II. In order to gain the indulgence of the privileged altar, it is required to say a _Requiem_ Mass with black vestments as often as the Rubrics permit. Sometimes this cannot be done; for example, during Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, or when the Mass is to be said in a church where the station is held, or where some Feast is being celebrated. No account of such days having been taken in the General Decrees, the doubt was raised whether in such cases the indulgence of the privileged altar could be gained without saying a _Requiem_ Mass. The following General Decree of the Sacred Congregation of Indulgences, dated April 11, 1864, settles the point: DECRETUM.--_Urbis et Orbis._ Quamplures Romani Cleri Sacerdotes, ac praesertim Animarum Curatores dubium huic Sacrae Congregationi Indulgentiis Sacrisque Reliquiis praepositae enodandum proposuerunt: Utrum, scilicet, Sacerdos, celebrans in Altari Privilegiato legendo Missam de Festo Semiduplici, Simplici, Votivam, vel de Feria non privilegiata sive ratione expositionis Sanctissimi Sacramenti, sive Stationis Ecclesiae, vel alterius Solemnitatis, aut ex rationabili motivo fruatur privilegio ac si legeret Missam de Requie per Rubricas eo dic permissam? Sacra itaque Congregatio, quae habita fuit apud Vaticanas aedes die 29 Februarii, 1864, auditis Consultorum Votis, respondendum esse duxit _Affirmative, deletis tamen verbis_ "aut ex rationabili motivo" _et facto verbo cum Sanctissimo_. Facta insuper per me infrascriptum ejusdem S. Congregationis Secretarium Sanctissimo Domino nostro relatione in Audientia diei 11 Aprilis ejusdem anni Sanctitas Sua Eminentissimorum Patrum sententiam benigne confirmavit. Datum Romae ex Secretaria ipsius S. Congregationis Indulgentiarum die 11 Aprilis, 1864. F. ANTONIUS MARIA CARD. PANEBIANCO Praefectus. _A. Colombo Secretarius._ III. SECRET SOCIETIES. The following letter will be read with interest by those who desire to be accurately acquainted with the present legislation of the Church in regard to secret societies. The bulls of Clement XII., Benedict XIV., Pius VII., and Leo XII., against freemasons, carbonari, and other similar associations, are well known. However, controversies have arisen as to the persons who incur the censures enacted in those bulls. Some have asserted that members of a secret society contract no censure unless the object or tendency of the society be both to undermine the authority of civil government, and to destroy religion, and that at the same time the members of the society be bound by oath to secrecy.