The Council of Trent

  Twenty Fifth Session, Fifth Decree  

ON RECEIVING AND OBSERVING THE DECREES OF THE COUNCIL.

So great has been the calamitousness of these times, and such the inveterate malice of the heretics, that there has been nothing ever so clear in our statement of faith, nothing so surely settled, which they, at the instigation of the enemy of the human race, have not defiled by some sort of error. For which cause the holy Synod hath made it Its especial care to condemn and anathematize the principal errors of the heretics of our time, and to deliver and teach the true and Catholic doctrine ; even as It has condemned, and anathematized, and decreed.

And whereas so many bishops, summoned from the various provinces of the Christian world, cannot be absent for so long a time without great loss to the flock entrusted to them, and without universal danger ; and whereas no hope remains that the heretics, after being so often invited, even with the public faith which they desired, and after being so long expected, will come hither later; and it is therefore necessary to put an end at length to the sacred Council : it now remains for It to admonish in the Lord all princes, as It hereby does, so to afford their assistance as not to permit the things which it has decreed to be corrupted or violated by heretics ; but that they be by them and all others devoutly received, and faithfully observed. And should any difficulty arise in regard of receiving those decrees, or should anything be met with, which it does not believe, requiring explanation or definition, the holy Synod trusts that, besides the other remedies appointed in this Council, the most blessed Roman Pontiff will make it his care that, for the glory of God and the tranquillity of the Church, the necessities of the provinces be provided for, either by summoning particularly out of the provinces where the difficulties shall have arisen, those persons whom he shall deem it expedient (to employ) in treating of the said matters ; or even by the celebration of a general Council, if he judge it necessary ; or in such other way as shall seem to him most suitable.