VIGILANTIA UNIVERSALIS
ENCYCLICAL OF NICHOLAS II
1059


By watchfulness over the government of the universal Church we owe to all men constant care; and we also provide for your salvation. We desire therefore to notify you of all that was canonically done in the recent synod at Rome of a hundred and thirteen bishops, under our unworthy presidency; because, for your salvation we expect you to be executors thereof and we command your obedience thereto by our apostolic authority.

(1) First of all, in the sight of God, it was ordained that the election of the Roman pontiff shall rest with the Cardinal-bishops lest, if anyone, without their unanimous and canonical election, as aforesaid and then without the consent of the religious clergy and laity following, should be enthroned, we should have a pope who is not apostolic but an apostate.

(2) On the death of the Roman pontiff, no one of any city shall presume to invade his rights: they shall be reserved entire for his successors.

(3) No one shall hear the Mass of a presbyter whom he knows for certain to have a concubine or a woman-companion. Wherefore the synod itself ordained this statute under pain of excommunication, saying: Whosoever, whether priest, deacon or sub-deacon, in accordance with the decree of our predecessor St. Leo of blessed memory on the chastity of clerks, openly takes a concubine or refuses to leave her, we, on behalf of Almighty God and with the authority of blessed Peter and Paul, by this ordinance, entirely forbid to sing Mass, or to read either the Gospel or the Epistle at Mass, or to remain at divine service side by side with those who obey the said decree, or to have a stipend from the church. . . .

(4) And we ordain that those of the aforesaid Orders who, in obedience to our predecessor, keep chastity in the churches to which they have been ordained, as becomes religious clerks, shall eat and sleep and share in common whatever is assigned to them by the church; and we require and command that they shall above all things be zealous to live the apostolic, i.e. the common, life.

(5) Next, tithes, firstfruits or offerings for living and dead shall faithfully be paid to the churches of God by the laity, and shall be at the disposal of the bishops. Those who withhold them shall be separated from the communion of holy Church.

(6) No clerk or presbyter shall obtain a church from the laity whether by grant or payment.

(7) No one shall be ordained or promoted to any ecclesiastical function simoniacally.

(8) No cleric of any Order shall be judged, or put out of his church by laymen.

(9) No layman shall be suddenly promoted to any ecclesiastical rank, except he first puts away his secular dress, and receives approval after living day by day in the company of clerks.

NICHOLAS II



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