 339). [This exceedingly interesting MS. is a manual for use in one of the tribunals of the Spanish Inquisition, compiled about the year 1670, with notes bringing it down to the middle of the 18th century. I take this occasion of expressing my obligations to the gentlemen in charge of the Royal Library of Copenhagen, of the Bodleian Library of Oxford, and of the Royal Library of Munich, for their courtesy in communicating to me a number of MSS.]

[1501] Referred to in a Decree of 1745 (Bullar. Benedicti XIV. T. I. p. 291).

[1502] Pontas, Dict. de Cas de Conscience, Paris, 1741, T. I. p. 862.—Amort, Diet. Selectt. Casuum Conscientiæ, Aug. Vind. 1733, T. I. pp. 704-5. From the latter we learn that a few years previously the Franciscans of Bavaria had agreed to receive the Bull in so far as to prohibit any of their confessors from absolving a penitent who had been solicited by those of their own order, unless she would permit him to denounce the culprit to the Superior—an example which the writer wishes were followed elsewhere, as it would be very useful in repressing many scandals which afflicted the German church.

[1503] Rodriguez, Nueva Somma de ’Casi de Coscienza, P. I. cap. LIII. No. 10.