Folio 224

John XXII, 1316-1334

printed p. 192 · pdf p. 224

other ministers of jurisdiction and order1 are so devoid of authority that they cannot pass sentences, nor perform the sacraments nor instruct nor teach the subject people, imagining that these have been deprived of all ecclesiastical power, whom they see are free of their own heresy; because only in themselves (as they themselves vainly think), just as the sanctity of a spiritual life, so authority remains; and in this matter they are following the error of the Donatists. . . .

487. (3) The third error of these men conspires with the error of the Waldensians, since both declare that an oath was to be taken in no case, propounding that who happen to be bound by the sacredness of an oath are defiled by the contagion of mortal sin and are bound by punishment.

488. (4) The fourth blasphemy of such wicked men, breaking forth from the poisoned fount of the Waldensian teachings pretends that priests rightly and even legitimately ordained according to the form of the Church, yet weighed down by any sins cannot consecrate or confer the ecclesiastical sacraments. . . .

489. (5) The fifth error so blinds the minds of these that they declare that the Gospel of Christ has been fulfilled in them alone at this time, because up to now (as they foolishly think) it has been concealed or indeed entirely extinct. . . .

490. There are many other things which these very presumptuous men are said to babble against the venerable sacrament of matrimony; many things which they foolishly believe concerning the course of time and the end of time; many things which they propagate with lamentable vanity concerning the coming of the Antichrist which they declare even now to be close at hand. All these things, because we recognize them as partly heretical, partly senseless, partly fabulous, we decree must be condemned together with their authors rather than pursued or refuted with a pen. . . .

The Errors of John of Pouilly ("Confession and the Church")2

[Examined and condemned in the edict "Vas electionis," July 21, 1321]

491. (1). That they who have confessed to brothers having the general permission of hearing confessions are bound to confess again those same sins which have been confessed, to their own priest.

  1. The clause of the bulls does not have "et ordinis," Dipl. et privil. SS. Rom. Pontificum, Taurensis editio, T. IV., Aug. Taur. 1859, page 264. ↩

  2. DCh. II 243 f. and DuPl I, I 301; CIC Extr. comm. V, 3, 2; Frdbg II 291; Rcht II 1207; Gotti l.c. II 377a; Bar(Th) ad 1321 n. 37 (24, 161a.—John of Pouilly wrote the work "Quodlibeta" which embraces almost all theology; he himself retracted his own errors. He died after the year 1321 [Hrt II³ 488 f.]. Cf. Theol. Quartalschrift (Tübingen) 113 (1932) 141 f., 147 ff. [I. Koch]. ↩