Council of Trent: Session XIV, Reformation, Chapter IV

CHAPTER IV. No cleric shall be exempt from the correction of the bishop, even out of the time of visitation.

All prelates of the churches, who ought diligently to apply themselves to correct the excesses of their subjects,-and from whose jurisdiction, by the statutes of this holy Synod, no cleric is, under the pretext of any privilege soever, considered screened, so as not to be able to be visited, punished and corrected, in accordance with the appointments of the canons,--provided those prelates be resident in their own churches,--shall have power, as delegates for this end of the Apostolic See, to correct and punish, even out of the times of visitation, all Secular clerics,--howsoever exempted, who would otherwise be subject to their jurisdiction,--for their excesses, crimes, and delinquencies, as often as, and whensoever there shall be need; no exemptions, declarations, customs, sentences, oaths, concordates, which only bind the authors thereof, being of any avail to the said clerics, or to their relatives, chaplains, domestics, agents, or to any others whatsoever, in view and in consideration of the said exempted clerics.

Translation: J. Waterworth, The Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent (1848), Hanover Historical Texts Project transcription (1995).