Pope Gregory XIII — Established Obligatory Preaching of Christian Sermons to Jews (1577 AD)
Bearing His office on earth, though unworthily, who wills all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth, we must so extend our apostolic solicitude and the affection of charity in all directions that we cease not to desire and seek with all our strength not only the repentance of heretics and schismatics straying from the path of orthodox faith, but also the true conversion and salvation of those who, walking in the darkness of unbelief, miserably perish — especially of Jews.
§ 1. Weekly sermons to Jews in Rome; many have converted
With this spirit we had some time ago commanded that Christ our Savior, once promised to their ancient fathers and prophets, be announced and preached to the Jews in our beloved City; from which it came about that some of them, illuminated by heavenly grace and mercy shining upon them, received the faith of Christ and were baptized; and now also frequently both those said Jews and others, having renounced the Mahometan impiety, are by the same grace inspired and baptized.
§ 2. College erected for youth converted from Judaism, Islam, and other infidelity
We therefore, pressing forward as much as we can upon the propagation and increase of the Christian faith, and wishing both to attend to the salvation and education of those boys and youths who have recently been converted from the race of Jews, Turks, Moors, and similar Mahometans to the faith of Christ, and will be converted day by day with God’s help, and also to provide that from among them may come forth workers fit for the work of the Gospel who, in the City itself and other places in Italy, and indeed in all parts of the world in which Jews and infidels dwell, may be able and capable of expounding, teaching, and preaching the mysteries of the Christian faith, even in the proper language of those peoples, whether Hebrew or Arabic, have judged nothing more fitting than to erect a college for the education of these persons. To the glory therefore of God Almighty and the exaltation of the holy Christian faith, in this same beloved City in a place to be chosen for this purpose, one ecclesiastical college, to be called the College of Neophyte Youths, by our own motion and out of our certain knowledge and the fullness of apostolic power, by the tenor of the present letters, we erect and institute; which college shall consist for two parts of those who come from Judaism, and for the third part of those who, receding from Mahometanism, whether Turks or Moors or of any other nation, have recently embraced the Christian faith, or at least, they being lacking, of those procreated from neophyte parents. And to that same college, until it shall have been sufficiently provided for by us from other revenues, for its sustenance and by way of endowment, we assign one hundred gold pieces from our own and the Apostolic Camera’s or the Data table’s monies to be paid in each month.
§ 3–4. College exempt from all local jurisdiction and taxation; enjoys privileges of the Roman University
We will that the said college, and its rectors, bursars, masters, preceptors, and scholars existing in it from time to time, and their domestic servants, officials, and ministers, and the movable and immovable goods of the college itself and of those persons, of whatever quality and quantity, existing in the said City and outside it and otherwise wherever, be exempt from all jurisdiction, correction, visitation, dominion, superiority, and power of the senator, conservators, and reformers of the said City for the time being, and of the rector of the general Studium, the vicar of the City, and any ordinary of the places or any other judges and officials constituted in the City or elsewhere anywhere. And the college itself and those contracting with it in their own goods and property we exempt and wholly free from the payment and exaction of any tolls, gabelles, customs duties, tithes, and whatever other ordinary or extraordinary burden imposed and to be imposed from any cause.
To the said college, its scholars, rectors, and bursars, we grant and indulge that they may use, enjoy, and benefit from whatever privileges, exemptions, liberties, faculties, and indults which the general Studium of the beloved City and its rector and doctors actually lecturing in it use, enjoy, and benefit from in whatever way, and will in future be able to benefit from in whatever way.
Given at Rome, at Saint Peter’s, under the Fisherman’s Ring, on the twenty-ninth day of July 1577, in the sixth year of our pontificate.
Dated July 29, 1577; pontificate year 6.
Source. Bullarium Romanum, Taurinensis Edition, Vol. VIII, pp. 189–191. Pope Gregory XIII, Vices Eius nos, on the foundation of the College of Neophyte Youths in Rome. Translated from the Latin.