§ 47. All greater and lesser religious foundations, monasteries, parishes, and chapels shall maintain their rules, ordinances, regulations, foundations, singing, reading, preaching, Masses, prayers, burials, and customary and venerable traditional Christian ceremonies, such as have always been observed in all churches.
§ 48. The vacant benefices shall be granted in the ordinary way to virtuous, suitable persons. The Masses for the dead shall be said, and the clergy shall not be hindered from conducting the proper visitations or from punishing the pastors, priests, and religious. Further, the regular and secular priests shall henceforth be wholly prevented from marrying.
§ 49. The priests who have allegedly married prior to this Recess shall from this moment be deprived of their spiritual benefices, jurisdictions, and offices, [ . . . ] [and] pastoral offices and other spiritual benefices shall be filled by their spiritual ruler or patron with other, suitable, unmarried priests.
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§ 52. No ruler shall allow the clergy to live in open sin, especially with dishonorable, lewd women, or have such women around them, or wear non-clerical garb.
§ 53. Wherever the local clergy have been unjustly forced into servitude, protection, or treaties made with the laity, We declare that such [ . . . ] are null and void, despite any oath sworn or obligation assumed. Wherever monasteries and other ecclesiastical properties of any kind in the Holy Empire of the German Nation have been illegally sold, transferred, or converted to the use or possession of laymen, partly or wholly, such actions are not binding and are null and void, and from this moment on they are restored and released to their old status, and a fair compensation shall be paid for the purchased properties.
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§ 55. We have agreed with the electors, princes, and estates on the following. We order, establish, and desire that henceforth no preacher anywhere shall be permitted to preach or be installed [in a preaching post] until he has been examined by the archbishop or bishop of his diocese, and until his life, doctrine, and suitability have been tested and found acceptable, and until he has been formally appointed to the preaching office. Such certified preachers, whether regulars or other sorts of priests, shall, without exception and despite any immunity, conform to this Recess in their preaching. Further, in their sermons they shall avoid anything that might give rise to a movement of the common man against the rulers or lead Christians into error or incite them against one another. In particular, they shall refrain [ . . . ] from saying that it is Our intention to wipe out the Gospel and the Holy Word of God, which was never intended or desired by Us or by the estates. Rather, We have been concerned, and are still of this Christian attitude, that the Holy Word of God be spread for the increase of Christian love, the fear of God, devotion, and good deeds, and that it be preserved in a Christian way of life. But not, as is the practice of the new teachers, to preach arbitrarily, selfishly, arrogantly, and with a desire to mislead the simple, common laity. It is rather Our will [ . . . ] that the preachers of the Gospel shall preach and teach according to the interpretation of the Holy Scripture and the teachings approved and accepted by the whole Christian Church, and that they shall refrain from preaching and teaching about what is under dispute, and [that they shall also refrain] from offering insults and ridicule, and await the decision of a Christian Council.
§ 56. These same preachers shall also refrain from dissuading the common Christian people from [attending] the office of the Holy Mass, prayers, and other good deeds, which has regrettably happened in many places. [ . . . ]
§ 57. Everyone, no matter what status, shall keep and obey Our ordinances, the laws, and the good traditional Christian usages, ceremonies, and everything else that the Christian churches have in the past laid down, commanded, and practiced with respect to Our holy Christian faith and worship. And they shall undertake no innovations on pain of punishment to body, life, and property, such as each ruler shall inflict on offenders according to the gravity of the offense. [ . . . ] We command that until a decision by a future General Council, these rules shall be obeyed in their entirety [ . . . ].
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