Innocent X, 1644-1655

[From the decree of the Sacred Office, Jan. 24, 1647]

The most holy . . . has decreed and declared hereticalthis proposition so presented that it established an exact equality between St. PETER and St. Paul, without subordination and subjection of St. Paul to St. Peter in supreme power, and in the rule of the universal Church: "St. PETER and St. Paul are the two princes of the Church who form one head, or: there are two Catholic heads and supreme leaders Of the Catholic Church, joined in highest unity between themselves"; or, "the head Of the Catholic Church consists of two who are most divinely united into one"; or, "there are two supreme pastors and guardians of the Church, who form one head only."

[Excerpts from "Augustinus" and condemned in the Constitutions "Cum occasione," May 31. 1658]

I. Some of God's precepts are impossible to the just, who wish and strive to keep them, according to the present powers which they have; the grace, by which they are made possible, is also wanting.

Declared and condemned as rash, impious, blasphemous, condemned by anathema, and heretical.

2. In the state of fallen nature one never resists interior grace.

Declared and condemned as heret ical.

3. In order to merit or demerit in the state of fallen nature, freedom from necessity is not required in man, but freedom from external compulsion is sufficient.

Declared and condemned as heretical.

4. The Semipelagians admitted the necessity of a prevenient interior grace for each act, even for the beginning of faith; and in this they were heretics, because they wished this grace to be such that the human will could either resist or obey.

Declared and condemned a s false and heretical.

5. It is Semipelagian to say that Christ died or shed His blood for all men without exception.

Declared and condemned as false, rash, scandalous, and intended in this sense, that Christ died for the salvation of the predestined, impious, blasphemous, contumelious, dishonoring todivinepiety, and heretical.

[From the decree against the Jansenists, April 23, 1654]

But, since at Rome as well as elsewhere there are being circulated certain assertions, acts, manuscripts, and, perchance, printed documents of the Congregations held in the presence of most happily reigning Clement VIII and Paul V on the question of "Aids of Divine Grace," both under the name of Francis Payne, once Dean of the Roman Rota, and under the name of Fr. Thomas of Lemos, O.P., and of other prelates and theologians, who, as it is asserted, were present at the aforementioned Congregations, besides a certain autograph or exemplar of the Constitution of the same Paul V on the definition of the aforesaid questionOn Aids,and of the condemnation of the opinion or opinions of Louis Molina, S.J., His Holiness by the present decree declares and decrees that no trust at all is to be placed in the above-mentioned assertions, acts, on behalf of the opinion of the Brothers, O.S.D., as well as of Louis Molina and of the other religious, S.J., and in the autograph or exemplar of the above mentioned Constitution of Paul V; and that nothing can or ought to be alleged by either side or by anyone whatsoever; but that on this aforesaid question the decrees of Paul V and Urban VIII, their predecessors, are to be observed. *