History of the Papacy

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The office of the Pope is called the Papacy. In addition to his spiritual role as head of the Catholic Church, the Pope also has a temporal role as Head of State of the independent sovereign State of the Vatican City, a city-state and nation entirely enclaved by the city of Rome. The history of the Papacy, then, is the history of both the spiritual role and the temporal role over a timespan of almost 2000 years from the arrival of Peter in Rome to the present day.

The history of the Papacy's temporal role can be divided into three major time periods. During the period before Christianity became the official state religion of the Roman Empire, the Pope had no temporal power and served only as the spiritual head of the Christian church in Rome. Even in that spiritual role, it was contested whether the patriarchs of the other churches were subordinate to the bishop of Rome.

The second major time period in the history of the Papacy runs roughly from the time when Christianity became the official state religion of the Roman Empire until Rome and Latium were annexed by the Kingdom of Italy in 1870. During this time period, the Pope exerted varying amounts of temporal and spiritual power until the Papal states were slowly taken away from the Papacy in the 19th century. During this same period, the role of the Pope as spiritual leader of the Christian church was successfully challenged by the East-West Schism and the Protestant Reformation. It is argued by many that the focus of the Papacy on temporal power was responsible for the loss of moral authority which engendered the corruption which inspired the Protestant reformation.^{[citation needed]}}

The third major time period runs from the end of the Pope's temporal power in the 19th century until the present day. During this period, the Papacy has asserted its spiritual role as leader of the worldwide Catholic Church.

Contents 1 Early Christianity 1.1 Origin of the Papacy 1.2 Biblical foundation for the papacy 1.3 Leadership of the early church 1.4 Peter as bishop of Rome 2 Primacy of Rome 2.1 Irenaeus 2.2 Stephen I 2.3 Damasus I 2.4 First Council of Constantinople 2.5 Bishop of Rome becomes Rector of the whole Church 3 Imperial era 42-395 3.1 Christianity becomes the official religion of the Roman Empire 3.2 Changes in the structure of the church 3.3 Pope Militiades 4 Western Imperial Era 395-476 4.1 Leo the Great 5 Medieval Church 5.1 Key dates 5.2 Symmachus 5.3 Lombards 5.4 Donation of Constantine 5.5 The Donation of Pepin 5.6 Final defeat of the Lombards 5.7 Ninth century 5.8 Tenth century 5.9 Eleventh century 5.9.1 Gregory VII 5.9.2 Investiture Controversy 5.10 East-West Schism 5.10.1 Urban II 5.11 Twelfth century 5.11.1 Innocent III 5.11.2 Episcopal inquisition 5.12 Thirteenth century 5.12.1 Papal inquisition 5.12.2 Council of Lyons 5.13 Avignon Era (the "Babylonian Captivity") 1309-1377 5.13.1 Avignon Papacy 5.13.2 The Western Schism and the Antipopes 5.13.3 Resolution of the Western Schism 5.13.4 Impact of the Western Schism on the papacy 6 Early Modern Europe 6.1 Renaissance 6.1.1 Reconstruction of Rome 6.2 Inter caetera 6.3 Reformation 6.4 Counter-Reformation 6.4.1 The Council of Trent 6.4.2 Further efforts at reform 7 Modernity 7.1 French Concordat of 1801 7.2 Coronation of Napoleon as Emperor of the French 7.3 Deterioration of relations with the French 7.4 The revolutions of 1848 8 The Savoyard Era 1870-1929 8.1 Republican Italy 8.2 Recovery of papal prestige 8.3 First Vatican Council 9 The Vatican Era 1929-present 9.1 Relations with Fascists 9.2 Lateran pacts of 1929 9.3 Reichskonkordat 9.4 World War II 9.5 Second Vatican Council 9.6 Challenges to Papal authority 9.6.1 Traditionalist Catholics 9.6.2 Sedevacantism 9.7 Pope Paul VI 9.8 John Paul II 10 Notes 11 References 12 See also

[edit] Early Christianity

[edit] Origin of the Papacy

The origin of the Papacy is unclear. It is generally accepted amongst most Catholic and non-Catholic historians that the institution of the papacy as it exists today developed through the centuries. Church tradition holds that St. Peter the apostle arrived in Rome c. 50. During the first century of the Christian Church, the Roman capital became recognized as a Christian center of exceptional note since the church of Rome was reputed to be founded by the apostles St. Paul and St. Peter, the "prince of the apostles". Despite the special status of the church of Rome, there are only a few 1st century references to the recognition of the authoritative primacy of the Roman See outside of Rome. The fact that Clement of Rome's letter to the Corinthians (written c. 96)^[1] adopted a pastoral tone, and also the fact that St. Ignatius of Antioch once used the word "preside" in the same sentence that he used the word "Romans" in his letter to the Romans (written c. 105)^[2] are seen by some historians to present proof of the existence of a certain early Papal primacy. Others argue that these documents refer only to a primacy of honor. The Petrine Doctrine is still controversial as an issue of doctrine that continues to divide the Orthodox and Catholic Churches.

