If they did so, _ipso facto_ they incurred excommunication.” He thus explained the meaning of the _Motu proprio_ for his audience, in face of the following words which he also read for his audience. The excommunication is against “those who compel, whether directly or indirectly, lay judges to summon ecclesiastical persons before lay tribunals.” Thus the excommunication is against _those who compel_ the judges; so that Mr. Campbell’s interpretation implies that _the judges_ are one and the same with _those who compel them_. Catholics, then, and Catholics only (clerics as well as lay) are forbidden to bring ecclesiastics before lay tribunals, without the permission of their bishop; which permission, the Holy Office decrees, “the bishop shall never refuse, in case he fails to reconcile the parties.” If a Catholic (lay or ecclesiastic) thinks that an ecclesiastic, for instance, owes him a debt, and the ecclesiastic denies it and refuses to pay, the Catholic (priest or layman) who makes the claim is bound by the _Motu proprio_ to have recourse to the bishop first, in order to have the matter arranged amicably. If the bishop fails to settle it, he is not left free to give or refuse his consent to have the case brought before the Civil Court. The Holy Office decrees that “he shall never refuse.” Even in those times and countries when and where Ecclesiastical Courts existed to try the civil cases of clerics, the purpose of the _Privilegium Fori_ was not to grant ecclesiastics any immunity from the civil law of their country, but to provide that in their civil cases they should be tried by an Ecclesiastical Court. The privilege was not as to the law of the land, but as to the court that was to try them according to that law. What the _Motu proprio_ orders is just what Catholic instinct moves every Catholic worthy of the name to do. In Ireland and everywhere, Catholics, and many Protestants also, if they think they have a cause of complaint against a priest, for debt or otherwise, make known their case first to his bishop. If the bishop fails to compose the question, then they bring the case before the lay tribunals; permission to do which, as the Holy Office lays down, the bishop “shall never refuse.” I have explained the meaning and scope of this _Motu proprio_ as though it applied to Ireland. But according to the evidence of Cardinal Cullen, the highest authority on Canon Law who has lived in these countries for a century, the Caput _Cogentes_ of the _Apostolicae Sedis_ does not hold in Ireland; and that being so, the _Motu proprio_ does not apply to Ireland, for it is a confirmation of the Caput _Cogentes_.