“Among the many things that perturb Us, when We in our temporal state should tolerate the diversion of the Carnival, there are the top two, which some zealous bishops of the aforesaid State have complained to us, expressing their just complaints either by voice or by writing. One consists in the fact that for the most part so many pass the vigils, dances, games in the last night of Carnival that they stain themselves even through the beginning of the first day of Lent; in this way it happens sometimes that people are seen, departing from the ball, the game and from the vigil, going, although without masks but with the clothes with which they masqueraded, to the Church to hear Mass and take the Ashes, going home afterwards, sleeping in their beds at least the entire morning of the first day of Lent; nor is the bishop left without the charge of the accusation of indiscretion, if he bewails and a moreover wishes to punish the excess.” Pope Benedict XIV, Inter Caetera, Jan. 1, 1748: