Chapter V: On the Penalties Established Against Transgressors of the General Decrees

47. All and each who knowingly, without the authority of the Apostolic See, read books of apostates and heretics defending heresy, as well as books of any author prohibited by name through apostolic letters, and who retain, print, and in any way defend the same books, incur by the fact itself an excommunication reserved in a special manner to the Roman Pontiff.

48. Those who, without the approval of the Ordinary, print books of the sacred Scriptures or annotations or commentaries on the same, or cause them to be printed, fall by the fact itself into an excommunication reserved to no one.

49. But those who have transgressed the other things which are prescribed by these General Decrees should, according to the diverse gravity of guilt, be seriously admonished by the bishop; and, if it shall seem opportune, they should also be coerced by canonical penalties.

But We decree that the present letters and whatsoever things are contained in them can at no time ever be marked or impugned on account of a vice of subreption or obreption or of Our intention, or any other defect, but that they will always be and are valid and in their force, and must be observed inviolably by all of whatever grade and preeminence, in judgment and outside it; and We declare that it is null and void if it shall happen that otherwise concerning these things anything is attempted by anyone, by whatever authority or pretext, knowingly or ignorantly, anything whatsoever to the contrary notwithstanding.

Moreover, We will that to copies of these letters, even printed ones, yet subscribed by the hand of a notary and fortified with the seal by a man constituted in ecclesiastical dignity, the same faith be had which would be had to the signification of Our will if these presents had been shown.

Therefore let it be lawful for no man to infringe this page of Our constitution, ordination, limitation, derogation, and will, or to go against it by rash daring. But if anyone shall have presumed to attempt this, let him know that he will incur the indignation of almighty God and of blessed Peter and Paul His apostles.

Given at Rome at Saint Peter's, in the year of the Lord's Incarnation one thousand eight hundred ninety-six, the eighth day before the Kalends of February, in the nineteenth year of Our Pontificate.

A. Card. Macchi.

A. Panici, Subdatary.

Seen.

De Curia I. de Aquila e Vicecomitibus.

In place of the Lead Seal. I. Cugnonius

Registered in the Secretariat of Briefs.