Question V

GRATIAN. Without letters from the apostolic pontiff, a bishop who has been accused and summoned by the holy see shall not return to his own church. Hence Pope Sixtus [I] says, [letter II, c. 2]:

Any one of the brothers who has been assailed and summoned by this holy see, when he has presented himself to us, shall not return before he has been fully furnished from here with apostolic or formal letters and has been cleared, if there was anything from which to clear him; and after he has returned home, let his neighbors learn how he concluded his own case and that of others here, so that he may be able to announce and proclaim it to all without any uncertainty. For the bishops were commanded by the holy apostles to be protected, defended, and freed by this holy see, so that, just as they were first established by their arrangement under the ordinance of the Lord, so by the protection of this holy see—to whose disposition they reserved their cases and judgments—they may in future times be always free from all perversities. Hence those who have acted otherwise concerning the brothers than they knew would please the rulers of this see are blamed.