Of One who has
Confessed to Heresy, is Relapsed, and is also Impenitent
THE
eleventh method of concluding and terminating a process
on behalf of the Faith is used when the person accused
of heresy, after a diligent discussion of the
circumstances of the process in consultation with
learned men, is found to have confessed her heresy, and
to be impenitent, and to have relapsed into it. And this
is when the accused confesses with her own mouth in
Court that she believes and has practiced such and such.
The procedure in this case is the same as that above;
and because she is manifestly a heretic, sentence shall
be pronounced in the following manner in the presence of
the Bishop and Judges:
We N., by the
mercy of God Bishop of such city, or Judge in the
territories of such Prince, seeing that you N., of such
a place in such a Diocese, were formerly accused before
us (or before such and such, our predecessors) of the
crime of heresy (naming them), and that you were legally
convicted of that crime by your own confession and the
testimony of worthy men, and that you obstinately
persisted in it for so many years; but that afterwards,
having listened to better advice, you publicly abjured
those heresies in such a place and in the form required
by the Church, on which account the aforesaid Bishop and
Judge, believing that you had truly renounced the said
errors and had returned with Catholic faith to the bosom
of the Church, granted you the benefit of absolution,
releasing you from the sentence of excommunication by
which you were formerly bound, and, setting you a
salutary penance if with true heart and faith unfeigned
you remained converted to the unity of the Holy Church,
received you back in mercy. For the Holy Church of God
is not closed to such as return to her bosom.
But after all
the aforesaid you have to our great grief been accused
before us of having again fallen into those damnable
heresies which you formerly abjured in public; yea, you
have done so and so (naming them) in contravention of
the said abjuration and to the damage of your soul; and
although we are sore wounded and cut to the heart to
have heard such things of you, yet we were in justice
compelled to inquire into the matter, to examine the
witnesses, and to summon and question you on oath as it
behoved us, and in every particular to proceed as we are
bidden by the canonical institutions. And as we wished
to conclude this case beyond any doubt, we summoned a
solemn council of men learned in the Theological faculty
and of those skilled in the Canon and Civil Laws.
And having
obtained the mature and considered judgement of the said
learned men upon every single particular which had been
brought to notice and done in this case, after repeated
examination of the whole process and careful and
diligent discussion of every circumstance, as law and
justice demanded, we find that you are legally convicted
both by the evidence of credible witnesses and by your
own repeated confession, that you have fallen, and
fallen again, into the heresies which you abjured. For
we find that you have said or done such and such (naming
them), wherefore we have reason, in the opinion of the
said learned men, and compelled thereto by your own
excesses, to judge you as a backslider according to the
canonical decrees. And that we say this with grief, and
grieve to say it, He knows from Whom nothing is hid and
Who seeth into the secrets of all hearts. And with all
our hearts we desired and still desire to lead you back
to the unity of the Holy Church and to drive out from
your heart the said foul heresy, that so you may save
your soul and preserve your body and soul from the
destruction in hell, and we have exerted our utmost
endeavor by various fitting methods to convert to
salvation; but you have been given up to your sin and
led away and seduced by an evil spirit, and have chosen
to be tortured with fearful and eternal torment in hell,
and that your temporal body should here be consumed in
the flames, rather than to give ear to better counsels
and renounce your damnable and pestilent errors, and to
return to the merciful bosom of our Holy Mother Church.
Wherefore
since the Church of God can do nothing more for you,
having done all that was possible to convert you: We the
Bishop and Judges named in this cause on behalf of the
faith, sitting in tribunal as Judges judging, having
before us the Holy Gospels that our judgement may
proceed as from the countenance of God and our eyes see
with equity, and having before our eyes only God and the
honour of the Holy Catholic Faith, on this day at this
hour and place before assigned to you for the hearing of
your final sentence, we pronounce judgement upon you N.,
here present before us, and condemn and sentence you as
a truly impenitent and relapsed heretic, and as such to
be delivered or abandoned to secular justice; and by
this our definitive sentence we cast you out as a truly
impenitent and relapsed heretic from our ecclesiastical
Court, and deliver and abandon you to the power of the
secular Court; praying that the said secular Court will
temper or moderate its sentence of death against you.
This sentence was give, etc.
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