The third case is when someone directly obstructs the Bishop’s or Judge’s sentence or process on behalf of the Faith, or lends his help, advice or protection for that purpose, and such a person has been stricken with the sword of excommunication. And if he was obstinately endured that excommunication for a year, he is then to be condemned as a heretic who has defied the administration of justice.
In the first case, such a person is, according to the Canon ad abolendam, to be condemned as an impenitent heretic. In the second and third cases he is not to be judged as an impenitent heretic, but to be condemned as if he were a penitent heretic. And in any of these cases the following procedure should be observed. When such a person has been awaited for sufficient time, let him be summoned by the Bishop and his officer in the Cathedral Church of that Diocese in which he has sinned, and in the other churches of that place where he had his dwelling, and especially from where he has fled; and let him be summoned in the following manner:
We, N., by the mercy of God Bishop of such Diocese, having in our charge the welfare of souls, and having above all the desires of our heart this most earnest desire that in our time in the said Diocese the Church should flourish and that there should be a fruitful and abundant harvest in that vineyard of the Lord of Hosts, which the right hand of the Most High Father has planted in the bosom of the righteous, which the Son of that Father has plentifully watered with His own life-giving Blood, which the reviving Spirit the Paraclete has made fruitful within by His wonderful and ineffable gifts, which the whole incomprehensible and ineffable Blessed Trinity has endowed and enriched with many very great and holy privileges; but the wild boar out of the forest, by which is meant any sort of heretic, has devoured and despoiled it, laying waste the fair fruit of the faith and planting thorny briars among the vines; and that tortuous serpent, the evil enemy of our human race, who is Satan and the devil, has breathed out venom and poisoned the fruit of the vineyard with the plague of heresy: And this is the field of the Lord, the Catholic Church, to till and cultivate which the only firstborn Son of God the Father descended from the heights of Heaven, and sowed it with miracles and Holy discourse, going through towns and villages and teaching not without great labour; and He chose as His Apostles honest labouring men, and showed them the way, endowing them with eternal rewards; and the Son of God Himself expects to gather from that field on the Day of the Last Judgement a plentiful harvest, and by the hands of His Holy Angels to store it in His Holy barn in Heaven: But the foxes of Samson,258 two-faced like them who have fallen into the sin of heresy, having their faces looking both ways but tied together by their burning tails, run about with many torches amidst the fields of the Lord now white unto harvest and shining with the splendour of the faith, and bitterly despoil them, speeding most cunningly here and there, and with their strong attacks burning, dissipating, and devastating, and subtly and damnably subverting the truth of the Holy Catholic Faith.
Wherefore, since you, N., are fallen into the damned heresies of witches, practising them publicly in such place (naming it), and have been by legitimate witnesses convicted of the sin of heresy, or by your own confession received by us in Court; and after your capture you have escaped, refusing the medicine of your salvation: therefore we have summoned you to answer for the said crimes in person before us, but you, led away and seduced by a wicked spirit, have refused to appear.
Or as follows:
Wherefore, since you, N., have been accused before us of the sin of heresy, and from information received against you we have judged that you are under a light suspicion of that sin, we have summoned you to appear personally before us to answer for the Catholic faith. And since, having been summoned, you have defiantly refused to appear, we excommunicated you and caused you to be proclaimed excommunicate. And in this state you have remained stubborn for a year, or so many years, hiding here and there, so that even now we do not know whither the evil spirit has led you; and though we have awaited you kindly and mercifully, that you might return to the bosom and the unity of the Holy Faith, you being wholly given up to evil have scorned to do so. Yet we wish and are bound to justice to conclude this case beyond any question, nor can we pass over with connivent eyes your iniquitous crimes.
We the Bishop and Judges in the said cause on behalf of the faith require and strictly command by this our present public edict that you the aforesaid, at present in hiding and runaway and fugitive, shall on such a day of such a month in such a year, in such Cathedral Church of such Diocese, at the hour of Terce appear personally before us to hear your final sentence: signifying that, whether you appear or not, we shall proceed to our definitive sentence against you as law and justice shall require. And that our summons may come to your knowledge beforehand and you may not be able to protect yourself with a plea of ignorance, we wish and command that our said present letters, requisition and summons be publically affixed to the doors of the said Cathedral Church. In witness of all which we have ordered these our present letters to be authorized by the impressions of our seals.
