Pius VI, 1775-1799

trary to the pious custom common throughout the Church, as if no images of the Most Holy Trinity exist which are commonly approved and safely permitted (from the Brief "Sollicitudini nostrae" of Benedict XIV in the year 1745).

70. Likewise, the doctrine and prescription condemning in general every special cult which the faithful are accustomed to attach specifically to some image, and to have recourse to, rather than to another,—rash, dangerous, injurious to the pious custom prevalent throughout the Church and also to that order of Providence, by which "God, who apportions as He wishes to each one his own proper characteristics, did not want them to be common in every commemoration of the saints (from St. Augustine, Epistle 78 to the clergy, elders, and people of the church at Hippo).

71. Likewise, the teaching which forbids that images, especially of the Blessed Virgin, be distinguished by any title other than the denominations which are related to the mysteries, about which express mention is made in Holy Scripture; as if other pious titles could not be given to images which the Church indeed approves and commends in its public prayers,—rash, offensive to the ears of the pious, and especially injurious to the due veneration of the Blessed Virgin.

72. Likewise, the one which would extirpate as an abuse the custom by which certain images are kept veiled,—rash, contrary to the custom prevalent in the Church and employed to foster the piety of the faithful.

Feasts

[Libell. memor. for the reformation of feasts, sec. 3]

73. The proposition stating that the institution of new feasts derived its origin from neglect in the observance of the older feasts, and from false notions of the nature and end of these solemnities,—false, rash, scandalous, injurious to the Church, favorable to the charges of heretics against the feast days celebrated by the Church.

[Ibid., sec. 8]

74. The deliberation of the synod about transferring to Sunday feasts distributed through the year, and rightly so, because it is convinced that the bishop has power over ecclesiastical discipline in relation to purely spiritual matters, and therefore of abrogating the precept of hearing Mass on those days, on which according to the early law of the Church, even then that precept flourished; and then, also, in this statement which it (the synod) added about transferring to Advent by episcopal authority the fasts which should be kept throughout the year according to the precept of the Church; insomuch as it asserts that it is lawful for a bishop in his own right to transfer the days prescribed by the Church for cele-