Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent/Second Part/Part of the Address Delivered in the Secret Consistory
PART OF THE ADDRESS
DELIVERED IN THE SECRET COMMISSARY, OF THE 26 TH DAY OF JUNE 1805, BY OUR MOST HOLY LORD PIUS VII, BY DIVINE PROVIDENCE POPE.
On our first arrival,into that city (Florence) we already had a presentment, that our brother, Scipio Riccini, bishop of Pitoria formerly, and of Frato, was seriously thinking of reconciling himself to us and the holy Roman Catholic Church, which we wished a long time, and which all good men were most eagerly waiting for. But now he has fulfilled this his intention to us on our return into the aforesaid city, by an egregious example well worthy of imitation. For with filial confidence he signified to us, that he would sincerely subscribe to the formula which it had pleaded us to propose to him. Nor was he wanting in the fulfilment of the promise he had made to us. For the formula sent to him by our venerable brother, archbishop of Philippi, he read, admitted, and signed with his own band. By this formula, therefore, which he desired to be brought to the knowledge of the public, in order to repair the scandal, he declared, that he purely, and simply, and sincerely accepted and venerated the constitutions made by the Apostolic See, in which the errors of Baius, Jansenius, Queanell, and those who followed him, are proscribed, but especially the ideomatic bull Auctar fidei by which eighty-five propositions are condemned, culled from the Synod of Pistoria, which he himself had collected and ordered to be published; therefore, that he reprobated and condemned all and every one of these propositions, with those qualifications and in those senses which were expressed in the aforesaid bull; in fine, that he wished to live and to die in the faith of the holy Roman Catholic Apostolic Church, and in every kind of subjection and true obedience to us and to our successors, as sitting in the chair of Peter, and vicars of Jesus Christ. After so solemn a declaration, we sent for him to us, and when he again affirmed to us, the formula he had subscribed by him; and when he avowed the sincerity of his meaning, and in repeated terms his inward submission to the dogmatic decisions of Pius the Sixth, of sacred memory, and whilst he declared that his mind was devoted to the orthodox faith and to the Apostolic See, even in the midst of his errors, we embraced him with paternal affection; and having commended him with due praise for the act which he performed, we reconciled him to us and to the Catholic Church with all feelings of charity. But when, in a letter lately dated to us, in which he congratulates us for our happy and successful return into the city, he assured us that he ratified the retraction made at Florence, he again filled our breast with paternal joy.
THE END.