[Sidenote: Commendations]
Second, There is a little word commend[71], by which the pope entrusts the keeping of a rich, fat monastery or church to a cardinal or to another of his people, just as though I were to give you a hundred gulden to keep. This is not called the giving or bestowing of the monastery nor even its destruction, or the abolition of the worship of God, but only "giving it into keeping"; not that he to whom it is entrusted is to care or it, or build it up, but he is to drive out the incumbent, to receive the goods and revenues, and to install some apostate, renegade monk[72], who accepts five or six gulden a year and sits in the church all day selling pictures and images to the pilgrims, so that henceforth neither prayers nor masses are said there. If this were to be called destroying monasteries and abolishing the worship of God, then the pope would have to be called a destroyer of Christendom and an abolisher of God's worship, because this is his constant practice. That would be a hard saying at Rome, and so we must call it a commend or a "command to take charge" of the monastery. The pope can every year make commends out of our or more of these monasteries, a single one of which may have an income of more than six thousand gulden. This is the way the Romans increase the worship of God and preserve the monasteries. The Germans also are beginning to find it out.
[Sidenote: Incorporation]
[Sidenote: Union]
Third, There are some benefices which they call incompatibilia[73], and which, according to the ordinances of the canon law, cannot be held by one man at the same time, as for instance, two parishes, two bishoprics and the like. In these cases the Holy Roman See of Avarice evades the canon law by making "glosses,"[74] called unio and incorporatio, i. e., by "incorporating" many incompatibilia, so that each becomes a part of every other and all of them together are looked upon as though they were one living. They are then no longer "incompatible," and the holy canon law is satisfied, in that it is no longer binding, except upon those who do not buy these "glosses"[75] from the pope or his datarius[76]. The unio, i. e., "uniting," is of the same nature. The pope binds many such benefices together like a bundle of sticks, and by virtue of this bond they are all regarded as one benefice. So there is at Rome one courtesan[77] who holds, for himself alone, 22 parishes, 7 priories and 44 canonries besides,—all by the help of that masterly "gloss," which holds that this is not illegal. What cardinals and other prelates have, everyone may imagine or himself. In this way the Germans are to have their purses eased and their itch cured.
[Sidenote: Administration]
Another of the "glosses" is the administratio, i. e., a man may have beside his bishopric, an abbacy or a dignity[78], and possess all the property which goes with it, only he has no other title than that of "administrator."[79] For at Rome it is sufficient that words are changed and not the things they stand for; as though I were to teach that a bawdy-house keeper should have the name of "burgomaster's wife," and yet continue to ply her trade. This kind of Roman rule St. Peter foretold when he said, in II Peter ii: "There shall come false teachers, who in covetousness, with feigned words, shall make merchandise of you, to get their gains." [2 Pet. 2:3]
[Sidenote: Regression]
Again, dear Roman Avarice has invented the custom of selling and bestowing livings to such advantage that the seller or disposer retains reversionary rights[80] upon them: to wit, if the incumbent dies, the benefice freely reverts to him who previously sold, bestowed or surrendered it. In this way they have made livings hereditary property, so that henceforth no one can come into possession of them, except the man to whom the seller is willing to dispose of them, or to whom he bequeaths his rights at death. Besides, there are many who transfer to others the mere title to a benefice from which those who get the title derive not a heller of income. It is now an old custom, too, to give another man a benefice and to reserve a certain part out of the annual revenue[81]. In olden times this was simony[82]. Of these things there are so many more that they cannot all be counted. They treat livings more shamefully than the heathen beneath the cross treated the garments of Christ. [Matt. 27:35]
[Sidenote: Reservation in pectore]