SOURCE: http://www.catholicresearch.org/Decrees/RegnanasinExcelsis.html


Regnans In Excelsis

Pope Saint Pius V



Pius, servant of the servants of God, for the perpetual remembrance of the fact.

He Who reigneth on high, to Whom all power had been given, alike upon earth and in heaven, has intrusted one alone, that is to say, to Peter, prince of the Apostles, the care of governing, the Catholic Church, One, Holy, out of which there is no salvation.

He has constituted it alone over all the nations, and over all the kingdoms, that it should root out, destroy, overturn, plant, and edify, in order that it should continue in the unity of the Holy Ghost, and that it should deliver to the Saviour, safe and free from all danger, the faithful people, bound together in the bond of mutual charity.

We, being, by the great goodness of God, called to hold the helm of the Church, devote ourselves unceasingly to our charge, and omit no labor to preserve intact the unity, and the Catholic religion, which its Author has left exposed to tempest, in order to try the faith of His people and correct us for our faults.

But the numbers of the impious has usurped so much power, that there is no place in the world which they have not endeavored to corrupt with their perverse doctrines.  Among others, Elizabeth, the servant of crime, and pretended Queen of England, has offered them an asylum in which they find shelter.

This same Elizabeth, after seizing the throne, has usurped throughout England the authority of supreme head of the Church.  She has monstuously exercised that power and that jurisdiction, and she has again cast into the way of a despicable perdition that kingdom, once devoted to the Catholic faith and the recipient of its blessings.

Elizabeth has destroyed the worship of the true religion, which was overturned by Henry VIII, and which the legitimate Queen Mary, so commendable to the respect of posterity, had succeeded in establishing by the efforts of her own powerful hand, and with the assistance of the Holy See.  Elizabeth, embracing and following the errors of the heretics, has dismissed the royal council of England, composed of the English nobility, and has replaced them with obscure heretics.  She has oppressed those who cultivated the Catholic Faith, and has replaced them by evil speakers and ministers of impiety.  She has abolished the sacrifice of the Mass, prayers, fasting, distinctions of meat, celibacy and Catholic rites.  She has ordered the circulation of books containing a system of manifest heresy, and of impious mysteries.  She has commanded her subjects to receive, observe, and preserve precepts which she has adopted from Calvin.  She has dared to decree that the bishops, rectors of churches, and the other Catholic priests, be driven from their churches and deprived of their benefices.  She has disposed of them and of other ecclesiastical things in favor of the heretics; and she has also decided upon causes the decision of which rightly only belongs to the Church.

She has forbidden the prelates, clergy, and people to recognize the Roman Church, and to obey its laws and its canonical sanctions.  She has constrained most of her subjects to recognize her culpable laws, and to abjure the obedience due to the sovereign pontiff.  She has prescribed, that, by oath, they shall recognize her as sole mistress, alike in things spiritual and temporal.  She has inflicted penalties and punishments upon those whom she could not persuade, and those who persevered in the unity of the faith and in obedience.

She has also thrown into prison bishops and rectors of churches, and many of them have perished there in misery.

These things are well known to all nations; they are proved by the gravest testimony, and no room is left for tergivesation, excuse or defence.

We, seeing these impieties multiplied, and seeing that still other crimes are added to the first; seeing that the persecutions against the faithful are increasing, in consequence of the compulsion and self-will of the said Elizabeth, we are persuaded that her heart is more than ever hardened.  Not only does she despise the pious prayers of good Catholics, that she should be converted and brought back to her right mind, but, further, she has even refused to receive in England the nuncios whom we have sent .  We, then, forced by necessity to resort to the arms of justice against her, cannot soften our grief that we have not severely dealt with a princess whose ancestors had so well deserved the praise of the Christian republic.

We, therefore, supported by the authority of Him Whose will has called us to the throne, although we are unworthy of such a charge, in the name of the apostolic authority, we declare the said Elizabeth a heretic, and aider and fautor of heretics, and that her adherents, in the aboved cited acts have incurred the sentence of anathema, and are separated from the unity of the body of our Lord Jesus Christ.

We declare her deprived of the pretended right to that kingdom, and of all domain, dignity and privilege.  We declare the subjects, the nobility and people of that kingdom, free from their oaths, and from all debt of subjection, of fidelity, and of respect; and by the authority of these presents, we deprive the said Elizabeth of the right to her pretended kingdom.  By this prescription we further forbid all nobles, people, subjects, and others, to venture to obey the orders, advice, or laws of the said Elizabeth.  As to those who shall act otherwise than as we have here authorize and order, we include them in the same sentence of anathema.

As it is difficult to carry these presents wherever necessary, we will command that a written notarial copy, under the seal of a bishop and of this court, have the same authority in any tribunal and without, and have like force and value as if these actual presents were exhibited.

Given at Rome, near Saint Peters, the 28th of February, in the year 1576, and of our pontificate the 6th.  



PIUS PP. V



From De Montor’s Lives of the Popes, pages 791-4