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provide . That the confessors and chaplains chosen might be more acceptable to them , he waived his newly- ^ acquired rights of patronage , ( so sweet to man in power , ) and allowed the communities to choose their own . In one thing only he was immovable , in refusing to re-appoint the Dominicans who had so shamefully abused their power . This occasioned him to incur an enmity which lasted him not only to the end of his public career , but to the close of his days . Martini , the new Archbishop of Florence ,
( consequently Ricci ' s ecclesiastical superior , ) lending himself to the corrupt intrigues of the Dominicans of Prato , secretly promised them his favour in regard to the new elections ; and imagining that Ricci could not for a moment think himself at liberty to refuse a request from his superior , engaged to procure the reappointment of the Dominican chaplain at the Convent of St . Vincent in that city . This affair ended not only in the disappointment , but the exposure of the time-serving Archbishop , who henceforth conceived a dislike to Ricci , which he prosecuted with all the littleness of a churchman ' s hatred to the end of his life .
In order to give a general view of this branch of Ricci ' s administration , we will here subjoin , that during the course of the twelve years of his public functions , he continually extended and improved his system of regulations , until many of the convents were converted from haunts of vice into seminaries of useful knowledge to the young women of the neighbourhood , who , as they became fitted to enter the world , were portioned by the benevolent bishop out of his private purse . Through his influence with the Grand Duke , the principle of episcopal superintendence was extended to-the communities of monks as well as of nuns . His detail of the state in which he
found the former is highly curious and amusing . Their ignorance almost surpasses belief . Yet it was from the monasteries that professors were principally furnished to the universities of Italy , " and it was not until their appointment that they began to acquire the knowledge they were presumed to possess , in order to enable them to fill with advantage their respective chairs . " Among his reforms he mentions the founding of libraries , where those which formerly existed had been converted to kitchen use , and the causing " the qaming tables to be burned /"
The 2 nd object of the attention of our Reformer was the idolatrous worship of the heart of Jesus , introduced by the Jesuits . This new rite , which glided silently into the church in the darkness of the middle ages , and had been condemned by Benedict XIV ., ( 1724—1759 , ) had come into greater vogue than even at any former period under Clement XIIL , ( 1759—1769 , ) by whom it was strongly maintained . It had been again cordially anathematized by his equally infallible successor Clement XIV ., ( 1769—1774 , ) and was
now again blazoned forth in the bulls and briefs of Pius VI . ; thus presenting one of those singular contradictions by which the empty prptentions of Papal infallibility are sometimes laid open to the ridicule of mankind , and which have contributed more than any thing to open the eyes of Catholics themselves . This rite , called by ecclesiastics cardiolatria 9 consists in addressing prayers , of a very enthusiastic description , to a picture of the heart of
Christ . The emblems of this worship are still to be seen in some Catholic churches , and consist in a bloody heart , of large dimensions , pierced through with arrows to denote the sorrows of Christ , and in figures of the Saviour himself , displaying his heart in his hand to his adoring people . We learn from one of Ricci's friends , that in the impure system of Jesuitical instruction , these emblems were made the means of initiating their disciples in a
Untitled Article
448 Memoir of Scipio de Ricci .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1828, page 448, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2562/page/16/
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