their own salvation, and preferring earthly things to heavenly and human things to divine, wander about in various court or, their fold forsaken, and the care of the sheep committed to them neglected, keep themselves busied with the cares of temporal affairs; it hath seemed fit to this sacred and holy synod to renew, as by virtue of the present decree it doth renew, the ancient canons promulgated against non-residents, which [canons] have, through the disorders of the times and of men, almost fallen into desuetude; and furthermore, in order to the more fixed residence of the same, and for the reforming of manners in the church, it hath seemed good to ordain and sanction in the manner following:—
If any one, by what dignity, degree, and pre-eminence soever he may be distinguished, shall, by remaining six consecutive months out of his own diocese, all lawful impediment, or just and reasonable causes being wanting, be absent from a patriarchal, primatial, metropolitan, or cathedral church, under whatsoever title, cause, name, or right committed to him, he shall, by virtue of his conduct,[1] incur the penalty of the forfeiture of a fourth part of one year's fruits, to be applied, by an ecclesiastical superior, to the fabric of the church and to the poor of the place. But if he continue in such like absence during six other months, he shall, by virtue of such conduct,[2] forfeit another fourth part of the fruits, to be applied in like manner. But if the contumacy increase,—to the end that he may be subjected to a severer censure of the sacred canons, the metropolitan shall be obliged to denounce his absent suffragan bishops, and the oldest resident suffragan bishop to denounce his absent metropolitan, to the Roman pontiff, either by letters or by messenger, within the space of three months, under the penalty, to be by such conduct[3] incurred, of being interdicted from entering into the church; who,[4] by the authority of his own supreme see, may animadvert upon the said absentees, according as the greater or less contumacy of each may require, and provide the said churches with more useful pastors, as he shall know in the Lord to be salutarily expedient.
