Pius VI, 1775-1799

2) or by these, for the need and advantage of churches, ordinations without special title of office are approved, as the ordination for the title of patrimony, specifically approved by Trent, that obedience has been assured by which those so ordained are obliged to serve the necessities of the Churches in fulfilling those duties, for which, considering the time and the place, they were ordained by the bishop, just as it was accustomed to be done from apostolic times in the primitive Church;

3) or, by these a distinction was made by canon law of crimes which render the delinquents irregular; as if, by this distinction, the Church departed from the spirit of the Apostle by not excluding in general and without distinction from the ecclesiastical ministry all, whosoever they be, who have not preserved their baptismal innocence,—the doctrine is false in its several individual parts, rash, disturbing to the order introduced for the need and advantage of the churches, injurious to the discipline approved by the canons and especially by the decrees of the Council of Trent.

[Sec. 13]

54. Likewise, the doctrine which notes as a shameful abuse ever to offer alms for the celebration of Masses, and for administering the sacraments, as well as to accept any offering so-called "of the stole," and, in general, any stipend and honorarium which may be offered on the occasion of prayers or of some parochial function; as if the ministers of the Church should be charged with a shameful abuse because they use the right promulgated by the Apostle of accepting temporal aids from those to whom they furnish spiritual ministrations [Gal. 6: 6],—false, rash, harmful to ecclesiastical and pastoral right, injurious to the Church and its ministers.

[Sec. 14]

55. Likewise, the doctrine by which it professes to desire very much that some way be found of removing the lesser clergy (under which name it designates the clerics of minor orders) from cathedrals and colleges by providing otherwise, namely through approved lay people of mature age, a suitable assigned stipend for the ministry of serving at Masses and for other offices such as that of acolyte, etc., as formerly, it says, was usually done when duties of that sort had not been reduced to mere form for the receiving of major orders; inasmuch as it censures the rule by which care is taken that "the functions of minor orders are to be performed or exercised only by those who have been established in them according to rank" (Conc. prov. IV of Milan), and this also according to the intention of the Tridentine Council (sess. 23, c. 17) "that the duties