Sixtus IV, 1471-1484

[Condemned in the Bull "Ad Christi vicarii,'' Jan. 3, 1474]

(1) When Elizabeth spoke to the Blessed Virgin Mary saying: "Blessed art thou that hast believed because those things shall be accomplished that were spoken to thee by the Lord" [Luke 1:45], she seemed to intimate that those propositions, namely: "Thou shalt bring forth a son and thou shalt call his name Jesus: He shall be great, etc." [Luke 1:31],do not yet contain truth.

(2) Likewise, when Christ after His resurrection said: "All things must needs be fulfilled which are written in the law of Moses and in the prophets and in the psalms concerning me" [ Luke 24:44] seems to have implied that such propositions were devoid of truth.

(3) Likewise, when the Apostle said: "For the law, having a shadow of the good things to come, not the very image of things [ Heb. 10:1], he seems to imply that the propositions of the Old Law which concerned the future, did not yet contain the prescribed truth.

(4) Likewise, that it does not suffice for the truth of the proposition concerning the future, that the thing will be, but there is required that it will be without impediment.

(5) Likewise, it is necessary to say one of two things, either that in the articles of faith concerning the future actual truth is not present, or that what is signified in them through divine power could not have been hindered.

They were condemnedas "scandalous and deviating from the path of Catholic faith";they were revoked by the written word of Peter himself.

[From the Bull in favor of the Church of St. Peter of Xancto, Aug. 3, 1476]

In order that the salvation of souls may be procured rather at that time when they need the prayers of others more, and when they can be of benefit to themselves less, by Apostolic authority from the treasure of the Church wishing to come to the aid of the souls who departed from the life united with Christ through charity, and who, while they lived, merited that they be favored by such indulgence; desiring this with paternal selection, in so far as with God's help we can, confident in the mercy of God and in the plenitude of His power, we both concede and grant that, if any parents, friends, or other faithful of Christ, moved in behalf of these souls who are exposed to purgatorial fire for the expiation of punishments due them according to divine justice, during the aforementioned ten year period give a certain sum of money for the repair of the church of Xancto, or a value according to an arrangement with the dean or overseer of said church, or our collector by visiting said church or send it during said ten year period through messengers delegated by the same, we grant as a suffrage a plenary remission to assist and intercede for the souls in purgatory, in whose behalf they paid the said sum of money or the value, as mentioned above, for the remission of punishments.

[Condemned in the Bull "Licet ea," August 9, 1479]

(1) That the confession of sins in species will be found really in a statute of the universal Church, not in divine law;

(2) that mortal sins with respect to blame and punishment of the other world are abolished without confession, by contrition of heart only;

(3) moreover, bad thoughts are forgiven by displeasure only;

(4) that it is not demanded of necessity that confession be secret; *

(5) that those who confess should not be absolved, if penance has not been done;

(6) that the Roman Pontiff cannot remit the punishment of purgatory;*

(7) cannot dispense with respect to what the universal Church has established;

(8) also that the sacrament of penance, as far as concerns the accumulation of grace, is of nature, but not of the institution of the New or Old Testament.

On these propositions we read in the Bull, Sect. 6: . . We declare each and all the above mentioned propositions to be false, contrary to the holy Catholic faith, erroneous, and scandalous, and entirely at variance with the truth of the Gospels, also contrary to the decrees of the holy Fathers and other apostolic constitutions and to contain manifest heresy.

[From the Constitution "Cum praeexcelsa," Feb. 28, 1476]

While in an examination of devout deliberation we are thoroughly investigating the distinguished marks of merit, by which the Queen of Heaven, the glorious Virgin Mother of God, is preferred to all in the heavenly courts; just as among the stars the morning star foretells the dawn, we consider it just, even a duty, that all the faithful of Christ for the miraculous conception of this immaculate Virgin, give praise and thanks to Almighty God (whose providence beholding from all eternity the humility of this same Virgin, to reconcile with its author human nature exposed to eternal death because of the fall of the first man, by the preparation of the Holy Spirit constituted her the habitation of His Only-begotten Son, from whom He took on the flesh of our mortality for the redemption of His people, and the Virgin remained immaculate even after childbirth), and therefore that they say Masses and other divine offices instituted in the Church of God, and that they attend them to ask by indulgences and by the remission of sins to become more worthy of divine grace by the merits of and by the intercession of this same Virgin.

[From the Constitution "Grave nimis," Sept. 4, 1483]

Although the Holy Roman Church solemnly celebrates the public feast of the conception of the immaculate Mary ever Virgin, and has ordained a special and proper office for this feast, some preachers of different orders, as we have heard, in their sermons to the people in public throughout different cities and lands have not been ashamed to affirm up to this time, and daily cease not to affirm, that all those who hold orassert that the same glorious and immaculate mother of God was conceived without the stain of original sin, sin mortally, or that they are heretical' who celebrate the office of this same immaculate conception, and that those who listen to the sermons of those who affirm that she was conceived without this sin, sin grievously. . . .

We reprove and condemn assertions of this kind as false and erroneous and far removed from the truth, and also by apostolic authority and the tenor of these present [letters] we condemn and disapprove on this point published books which contain it . . . [but these also we reprehend] who have dared to assert that those holding the contrary opinion, namely, that the glorious Virgin Mary was conceived with original sin are guilty of the crime of heresy and of mortal sin, since up to this time there has been no decision made by the Roman Church and the Apostolic See.