[De horis canonicis]

...whether such people read in vain regarding the merit of eternal life, and it must be said that yes, because since they are not in grace, they cannot merit eternal life, chapter Si quis tristatus, regular distinction. As noted there, either regarding other things, namely regarding the diminution of punishment and similar, about which [the doctors write] in the chapter Quae quaedam, and by etc., and by etc., and then I say that they do not read in vain, because they pay the debt to which they are obligated; by the fact that by reading the hours they are freed from the obligation by which they are bound, so that they do not incur a new sin on account of the omission of them, since they are held to this by precept. Nor are they absolved from this debt on account of excommunication, just as it is said in the children [concerning] the excommunicated debtor who nevertheless is held to satisfy his creditor, notwithstanding excommunication; rather, he can even be sued, as in the chapter Si vere, and the sentence of excommunication, and the chapter Excommunicamus, and heretics, fact, chapter Intelligimus, on judicial matters. For a cleric, by reason of order or benefice, is called a debtor to our Creator, who is the creditor, which the words of the said chapter prove, there, "pension," that is, the debt of his servitude, that is, the obligation by which he is bound to pay to God, etc. From these things it is clear what must be held in the present question.

I ask whether an excommunicated, suspended, or deposed [person] should or can publicly say these hours. It is answered that he should perform them privately and secretly, so that he is heard by no one; rather, he is held [to do so], provided he does not do this as if he appears to officiate the church, as noted by the final gloss in the chapter Plene, 27, distinction. And this is also taken away in the chapter Si quis episcopus, 11, question 3. He ought, indeed, to say his hours and prayers like a layman, and without "The Lord be with you."

But in place of these words, let him say "Lord, hear my prayer," just as a layman ought to do, because this pertains to the dignity of the order, which dignity, through excommunication and etc., in disobedience he makes himself unworthy, and he ceases to be a mediator between God and men through that same disobedience, and because he is cut off from the church and its communion, as noted in the said our chapter and the special title, note §, according to the word that if an excommunicated [person] celebrates, per argument by Joannes Andreae in the Novella in the chapter 1, on the sentence and re-judicial matters, Book VI, in the word "damnably," and per the general [opinion] in the said Clementine 1, just as not a cleric when he alone reads the hours.