Roundup: Translations of Some (Church) Documents

Every translation I've posted online, with accompanying commentary.

I am a strong believer in the rule that you should never translate a document into English without sharing your translation online. If everyone did this, then everything would already be translated.

Here are all my translations (plus the one that isn’t a translation).¹

• #1: “Onanism in Marriage” — Some recent (1853 & 1916) rulings of the Holy Office in Rome (11 January 2015)

• #2: “1975 Nullity Case Involving a “Transsexual”” — Not actually a translation, just a document I had a hard time finding, but I didn’t know what this series was about yet (18 June 2019)

• #3: “Theologiae Moralis III: De Usu Conjugii” — Bishop Kenrick explains pre-Conciliar sexual teaching. (15 August 2022)

• #4: “Saepe Sanctam Ecclesiam (1296)” — Boniface VIII condemns a sect that may have even existed (11 September 2023)

• #5: “Pope Vigilius’s Constitution on the Three Chapters” — Come for the dull-as-dust translation, stay for the tale of a wild ecumenical council (25 March 2025)

• #6: “The End of the Council of Constance and Moyses Vir Dei” — The companion article is nuts, though (2 October 2025)

• #7: “The Vatican Was Pro-Choice? I Checked the Footnotes.” — Innocent III’s letter to the Carthusians on abortion, Sixtus V’s law heavily penalizing early abortion and contraception, and Gregory XIV’s law repealing some key parts of Sixtus’s law (June 2026)

1. They’re all Catholic documents so far, because I am gradually coming to terms with the fact that, despite my best efforts to do law and politics instead, I appear to have become another Catholic blogger. However, I reserve the right to translate other, non-Catholic, untranslated Latin documents I come across!