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PAPAL BULL
HORRENDUM ILLUD SCELUS
(“That Horrendous Crime”) BY POPE ST. PIUS V
Issued August 30, 1568
Reprinted in:
Magnum Bullarium Romanum: A Pio Cuarto Usque ad Innocentium IX, vol. 2 (Lugundi, 1642), pp. 267-268
Translated by Matthew Cullinan Hoffman
LifeSiteNews.com
PIUS,BISHOP
Servant of the Servants of God: For perpetual memory
That horrendous crime, for which polluted and filthy cities were burned by the frightful judgment of God, pains Us most bitterly, and gravely stirs our soul, so that, insofar as it is possible, we might strive to crush it.
§ I. It is reasonably established in the [Third] Lateran Council that any Clerics who are discovered in that act of incontinence that is against nature, because of which the wrath of God came upon the children of unbelief, should be expelled from the clergy, or be cast into monasteries for the purpose of doing penance.
§ 2. However, lest the contagion of such a disgrace, from the hope of impunity – which is the greatest incentive to sin – strengthen in boldness, we have decided that the clerics who are guilty of this nefarious crime are to be more gravely punished, so that the avenger of the civil laws, the secular sword, might certainly deter those who do not fear the death of the soul.
§ 3. And therefore, seeking to more completely and forcefully pursue what We already decreed regarding this matter at the beginning of our Pontificate, any and all priests and other secular and regular Clergy of whatever grade and dignity who practice such a dire sin we deprive of every clerical privilege, and of every Ecclesiastical office, dignity, and benefit, by the authority of the present canon. So that, having been degraded by Ecclesiastical Judgment, they may be handed over to the secular power, which may exact from them that same punishment that is received by laity who have fallen into this ruin, which is found to be constituted in legitimate ordinances.
(The Nulli ergo is a reference to a standard clause following many papal bulls that read, roughly, as follows: “Let no one whosoever infringe this page of our declaration or to dare to oppose it.” It is normally followed by the Si quis clause, which reads, “If, however, anyone attempts to do so, let him know that he will incur the wrath of Almighty God and of his holy Apostles Peter and Paul.” Often only the first two words of the clause are given in reference works like the Magnum Bullarium Romanum, followed by “etc.”)
Given at St. Peter’s in Rome, in the year of the incarnation of the Lord 1568, on the third Kalends of September (August 30), in the third year of our Pontificate.