ble, by which, it has been pretended to initiate the
convocation of a so-called General National Assembly of the Roman
States, by a decree of the 29th of last December, in order to
establish new political forms for the Pontifical dominion. Adding
thus iniquity to iniquity, the authors and favorers of the demagogical
anarchy strive to destroy the temporal authority of the Roman Pontiff
over the dominions of Holy Church,--however irrefragably established
through the most ancient and solid rights, and venerated, recognized,
and sustained by all the nations,--pretending and making others
believe that his sovereign power can be subject to controversy or
depend on the caprices of the factious. We shall spare our dignity
the humiliation of dwelling on all that is monstrous contained in that
act, abominable through the absurdity of its origin no less than the
illegality of its form and the impiety of its scope; but it appertains
to the apostolic authority, with which, however unworthy, we are
invested, and to the responsibility which binds us by the most sacred
oaths in the sight of the Omnipotent, not only to protest in the most
energetic and efficacious manner against that same act, but to condemn
it in the face of the universe as an enormous and sacrilegious crime
against our independence and sovereignty, meriting the chastisements
threatened by divine and human laws. We are persuaded that, on
receiving the impudent invitation, you were full of holy indignation,
and will have rejected far from you this guilty and shameful
provocation. Notwithstanding, that none of you may say he has been
deluded by fallacious seductions, and by the preachers of subversive
doctrines, or ignorant of what is contriving by the foes of all order,
all law, all right, true liberty, and your happiness, we to-day again
raise and utter abroad our voice, so that you may be more certain of
the absoluteness with which we prohibit men, of whatever class and
condition, from taking any part in the meetings which those persons
may dare to call, for the nomination of individuals to be sent to
the condemned Assembly. At the same time we recall to you how this
absolute prohibition is sanctioned by the decrees of our predecessors
and of the Councils, especially of the Sacred Council-General of
Trent, Sect. XXII. Chap. 11, in which the Church has fulminated many
times her censures, and especially the greater excommunication, as
incurred without fail by any declara