An Act against the bringing in and putting in execution of bulls writings or instruments and other superstitious things from the See of Rome, also known as Bulls, etc., from Rome Act 1571, (13 Eliz. 1, c. 2) was an
Act of the
Parliament of England during the
English Reformation
The English Reformation took place in 16th-century England when the Church of England broke away from the authority of the pope and the Catholic Church. These events were part of the wider European Protestant Reformation, a religious and poli ...
. The Act punished with
high treason those who published
papal bulls and Roman Catholic priests and their converts. This Act was a response to
Pope Pius V's ''
Regnans in Excelsis''.
Breaching the Act ceased to be a crime in 1846, but remained unlawful until the Act was repealed. The remainder of the Act was repealed by the
Statute Law (Repeals) Act 1969.
In 1911,
Pope Pius X
Pope Pius X ( it, Pio X; born Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto; 2 June 1835 – 20 August 1914) was head of the Catholic Church from 4 August 1903 to his death in August 1914. Pius X is known for vigorously opposing modernist interpretations of C ...
excommunicated Arnold Mathew
Arnold Harris Mathew, self-styled of Thomastown (7 August 1852 – 19 December 1919), was the founder and first bishop of the Old Roman Catholic Church in the United Kingdom and a noted author on ecclesiastical subjects.
Mathew had been both ...
from the
Catholic Church. ''
The Times'' reported on this excommunication and included an English language translation of the Latin language document which described Mathew, among other things, as a "pseudo-bishop".
Mathew's attorney argued, in the 1913 trial ''Mathew v. "The Times" Publishing Co., Ltd.'', that publication of the excommunication by ''The Times'' in English was high treason under this law. The trial was, according to a 1932 article in ''
The Tablet'', the last time this principle was invoked and the judge,
Charles Darling, 1st Baron Darling
Charles John Darling, 1st Baron Darling, (6 December 1849 – 29 May 1936) was an English lawyer, politician and High Court judge.
Early life and career
Darling was born in Abbey House in Colchester, the eldest son of Charles Darling and S ...
, "held that it was not unlawful to publish a Papal Bull in a newspaper simply for the information of the public."
Notes
{{reflist
External links
Text of the Act Danby Pickering, The
Statutes at Large
''Statutes at Large'' is the name given to published collections or series of legislative Acts in a number of jurisdictions.
The expression "statutes at large" was first used in the edition of Barker published in 1587.
England and Great Britain ...
, 1763, vol. 6, pp. 257 (from
Google Book Search)
Acts of the Parliament of England concerning religion
1571 in law
1571 in England
Papal bulls