BISHOP Innocent, servant of the servants of God, to preserve the memory of this act. Desiring with the greatest yearning, as the care dictated by pastoral concern requires, that in Our times in particular the Catholic Faith should be strengthened and flourish, and that every form of heretical depravity should be driven far from the borders of the faithful, We readily proclaim and grant anew those provisions through which this pious desire of Ours may receive the longed-for outcome, and after all errors have as a result been eradicated through the ministry of Our working as if through a repair effected by a foresightful worker, the zeal and observance of this Faith may be pressed more firmly into the hearts of the faithful.

It is not without great vexation that it has recently come to Our hearing that in some parts of Upper Germany, as well as in the provinces, cities, lands, places and dioceses of Mainz, Cologne, Trier, Salzburg and Bremen, very many persons of both sexes have forgotten their own salvation and deviated from the Catholic Faith. Committing abuses with incubus and succubus demons, they have no fear of using their incantations, chants and conjurations and other unspeakable superstitions and acts of sorcery, as well as excesses, crimes and misdeeds, in order to bring it about that the offspring of women, the progeny of animals, the produce of the earth, the grapes of the vines and the fruits of the trees as well as men, women, work animals, cows, sheep and other animals of various kinds, and also the vines, orchards, fields, pastures, wheat, grain, and other crops of the earth are killed, suffocated and wiped out. They also afflict and torture these men, women, work animals, cows, sheep and animals with terrible pains and torments, both internal and external, and keep the men from fathering children and the women from conceiving by impeding their ability to render the conjugal act to each other.