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The great folk who held the Pope’s indult to enter the houses of Minoresses were probably generous donors; but the unenclosed orders had to lodge and feed less wealthy guests and often enough they found the obligation a strain upon their finances.

The abbey had been so impoverished by war that the Abbot begged for a papal indult permitting him to stand godfather to forty children of noble or wealthy families.”

Irish Ecclesiastical Record states that an indult has been granted by Leo XIII. to the Most Rev. Dr. McCormack, Bishop of Achonry, allowing him to consecrate at his convenience the altars of his diocese which may need reconsecration, and to use for this purpose the short form prescribed for the Bishop of St. Paul's, Minnesota, U. S. America.

Indul′ger; Indult′, a license granted by the Pope, authorising something to be done which the common law of the Church does not sanction.—Declaration of Indulgence, a proclamation of James II. in 1687, by which he promised to suspend all laws tending to force the conscience of his subjects.

And that is so long as circumstances remain unaltered, for it is self-evident that, as soon as the temper of public opinion and the political situation become such as to offer any prospect of an ecclesiastical pretension being successfully urged, the indult will be abrogated and the practice conformed to the theory.