Postremvs Catalogvs Haereticorum Romæ conflatus, 1559

more tyrannically? And what could more clearly declare that they (even if the whole world collapses) wish to trample Germany and the whole world underfoot, and to keep them in a sewer of idolatries and abominations, having cast aside the genuine doctrine of Christ.

6. There is a not dissimilar passage (if perhaps more absurd and enormous) in this blasphemous Catalog. Paul III selects nine from the entire number of Bishops and Cardinals, to whom he gave orders in the gravest words to carefully examine the diseases of the Church, and, having no regard for the Pope himself or any other person, to demonstrate them to him, binding them with an oath and adding the penalty of excommunication so that they would conduct the matter in great silence. Therefore, having held a deliberation, they included some diseases in a little book, but of the lighter ones, for they did not lay their hands upon the living flesh—that is, specifically upon the corrupt doctrines—even though they used somewhat freer words at times. For they wrote:

The Church of Christ has long since collapsed among them.
The Popes heap up teachers who tickle their ears according to their desires, not, of course, to learn from them