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26 BYGONE SUSSEX |
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without going into these theological refinements, it cannot be doubted that the system was one which led to enormous abuse. The hypocrisy, craft, and falsehood of those who made a traffic of the sale of pardons and indulgences has left its
years, P. Minderer in his Treatise on Indulgences, pronounces them to be of trivial credibility. " Soto has not hesitated to affirm that they were fictions of the Quaestors [i.e., the Preachers of Indulgences such as those before the Reformation for the raising of funds for building St. Peters, etc.]. Estius openly says they are fabrications and forgeries, and in no wise attributable to the Holy See. The Venerable Cardinal Thomasius concludes that they are incredible and altogether improbable. See Benedict XIV., De Synodo, Book xiii., Ch. 18." 6. "St Pius V., Pope, 27 January, 1567, revoked all Indulgences that included the gaining of money (quaestus). See also the Council of Trent on this matter, Session 25, in the Decree of Indulgences; and Session 21, ch. 9, on Reformation. Paul V., 23 May, 1606, revoked all Indulgences granted by his predecessors to all or any Religious Orders, and issued a new series in their stead. In his • Constitution' of 23 May, 1606, effecting this, he recites that 'Our predecessor, of happy memory, Clement VIII., with great diligence and solicitude, endeavoured to abolish abuses and corruptions that had crept into the giving of Indulgences, and also into tbe accepting of them.' Clement VIII. reigned from 1592 to 1605. Innocent XL, in a 'Decree' dated 7 March, 1678 (not relating merely to Religious Orders like the above 'Constitution' of Paul V.), refers to 'certain made-up (confictae), and altogether false Indulgences that are carried about (circumferentum) through divers parts of the Christian world ; and others that on examination have been found to be either apocryphal or already revoked by the Roman Pontiffs, or no longer valid owing to a lapse of time;" and records that a Congregation of Cardinals, to whom this matter had been referred, has drawn up a list of such Indulgences, and that the said Congregation ' declares them to be partly made-up and clearly false, partly apocryphal, or from some other cause null and void, and that can benefit nobody, and forbids them to be published anywhere as true, or to be put forward as capable of being gained by the faithful, and strictly orders to be destroyed all sheets and books in which they are so put forward or alleged, unless the said Indulgences have been diligently expunged therefrom. And ' [the said Congregation] hereby [i.e., by making specific mention of those in its' list] does not wish it to be inferred that all others not mentioned in this Decree are therefore to be held as true and legitimate and tactily approved.' The Decree concludes : |
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