Title — Decretals of Gregory IX
Title XLVII: On Purification after Childbirth
Sole Chapter
Latin source headnote: A woman after childbirth can enter a church immediately, and is not held to abstain for any days according to the Mosaic law.
Innocent III, to the Archbishop of Armagh.
Wishing to be instructed by an apostolic response, your fraternity humbly requested of us whether women ought to enter churches immediately after childbirth or to abstain from entering them for some days. Although indeed, according to the Mosaic law, certain days had been determined during which women after childbirth refrained from entering the temple, nevertheless, because the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth were made through Jesus Christ, we, adhering to the footsteps of the holy Fathers, respond to your inquiry in this manner: after the shadow of the law vanished and the truth of the Gospel shone forth, if women, after bringing forth offspring, wish to enter a church to give thanks, they are burdened by no weight of sin on that account, nor is access to churches to be denied to them in any way, lest punishment seem to be turned into guilt for them. If nevertheless out of reverence they wish to abstain for a time, we do not believe their devotion is to be disapproved. [Given at the Lateran. 1198.]
DE PURIFICATIONE POST PARTUM.
Mulier post partum statim potest ingredi ecclesiam, nec tenetur abstinere per aliquos dies secundum legem Mosaicam.
Innocentius III. Armachano Archiepiscopo.
Volens +fraternitas tua per responsum apostolicum edoceri, humiliter a nobis expetiit, utrum mulieres statim post partum debeant ecclesias ingredi, vel ab earum ingressu per dies aliquot abstinere. Licet autem secundum legem Mosaicam certi dies determinati fuissent, quibus mulieres post partum a templi cessarent ingressu : quia tamen lex per Moysen data est, gratia et veritas per Iesum Christum facta est, nos, sanctorum Patrum vestigiis inhaerentes, inquisitioni tuae taliter respondemus, quod, postquam umbra legis evanuit, et illuxit veritas evangelii, si mulieres, post prolem emissam acturae gratias ecclesiam intrare voluerint, nulla proinde peccati mole gravantur, nec est ecclesiarum eis aditus aliquatenus denegandus, ne poena illis converti videatur in culpam. Si tamen ex veneratione voluerint aliquamdiu abstinere, devotionem earum non credimus improbandam. [Dat. Laterani. 1198.]