(TRANSLATION.)

MOST BLESSED FATHER,

In order to promote thereby the piety of the faithful in England, Ambrose St. John, Priest of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri, in the Diocese of Birmingham, humbly prays for permission to print in English a translation of the book entitled Raccolta di Orazioni &c. alle quali sono annesse le SS. Indulgenze, having first obtained the approbation of his Eminence the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster; and also that the faithful who make use of this translation may gain all the Indulgences annexed to the original.

After an audience of the Holy Father, granted February 3, 1856, our most Holy Lord Pius IX., by Divine Providence Pope, on an application made by me, the undersigned Secretary of the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, has of his goodness answered by Rescript in favour of the grace, according to the terms of the petition, provided the translation be made from the last Roman edition, and it being understood that the Decree printed at the end of this edition remains in full force.

Given at Rome from the House of the same Sacred Congregation, on the day and year aforesaid.

Gratis, without any payment on any plea whatever.

AL. BARNABO, Secretary.

In the place of the seal.

We approve of the Translation by vir

tue of the above Rescript of His Holiness.

Westminster, Oct. 23, 1857.

N. CARDINAL ARCHBISHOP.

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.

In accordance with the Rescript on the preceding page, wherein his Holiness vouchsafes to sanction this translation of the Raccolta delle Indulgenze, it has been made from the thirteenth and last Roman edition, and contains all the latest Indulgences granted by our present beloved Sovereign Pontiff, Pius IX., whose latest grant, conferred in this current year, and standing in this translation as No. 15, is subsequent to the last Roman edition itself.

No apology is required for presenting to all the faithful who speak the English language a book of prayers which has the highest sanction of the Church, and the use of which is not only authorised, but privileged in the highest degree, so as to entitle it to be called emphatically "The Church Prayer-Book of Private Devotion," as the Missal and the Breviary are her books of Public devotion. To a Catholic such a book speaks for itself, as the Church has given her formal approval of the pious practices and devotions contained in it by the privileges she has so abundantly accorded to them. If any apology is needed, it is from the translator to the Catholic public, for venturing to present to them in his own language words of prayer which the Church has adopted as her own; and this he would hardly have presumed to do, but for the high sanction given to the undertaking.

A few words, however, are necessary in explanation: first, of a few deviations he has permitted himself from the arrangement of the original in that part of the book which may be called its rubrical and historical portion; and secondly, of the sort

of license he has permitted himself in the translation of the prayers.

First, then, with regard to the historical portion, printed in this translation in smaller type, and in the Roman original in italics. This is made up of quotations from Papal Briefs, Rescripts, and Decrees of various Sacred Congregations, and is the voucher for the genuineness of the grants. In perusing these grants, it will be observed that many, having been made in favour of certain devotional exercises or good works, have no particular form of prayer attached to them; the Sovereign Pontiffs who conferred them, although always prescribing prayers to be offered up according to their own intention, having in these cases left the words to be used to the option of the faithful themselves. In other grants, the recital of one or more Pater noster, Ave Maria, and Gloria Patri, has been enjoined, and nothing further. In others the prayers are specified, and given afterwards at full length.

In translating these authentic notices, the Translator's chief, or rather only duty, was to render the original word for word, being especially careful neither to omit nor to alter any of the conditions prescribed. But as he had imposed upon himself another duty, viz. to bring into common use with all classes a book which, in addition to what has been already said of it, has been recommended by word of mouth to his fellow-countrymen by the condescension of the Holy Father himself, and which is now presented for the first time entire to the Englishspeaking Catholic world, he was desirous of giving this portion of the work a more simple, and at the same time, if he may use such an expression, a more inviting appearance than it seems to him to have in the Italian original. Accordingly his first thought was to have simplified the wording of the grants, by merely stating the conditions under which they have been conferred,-one, two, or three, as the case might be,-omitting long formulas, which are almost invariably the same. But as he was advised that in a matter of so much importance as recording the authentic documents of the Church's Sacred Congregations, where fidelity to the very words of the document is of such paramount importance, such a proceeding might be called in question, he de

termined to adhere, letter for letter, to the very words of the decrees. In a future edition it is to be hoped, however, that such a simplification may be sanctioned by the voice of authority, and the bulk of the volume be thus materially diminished without sacrificing aught of its contents. Refraining, then, from altering the words of the original in any way, he only permitted himself the license of changing the grammatical construction of the sentences, so as to bring the words stating the amount of the Indulgence to be gained to the beginning of a sentence, numbering them in Roman figures, i. ii. iii. &c., and printing them in small capitals in fresh paragraphs, so as to catch the eye of the reader, who otherwise might be tempted to omit the perusal of the decrees, in order to avoid the weariness of wading through a long formula; the Translator's experience of readers of the Italian original leading him to believe that many who have had it in use for years as their daily companion for private devotion, seldom read through the grants to which no prayers are annexed, and consequently remain in ignorance of many of the most liberal concessions of the Sovereign Pontiffs to the faithful. The additional labour and expense which was necessary for this (the extraordinary number of small capitals requiring types to be cast expressly for the work) will be abundantly repaid to the Translator if he is thereby enabled to draw attention to this portion of the work; failing which, many valuable Indulgences are, it is to be feared, lost to the faithful themselves and to the souls of the departed.

Having said thus much concerning this part of the work, the Translator now ventures to offer a few remarks regarding the Prayers, by far the most difficult portion of the translation, as well on account of the accuracy necessary to insure for it the merit of being a versio fidelis of the original (the condition absolutely required by the Sacred Congregation of Indulgences to enable the translation to carry with it the privileges bestowed on the original), as also on account of the peculiarly Italian character of many of these prayers. In reference, however, to fidelity to the original, it is necessary to observe, that many, indeed most, of the devout meditations which are printed both here

and in the Italian in the same type as the prayers, are nevertheless not of obligation, as it appears from the words of the grants preceding them that they are only inserted for the convenience of the reader, Such, for instance, is the case with the meditations for the Via Crucis, where it is expressly said, "The pious reader may use any other devotions which are more to his mind." Again, in the Indulgence for the commemoration of our Lady's Delivery, the Indulgence is granted to the recitation of the forty Ave Maria, not to the words said before them, which may be used or not ad libitum. So with the meditations, or rather heads of meditations, to be used in saying the "Chaplet of our Lord," in the notices preceding which it is said, that "It is not necessary either to read or recite the short meditations which follow ;" so with the Rosary and several other Chaplets. The same also is the case with the "Acts of Faith, Hope, and Charity," in the notice of which it is expressly said, that " any one may use any form he pleases, provided only it expresses and explains the particular motives of each one of these theological virtues." In all these cases it is manifest that no criticism can be exercised on the fidelity of the translation as affecting the validity of the Indulgences to be gained, as the choice of the words is left entirely free. The case, however, is quite different in those other prayers where the intention of the Pope granting the Indulgence is to include the very words of the prayer; then the sense of those words must be kept, otherwise the Indulgence will not be gained. Yet even here, to judge from the versions which are given in certain cases in the Raccolta itself, considerable latitude of expression is admissible, so long as the sense is preserved. Take, for instance, the well-known prayer Eccomi : the Plenary Indulgence is here given to those who shall recite this prayer before a crucifix; and it is manifest, by a Latin version of it being given in the Raccolta, that the same Indulgence follows the saying as well of the Latin version as of the Italian original. Yet no fresh grant is mentioned as having ever been made to the Latin version; so that if the Plenary Indulgence is to be gained by saying it, it must be in virtue of its being a faithful translation. That it is

ertainly be presumed, for it is printed at Rome in the