This diploma of aggregation, being destined for confraternities which may be established in all the countries of the world, it was necessary that it sould be drawn up in the language of the Church. We give the translation of it here for the use of the faithful and in order that our readers may have an exact knowledge of so important a document.

LETTERS OF AGGREGATION TO THE ARCHCONFRATERNITY OF THE HOLY FACE OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST CANONICALLY ESTABLISHED IN THE SANCTUARY OF THE SAME NAME IN THE CITY OF TOURS.

The admirable Providence of God has permitted that, in these our times, the ancient devotion towards the most holy Face of our Lord Jesus Christ, which has never ceased in the Church, and which has been from time immemorial especially celebrated in the basilica of Saint Peter at the Vatican, should have been considered as a very suitable means for reviving the languishing charity of the faithful, and of repairing the offences and the injuries of all kinds inflicted in divers places on the divine Majesty.

Having maturely considered these things and being, moreover, urged by a desire to promote, by means of this salutary worship, the glory of God, the knowledge and the love of Jesus Christ, the spiritual consolation of the just, the conversion of sinners and, above all, an indefatigable zeal for expiating sacrileges, blasphemies and other crimes which, at the present day, cover the earth, the illustrious and most Reverend the Archbishop of Tours, Mgr Guillaume Meignan, in a chapel in his archiepiscopal city, commonly called «the Oratory of the Holy Face”, where this devotion commenced to flourish in an admirable manner, instituted and canonically established a pious Confraternity under the title and invocation of the Holy Face, appropriating to it those two texts of Scripture: “Lord, show us thy Face, and we shall be saved,” and: “Behold, o God, our Protector, and look upon the Face of thy Christ.”

The Sovereign Pontiff Leo XIII has not only willed to enrich this Con­frater­nity with spiritual favors and indulgences, but in addition, desiring to increase its dignity and reputation, has deigned by apostolical letters, under the form of a Brief, dated the 1^st of October 1885, to establish and constitute it, in perpetuity, as an Archconfraternity, with all and singular the rights, pre-eminences and accustomed privileges, granting, at the same time, the power, provided that the form of the constitution of Clement VIII of happy memory, and the other Apostolical Ordinances drawn up on this subject be observed, of aggregating to the said Archconfraternity the Confraternities of the same name and of the same statutes already established, or to he established hereafter throughout the whole world, as also to communicate to them freely and lawfully all the graces and indulgences granted to the above named Archconfraternity, and which are susceptible of being communicated; to this end, that the faithful and the shepherds of souls, in honoring the most holy Face of our Lord Jesus Christ laden in the Passion with so many outrages and sufferings, should endeavor, in concert and with great zeal, to prevent, or at least to repair and expiate the horrible and ceaselessly recurring injuries which blasphemers of the divine Name, freethinkers and impious sectarians everywhere inflict, in these days, on our most amiable Redeemer, on his Vicar upon earth and on the Church, his Spouse.

As we have been informed that in the church of (N. N.) a pious Confraternity has been established under the title and invocation of the Holy Face of our Lord Jesus Christ, canonically established by the illustrious and Right Rev. bishop of (N. N.), his Lordship (N. N.), and that, at the same time, earnest supplications have been made that we would unite and aggregate the above named Confraternity to our primary Arch­con­fraternity, established in the sanctuary at Tours, in conformity with the constitution Quaecumque of Clement VIII of happy memory dated the 7th of December 1604 and, having in view aggregations of this kind and the communication of indulgences, as well as the modifications approved by the Sovereign Pontiff Pius IX, in a decree of the Sacred Congregation of indulgences dated the 8^th of January 1861 (we give the principal heads of this Constitution as well as the above named modifications in a sheet annexed to these letters according to the tenor of a decree of the same Sacred Congregation, dated the 19^th of October 1866); taking into consideration the consent and the testimonial letter of the illustrious and Right Reverend bishop of (N. N.), his Lordship (N. N.); in virtue of the power granted to us by the apostolical See, we unite and aggregate the above named pious Confraternity to our Archconfraternity, and by these letters patent, we will and declare it to be so united and aggregated. We also grant and communicate to the above-named Confraternity and to its associates present and future, brethren and sisters, through the authority which we have received from the Sovereign Pontiff Leo XIII, all the indulgences and the spiritual favors conceded to our Archconfraternity.

We humbly entreat of the most holy and benign Face of our Lord Jesus that, through the intervention of the most blessed Peter, Prince of the apostles, principal patron of the Archconfraternity, it would graciously ratify and confirm in heaven, our present act of concession and aggregation, that it would give to all the associates united with us, grace and help in this life, and that at last after this their exile it would deign to show itself eternally to them resplendent in glory.

Given at Tours, at the Oratory of the Holy Face, under the signature of the Director of the Archconfraternity, the… of the month of… in the year of our Lord…

Place of the signature.

Place of the seal.

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