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March 22. Lyons. Pope Innocent IV writes to the brothers of the Order of Friars Minor (Franciscans) setting off for the lands of the Saracens (Sarraceni), Pagans (Pagani), Greeks (Greci), Bulgarians (Bulgari), Cumans (Cumani), Ethiopians (Ethyopi), Syrians (Syri), Iberians (Iberi), Alans (Alani), Crimeans (Gazari), Goths (Gothi), Cerkess (Zici), Ruthenians (Rutheni), Jacobites (Jacobini), Nubians (Nubiani), Nestorians (Nestorini), Georgians (Georgiani), Armenians (Armeni), Indians (Indi), Mesoliti (probably people from Mosul), and other infidel nations of the East or of any other regions, speaking of the importance of their mission at the eleventh hour, as in the Apocalypse, in which the pope is sending them to raise the standard of the King of Glory for peoples who do not know the Lord Jesus Christ and to bring back the sons who do not obey the Holy Roman Church, to illuminate the blind multitude, exterminate heretical falsity, strengthen wavering souls, and comfort the faithful. To honour their ministry more fully and honourably, the pope grants that they can preach the Word of God in lands that do not yet obey the magisterium of the Apostolic See, safely communicate with the people there even if some of them are bound by excommunication, and convert to the unity of the Christian faith those wishing to receive it, baptise them, and add them to the sons of the Holy Church, as well as make clerics from those who have been added and promote them to the order of acolyte. They can also absolve, according to the form of the Church, those bound by excommunication who wish to return to obedience to the Apostolic See and give dispensations to those who received holy orders and celebrated the divine offices while so bound. They can do the same with people of those lands who celebrated at improper times or before the legitimate age or who received or conferred all orders on the same day or skipped the minor orders for the major ones if the proper form was followed. They can also give dispensations to people of those nations who married after taking holy orders or did so at prohibited levels so they can remain in those orders. Those who have returned to the unity of the Catholic Church shall live among their people and communicate with them, and clerics of those nations returning to obedience to the Apostolic See shall enjoy the clerical privilege. The friars can also hear the confessions of all the faithful in those lands and enjoin penance. They can absolve excommunicates, as long as they do fitting satisfaction for the injury and damage to those who suffered. They can also give dispensations for irregularities in those parts in cases for which papal legates usually give them, even to clerics of those parts suffering from defect of birth, as long as they are not born of adultery or incest or of parents in religious orders. They can give dispensations to those who abandoned the unity of the Catholic Church or religious orders or clerical orders, if they humbly wish to return and do satisfaction for what they did, so that those in religious orders are taken up again in their places. They can even absolve those who have killed clerics and religious persons in those parts, and they can found churches anew, reconcile churches that were profaned, and provide worthy rectors to churches they newly founded. To those who are newly converted from gentiles or schismatics they can give license to keep the wives they married within the degrees prohibited by divine law. They can hear married cases in those parts that normally are deferred to the pope. They can compel with ecclesiastical censure those who are in discord to make peace and concord between them and those who live inordinately by their crimes to make satisfaction as is just. In addition, they can receive orders and other sacraments from Catholic patriarchs, archbishops, and bishops, as well as priestly vestments, altars cloths, and corporals for those among them who are priests when it is necessary for them to bless where there are not many Catholic bishops. Finally, they can do other things for the increase and spread of the catholic faith and the reprobation of those who contradict holy traditions.