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The Apostolic Constitution "Effraenatam" of Pope Sixtus V (1585-1590)
against abortionists, was translated from Latin into English by Padre
Antonio Trimakas of Mexico City, a multi-lingual, prolife priest.
The English translation includes the essentials of the Latin and
is presented with some parenthetical commentary.
Here is the English translation of "Effraenatam", somewhat abbreviated
and with some parenthetical commentary:
Against those that procure abortions, or give
sterility potions, or take them, or help these people, or give them counsel
and consent.
SIXTUS V BISHOP
Servant of the Servants of God
For the perpetual memory of the
matter.
Noticing that frequently by various
Apostolic Constitutions the audacity and daring of most profligate men,
who know no restraint, of sinning with license against the commandment
"do not kill" was repressed; We who are placed by the Lord in the supreme
throne of justice, being counseled by a most just reason, are in part
renewing old laws and in part extending them in order to restrain with
just punishment the monstrous and atrocious brutality of those who have
no fear to kill most cruelly fetuses still hiding in the maternal viscera.
Who will not detest such an abhorrent and evil act, by which are lost
not only the bodies but also the souls? (Popes believe in the limbo of
the little ones) Who will not condemn to a most grave punishment the impiety
of him who will exclude a soul created in the image of God and for which
Our Lord Jesus Christ has shed His precious Blood, and which is capable
of eternal happiness and is destined to be in the company of angels, from
the blessed vision of God, and who has impeded as much as he could the
filling up of heavenly mansions (left vacant by the fallen angels), and
has taken away the service to God by His creature?
who has deprived children of life before they could naturally see
light or could be protected by maternal body from ferocious cruelty? Who
will not abhor the cruelty and unrestrained debauchery of impious men
who have arrived into such a state of mind that they procure poisons in
order to extinguish the conceived fetuses within the viscera, and pour
them out, trying to provoke by a nefarious crime a violent and untimely
death and killing of their progeny. Finally
who will not condemn to a most grave punishment the crimes of those who
with poisons, potions and evil actions (for example tying up Fallopian
tubes) sterilize women or impede that they
conceive or give birth by pernicious medicines and drugs? (for example
using hormonal abortive contraceptives synthesized from Dioscorea composita
grown in Mexico). Sorcerers and evil magicians (Holy Father makes equal
or matches the aforementioned people with sorcerers) says the Lord to
Saint Moses, you will not suffer, allow and tolerate to live: because
they oppose overly shamefully against God's will and,
as St Jerome says, while nature receives seed, after having received
nurtures it, nurtured body distinguishes in members, meanwhile in the
narrowness of the uterus the hand of God is always at work who is Creator
of both body and soul and who molded, made and wanted this child and meanwhile
the goodness of the Potter, that is of God, is impiously and overly despised
by these people. Saint Ambrose says that it is no small and trivial gift
of God to give children in order to propagate mankind. It is a Divine
gift the fecundity of childbearing woman and at the same time by this
cruel and inhuman crime parents are deprived of their offspring that they
have engendered; the engendered children of their life; mothers of the
rewards of maternity and marriage; earth of its cultivators; the world
of those who would know it; the Church of those that would make it grow
and prosper and be happy with an increased number of devoted faithful.
Therefore for a good reason the Sixth Synod of Constantinople has decreed
that persons who give abortive medicine (and abortive contraceptives)
and those who receive and use poisons that kill fetuses are subject to
punishment applied to murderers and it was sanctioned by the old Council
of Lleida that those that were preoccupied to kill fetuses conceived from
adultery or would extinguish them in the wombs of mothers with potions,
if afterwards with repentance would recur to the goodness and meekness
of the Church, should humbly weep for their sins for the rest of their
lives (and pray) and if they were Clerics, they
should not be allowed to recuperate their ministry (now days dispensation
from irregularity is given by the Apostolic See with a long penance) and
they are subject to all Ecclesiastic law's and profane law's grave punishments
for those who nefariously plot to kill fetuses in the uterus of childbearing
women or try to prevent women from conceiving or try to expel the conceived
fetuses from the womb.
1. Therefore We after having repressed the temerity of those
who presume to violate the laws of matrimony by pretending to dissolve
the indissoluble bond and who with indecent incests are not ashamed to
stain themselves (N.B. that in Papal Rome, according to civil law, there
was death penalty for Sodomites, those guilty of bestiality, for certain
kinds of incestuous, for certain kinds of pimps
who would really violate virgins, and for certain kinds of
adulterers), We are willing to exterminate in our times also this
evil as much as a We can by the strength given to Us by the Lord: All
and whosoever men and women of whatever state, degree, order, rank and
condition, even Clerics, secular or pertaining to whatever religious Order,
of whatever dignity and Ecclesiastic or worldly illustrious preeminence
who by themselves or interposed third persons procure abortion of fetus
so that it is expelled by means of blows, poisons, medicines, potions,
weights, burdens, work and labor imposed on a pregnant woman (and modern
exercises), and even by other unknown and extremely researched means (e.g., for example, by
fertilization - impregnation "in vitro" or by “cloning" or by intrauterine
device), so that really abortion follows, and even the same pregnant woman,
who knowingly did the aforementioned, incur in sanctions and punishments
established by divine and human laws and by Canonic Sanctions and Apostolic
Constitutions and which the civil and profane law inflicts upon true murderers
and assassins who have actually and really committed murder (here We accept
the concepts and terms of all these laws and want them to be literally
inserted in this document) and by this our perpetually valid Constitution
We state and order that the same punishments and laws and Constitutions
are to be extended to the aforementioned case. (In Pontifical States there
was death penalty, and it was applied, for first degree murder and still
today death penalty is in force in Vatican City State by the Lateran treaty
of 1929).
