Cum ex Apostolatus Officio, Pope Paul IV, Feb. 15, 1559

Excerpt from 4 pages of the PDF file, which has the complete Papal Bull below:

• Since the duty of the Apostolic Office has been divinely entrusted to Us, although We are unworthy of it, the general care of the flock of the Lord is upon Us, and thence, for the sake of the faithful custody and healthy direction of it, in the manner of a vigilant pastor, to carefully watch and attentively provide so that those who in this age, sins demanding, relying upon their own prudence, rise up against the discipline of the orthodox faith, more knowledgeably and perniciously than usual, and by perverting the meaning of the Sacred Scriptures with superstitions and false innovations, contrive to tear the unity of the Catholic Church and the seamless robe of the Lord asunder, must be thrown out of the sheepfold of Christ, lest they continue a magisterium of error, who despise to be disciples of the truth.

• 1. We, considering these same things to be very grave and dangerous, that the Roman Pontiff, who rules the offices of God and our Lord Jesus Christ on earth and who holds the fullness of power over kingdoms and kings, and who judges all, and by no one at this time is judged, must, if found deviating from the Faith, be confuted, and that, where the greater the danger is intended, there it must be more fully and diligently reflected, lest pseudo prophets and others even having secular jurisdiction should wretchedly entrap simple souls and thereby drag innumerable peoples who are committed to their care and rule in spiritual and temporal matters with them into perdition and the ruin of eternal damnation, nor at some time should the abomination of desolation, which was spoken by Daniel the prophet as he was standing in the holy place, reach Us; desiring, as much as possible with God to do what We can, for the sake of Our Pastoral duty, to seize the foxes, who sow destruction in the vineyard of the Lord, and to keep the wolves at a distance from the sheepfold, lest We seem mute dogs, unable to bark, and be destroyed with the evil farmer or like the hireling.