SESSION THE NINTH

Celebrated at Bologna, on the twenty-first day of the month of April, 1547

DECREE FOR THE PROROGATION OF THE SESSION

This sacred and holy, œcumenical and general synod, which was lately assembled in the city of Trent, and is now lawfully assembled together in the Holy Ghost at Bologna, the same most reverend Lords Giammaria del Monte, bishop of Palæstrina, and Marcellus, of the title of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem, priest, cardinals of the holy Roman Church, and legates apostolic a latere, presiding therein in the name of our most holy Father in Christ, and Lord, Paul III., by the providence of God, Pope, considering that, on the 11th day of the month of March of the present year, in a general public session celebrated in the said city of Trent, and in the usual place, all the formalities being observed according to custom; [the synod,] for causes then pressing, urgent, and lawful, and with the interposition also of the authority of the holy Apostolic See, specially also granted to the said most reverend presidents, decreed and ordained, that the council should be transferred, as it did transfer it, from that place to this city, and likewise that the session, indicted there for this 21st day of April, that canons touching the matters of the sacraments and of reformation, concerning which it had purposed to treat, might be sanctioned and promulgated, ought to be celebrated in this city of Bologna; and considering that some of the fathers who have been accustomed to be present at this council, being some engaged in their own churches during these latter days of the great week, and of the Paschal solemnity, and some also detained by other hindrances, have not as yet come hither, who nevertheless, it is to be hoped, will shortly be present; and that, from this reason, it has come to pass that the said matters of the sacraments and of reformation could not be examined and discussed in such an assembly of prelates as the holy synod desired: wherefore, to the end that all things may be done with mature deliberation, with due dignity and gravity, [the synod] hath considered, and doth consider, that it is good, opportune, and expedient, that the aforesaid session, which, as has been said, was to have been celebrated on this day, be deferred and prorogued, as it now defers and prorogues it, to the Thursday within the approaching octave of Pentecost, unto the expediting of the matters aforesaid; which day it has deemed, and deems to be, most opportune for the business to be transacted, and most convenient especially for the fathers who are absent; adding this, however, that this holy synod may and can, even in a private congregation, restrict and abridge the said term, at its will and pleasure, as it shall think expedient for the business of the council.