Three weary priests, accompanied by their porters and guides, trudge across the Old Borant Bridge to the main gates of the city of Togarastadt. Neither expecting or receiving any ceremony, they make their way through the unsettled streets of Togarastadt towards the cathedral towering over the town's main square. Pausing a moment to sort through their baggage, the youngest of the three priests retrieves a document case and ascends the steps to the main door of the cathedral accompanied by a manservant carrying a hammer. Arriving at the door, the priest opens the document case and carefully unrolls an oversized sheet of parchment on which a document of some length has been printed. Exchanging the document case for the hammer with his manservant, the priest surveys the door critically a moment and then hammers the document to the door just above eye level. Walking back down the steps, he acknowledges the small crowd attracted by his hammering, offering them a small blessing and informing them that a fuller explanation will be forthcoming after Vespers.
The gathering crowd begins to gravitate towards the notice on the door, which is headlined in an elaborate German fraktur "Edict of Grace"...
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We await further details with great interest and expectation....
The papal legates emerge from the cathedral after vespers and address the considerable throng which has gathered to hear them.
"Good people of Togarastadt, the Holy Father has declared a 40-day period of grace and reconciliation for all Christians in the Banat," begins the youngest of the three Jesuits. "The Holy Father has charged his legates, your humble servants here before you, with the administering an inquisition on behalf of the Holy Office into the orthodoxy and fidelity of the clergy and faithful of the Togaras.
"Over the next 40 days, His Holiness calls the faithful of the Togaras to prayer and reflection. All the faithful who, upon such reflection, find their consciences troubled by sins of infidelity to Holy Mother Church, will find the Church charitably and graciously disposed to reconcile themselves with the holy and incorruptible Bride of Christ.
Wishing so act with benevolence, and in order that your souls may not be lost, since our Lord does not wish the death of the sinner but his reformation and life; by these presents, we will thus remove and suspend any censure promulgated against any former sins against you, so long as you observe and comply with the terms of this our edict, by which we require, exhort and order you, in virtue of the holy obedience, and under penalty of complete excommunication, within forty days from the time that the present edict shall have been read to you, or made known to you in whatsoever manner, to state all that you know, have seen, heard, or heard tell in any manner whatsoever, of the things and ceremonies contrary to the teachings of Holy Mother Church, and to appear before us personally to declare and manifest what you have seen, heard, or heard tell secretly, without having spoken previously with any other person, or borne false witness against anyone.
Otherwise, the period having passed, the canonical admonitions having been repeated in accordance with the law, steps will be taken so give out and promulgate sentence of excommunication against you, in and by these documents; and through such excommunication, we order that you be publicly denounced; and if, after a further period of nine days, you should persist in your rebellion and excommunication, you shall be excommunicated, anathematised, cursed, segregated, and separated as an associate of the devil, from union with and inclusion in the Holy Mother Church, and the sacraments of the same.
And we order the vicars, rectors, chaplains, and sacristans and any other religious or ecclesiastical persons to regard and treat the above-mentioned as excommunicated and accursed for having incurred the wrath and indignation of Almighty God, and of the glorious Virgin Mary, His Mother, and of the beatified apostles Saint Peter and Saint Paul, and all the saints of the celestial Court; and upon such rebels and disobedient ones who would hide the truth regarding the above-mentioned things, be all the plagues and maledictions which befell and descended upon King Pharaoh and his host for not having obeyed the divine commandments; and the same sentence of divine excommunication encompass them as it encompassed the people of Sodom and Gomorrah who all perished in flames; and of Athan and Abiron who were swallowed up into the earth for the great delinquencies and sins which they committed in disobedience and rebellion against our Lord God; and may they be accursed in eating and drinking, in waking and sleeping, in coming and going.
Accursed be they in living and dying, and may they ever be hardened so their sins, and the devil be as their right hand always; may their vocation be sinful, and their days be few and evil; may their substance be enjoyed by others, and their children be orphans, and their wives widows. May their children ever be in need, and may none help them; may they be turned out of their homes and their goods taken by usurers; and may they find nobody to have compassion on them; may their children be ruined and outcast, and their names also; and their wickedness be ever present in the divine memory. May their enemies vanquish them and despoil them of all they possess in the world; and may they wander from door to door without relief. May their prayers be turned to maledictions; and accursed be the bread and wine, the meat and fish, the fruit and other food that they eat; likewise the houses they inhabit and the raiment they wear, the beasts upon which they ride and the beds upon which they sleep, and the tables and napkins upon which they eat.
Accursed be they to Satan and to Lucifer and to all the devils in hell, and these be their lords, and accompany them by night and by day. Amen.
And if any persons incurring the said excommunications and maledictions, should persist therein for the space of a year, they should be regarded as heretics themselves, and shall be prosecuted by the same process as against heretics or suspects of the crime of heresy.
Given on the 13th of August, in the year of our Lord God, one thousand seven hundred and fifty-seven."
Much to think upon here for the good people of the Banat!
The Banat Blog reports of the reaction to the recent clerical address!
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