2. "Ipso facto", by
that very fact, We deprive those who are Clerics of all Clerical Privilege,
Office, Dignity and Ecclesiastical Benefice and declare them vacant and
at the disposition of Apostolic See and declare these persons to be incapable
to receive them in the future so that those who have committed this crime,
not otherwise or differently than those who have committed voluntary homicide
according to the Decrees of the Council of Trent, even though the crime
was not proven judicially, nor by another reason is public, but is occult,
cannot be promoted to the Sacred Orders, or minister in the Orders already
received, nor is it permitted to give them Ecclesiastical Benefice, even
though it be without the care of souls, but that they be deprived in perpetuity
of all Office and Benefice. (The Holy See can give dispensation).
3. We decree and declare
that those that are not Clerics and have committed such crimes incur in
all aforementioned sanctions and are unqualified to receive Orders and
other aforementioned things.
4. We want that those
who are subject to Ecclesiastical courts and have committed aforementioned
crimes be deposed and degraded by an Ecclesiastical Judge and be handed
over to civil court and secular power in order to be punished in the same
manner as it is disposed by divine and profane civil laws against laymen
truly and really murderers and assassins.
5. In addition We absolutely
establish and decree that the same punishments are to be applied to those
who give to women sterilizing potions, medicine and poisons in order to
impede conception of the fetus and upon those who make and prepare such
potions, medicine and poisons (e.g., for example, owners and employees
of pharmaceutical companies directly involved and responsible) and upon
those that give such a counsel, as well as on women who knowingly take
such sterilizing potions, medicine and poisons.
(Today we know that contraceptives are usually abortive).
6. Therefore We give
order and command to all and each one of the Judges, ordinary and delegate,
Ecclesiastical and Secular or Civil who have legitimate jurisdiction by
reason of persons or crime, against offenders in crimes in this kind of
cases, in such a way that there is a place for prevention, and in case
of these crimes that usually are committed secretly, that they should
proceed not only by accusation and denunciation but also by inquisition,
and for proof of this kind of cases witnesses, otherwise by law incompetent,
can be called, at the discretion of the same Judges, who will take into
account persons, cases, qualities and circumstances.
Finally, the Judges must punish the guilty of
these crimes in accordance to our decrees and sanctions.
7. Besides We want
that the monstrous gravity of these brutal, cruel, ferocious and inhuman
crimes be punished not only by temporal sanctions but also by spiritual
censures and for this reason We decree that all persons of whatever state,
degree, Order or condition, laymen as well as Clerics,
secular as well as religious of whatever Order, as well as secular
lay women or women professed in whatever religious Order, who as principal
parties or accomplices in order to commit aforementioned crimes have helped,
counseled, shown favor or knowingly given potions and/or whatever kind
of medicine, have written private letters,
or have given receipts (today credit cards or bank checks), and/or identification
cards or made payments, or by other words and signs have helped or counseled
(in our times by television, radio, internet, telephone and/or by voting)
besides the aforementioned sanctions are also "ipso facto", "latae
sententiae", automatically excommunicated by Us. (In our times
according to Canon #1398 are excommunicated those persons that commit
abortion and their accomplices if abortion really was provoked and taken
place. Besides, heretics who deny the fifth
commandment "do not kill" and those persons who deny Papal infallibility
in faith, customs and morals as is defined by I Vatican Council are excommunicated
by Canon #1364).
8. ......................................................................
9. We decree that in
all aforementioned things all ordinary and delegate Judges, even the Apostolic
Palace Auditors and Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church have had taken
away from them by Us the authority of judging otherwise and the faculty
of otherwise interpreting. Anything done to the contrary knowingly or
by ignorance by any authority in any instance is null and void.
10. ......................................................................
11. ......................................................................
12. No man has the right to infringe
or by temerarious audacity contradict this page of Our approval, renewal,
sanction, statute, derogation of wills and decrees. If anyone would presume
to attempt this he should know that he will incur indignation of Almighty
God and of Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul.
Given in Rome on Mount Quirinal, in
the Year of Incarnation of Our Lord 1588, November 29, IVth Year of
our Pontificate.
Postscript: Translation from Latin
into English of the Apostolic Constitution
"Effraenatam" with parenthetical commentary.
July 22, 2000.
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