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. May 10. Assisi. Pope Innocent IV writes to the patriarch of Jerusalem (Robert of Nantes), relating the serious complaint of the archbishop of Nicosia (Ugo da Fagiano) that was read to him, which claimed that, in the churches pertaining immediately to his manse, for hearing the confessions of the parishioners of these churches he has assigned priests who know how to lead the infirm minds of mortals to health with divine treatment, with pious moderation according to age, sex, and strengths. But these same parishioners do not seek out these priests, but rather they damnably scorn them, and transferring themselves thoughtlessly to certain religious – as if they would find the balm of salvation only from them – they expose their sinful secrets to them, reveal their sicknesses of iniquity, and bring out their secret vices in confession. And although these religious, since they are not their judges, cannot loose or bind them, they are not afraid to do mischief to them with an imaginary absolution and afterwards to grant them the viaticum of our pilgrimage at the expense of their souls. From this it happens that such a parishioner induces quick damnation for himself, since, not keeping the body of the Lord apart from dishonour, he thus takes it while not cleansed of his crimes. And since the priest who has cure of the soul of a person who seeks such a wicked parishioner does not know what that person looks like, he cannot render worthy account to him, being wholly ignorant of his sickness and its circumstances. —Moreover, as if it were not enough to despise their own priests unless their churches are equally despised, these same parishioners, as the archbishop’s assertion claimed, when they are supposed to go to these churches to hear the divine offices and holy sermons from their own priests, instead go to the churches of the regular clergy to hear them as they choose, and the religious, who should send them away, rather attract them, to others’ serious loss. Because of this it happens that the archbishop and the rectors of these churches are in many ways defrauded of the customary offerings of their parishioners and other allotments. —In addition, the same archbishop added that, if any of the parishioners of these churches happens to fall seriously ill in bed, immediately these religious gather around, visit the sick person under the guise of piety, and compose and arrange the will, getting themselves named as executors. And by their charming sermons, the sick person puts aside his ancestors’ burials, chooses burial with the religious, and leaves much to them and little or nothing to the churches. And so that the archbishop and rectors cannot exact their canonical portion of the bequests, not without fraud the religious manage to get bequests made for the fabric and divine worship of their churches. —Since the archbishop and rectors suffer much at the hands of these religious, with no small reduction to their livings, they humbly asked the pope to put an end to these injuries and molestations. —The pope desires all Christians, especially members of the religious orders, to be governed by devotion to Providence so that even a curious inspector will find nothing in them worthy of note. He wants to provide for the reputation of the religious, the salvation of the parishioners, and the advance of the archbishop and the rectors of those churches. Therefore he orders the patriarch to warn and induce the parishioners not to go to alien churches for hearing the divine offices and receiving the ecclesiastical sacraments at the proper times, and to warn and induce the religious of every order not to receive these parishioners for offices or the sacraments to others’ prejudice, nor to hear their confessions, unless they first seek and obtain permission from their own priest, according to the statutes of the General Council, nor to admit them for burial, unless they choose it out of devotion, in which case the churches are not to be defrauded of their canonical portion. And so that they abstain from molesting and harming the archbishop and the rectors of these churches in the future, the patriarch is to compel them with ecclesiastical censure.