CHAPTER XXVIII. OF THE CONDUCT OF THE HOLY OFFICE TOWARDS THOSE PRIESTS WHO ABUSED THE SACRAMENT OF CONFESSION. While the Inquisition was occupied in persecuting the peaceable Lutherans, they were obliged to take measures to punish Catholic priests, who abused the ministry of confession, by seducing their penitents. The inquisitors were compelled to act with great reserve and caution in this affair, that they might not furnish the Lutherans with new arguments against auricular confession, and the Catholics with a motive for employing it less frequently. On the 18th of January, 1556, Paul IV. addressed a brief to the Inquisitors of Granada, in which his Holiness commanded them to prosecute those priests whom the _public voice_ accused of seduction, and not to pardon _one_ of them. He also recommended that they should ascertain if the doctrine of the priests on the sacrament of penitence was orthodox, and if it was necessary to pursue the course prescribed for the prosecution of heretics. The inquisitors communicated this brief to the Archbishop of Granada, and the Council of the Inquisition, which informed them in reply, that the publication of the brief in the usual form would produce great inconveniences, and that it was necessary to act with prudence and moderation. For this reason the archbishop summoned the curés, and other ecclesiastics, while the inquisitors did the same with the prelates of the regular communities, to recommend to them to notify the brief of the Pope to all the confessors, that they might be more strict in their conduct for the future, and that the people might not be made acquainted with the order of his Holiness. At the same time, informations were taken against those who were suspected, and some who were guilty were privately punished under other pretexts. This measure convinced the Pope that the abuse was not confined to the kingdom of Granada; and, in 1561, he addressed a brief to the inquisitor-general Valdés, authorizing him to proceed against the confessors guilty of this crime in the domains of Philip, as if they were heretics. As this bull did not affect the inquisitors-general who succeeded Valdés, several others were afterwards expedited. It was the custom to read the _Edict of Denunciations_ in the churches every year, on some Sunday in Lent, and as the number of crimes increased, new articles were added to the Edict. The inquisitors of some provinces introduced that of the priests who corrupted their penitents, and Raynaldus Gonzalvius Montanus, speaking of the occurrences at Seville after the publication of this edict, declares that it was published in 1563, and that the denunciations were so numerous that the notaries of the holy office refused to receive them, and that the inquisitors were obliged to relinquish the prosecution of the criminals.