[edit] Biblical foundation for the papacy

The dogmas and traditions of the Catholic Church teach that the institution of the papacy was first mandated by the Biblical passages:

Matt.16:18-19: "And I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld will not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven." ^[3]

The name "Peter" (Πέτρος in Greek) here translates as rock. The reference to the "keys of the kingdom of heaven" are held by the Catholic Church to be the basis for the symbolic keys often found in Catholic Papal symbolism, such as in the Vatican Coat of Arms (see below). Regarding the Roman Catholic interpretation of Matthew 16:18-19, Jaroslav Pelikan writes^[4], "As Roman Catholic scholars now concede, the ancient Christian father Cyprian used it to prove the authority of the bishop—not merely of the Roman bishop, but of every bishop," referring to Maurice Bevenot's work on St. Cyprian^[5].

[edit] Leadership of the early church

Before a strict hierarchy was in place, an increasing number of people had conflicting views over what they felt was true about Christianity. The position of bishop came about as a part of efforts to establish what Christianity was believed to be, and to ensure that it was preserved. By the end of the first century AD, single bishops were appearing in major cities; these bishops were supported by colleges of "elders."^[6]

There is no evidence that, once Peter arrived in Rome, he functioned as any sort of administrative or theological leader — certainly not as a “bishop” in the way we understand the term today. All available evidence points to the existence not of a monoepiscopal structure but instead to committees of elders (presbyteroi) or overseers (episkopoi). This was standard in Christian communities all over the Roman empire.^[7]

Not until a couple of decades into the second century^[8] do letters from Ignatius of Antioch describe churches led by a single bishop who was merely assisted by the presbyters and deacons. Even when a single bishop can definitively be identified as "the bishop of Rome," his powers were nothing like the powers of the pope today. In the early days of the church, the bishop of Rome didn’t call councils, didn’t issue encyclicals, and wasn’t sought after to resolve disputes about the nature of Christian faith.

Finally, the position of the bishop of Rome was not regarded as significantly different from the bishops of Antioch or Jerusalem (see James L. Barker, Apostasy from the Divine Church, ISBN 0 8849454 4 8). Insofar as the bishop of Rome was accorded any special status, it was more as a mediator than as a ruler. People appealed to the bishop of Rome to help mediate disputes arising over issues like Gnosticism, not to deliver a definitive statement of Christian orthodoxy. Perhaps one reason for this is that, whereas the Eastern church was a hotbed of heresy, no major heresy had ever arisen or taken root in Rome.

[edit] Peter as bishop of Rome

In 42 A.D., Peter built a church in Rome while he was visiting Simon Magus. Dogma and traditions of the Catholic Church maintain that he served as the bishop of Rome for 25 years until 67 A.D. when he was martyred by Nero^[9] (further information: Great Fire of Rome). Eamon Duffy states in his book, Saints and Sinners: A History of the Popes, that Jesus had essentially appointed Peter as the first pope.^[6]

[edit] Primacy of Rome

Main article: Primacy of the Roman Pontiff

In the early history of Christianity, five cities emerged as important centers of Christianity: Rome, Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria, and Constantinople. Although the Roman church was always highly respected, the churches in the East generally had more numbers and more authority than those of the West.

[edit] Irenaeus

Irenaeus compiled a list of apostolic succession, including the immediate successors of Peter and Paul: Linus, Anacleutus, Clement, Evaristus, Alexander, and Sixtus.^[6] The Catholic Church currently considers these the successors of Peter, whom they consider the first pope, and through whom following popes would claim authority.^[10]

In the second century (AD 189), the assertion of the primacy of the Church of Rome may be indicated in St. Irenaeus of Lyon's Against Heresies (3:3:2): "With [the Church of Rome], because of its superior origin, all the churches must agree... and it is in her that the faithful everywhere have maintained the apostolic tradition." Although this may be the first clear instance of the church in Rome asserting its primacy (depending on how one reads this passage), there is no historical evidence to show that such a claim was ever accepted by the eastern churches, particularly since the seat of government of the Roman Empire was moved to Constantinople soon after the Eccumenical Council of Nicea.

[edit] Stephen I

The first bishop to claim primacy in writing was Pope Stephen I (254-257). The timing of the claim is significant, for it was made during the worst of the tumults of the third century. There were several persecutions during this century and they hit the Church of Rome hard. But then came the miracle of Constantine's conversion, and suddenly the church at Rome was saved.

[edit] Damasus I

Pope Damasus I (366-384) was first to claim that Rome's primacy rested solely on Peter, and was the first pope to refer to the Roman church as "the Apostolic See". The prestige of the city itself was no longer sufficient; but in the doctrine of apostolic succession the popes had an unassailable position.

[edit] First Council of Constantinople

The First Council of Constantinople (AD 381) suggested strongly that Roman primacy was already asserted. However, it should be noted that, because of the controversy of this claim, the Pope did not personally attend this ecumencial council that was held in the capital of the eastern empire, rather than at Rome. It was not until 440 that Leo the Great more clearly articulated the extension of papal authority as doctrine, promulgating in edicts and in councils his right to exert "the full range of apostolic powers that Jesus had first bestowed on the apostle Peter". It was at the Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon in 451 that Leo I (through his emissaries) stated that he was "speaking with the voice of Peter". At this same Council, an attempt at compromise was made when the bishop of Constantinople was given a primacy of honour only second to that of the Bishop of Rome, because "Constantinople is the New Rome." Ironically, Roman papal authorities rejected this language since it did not clearly recognize Rome's claim to juridical authority over the other churches.^[11]

[edit] Bishop of Rome becomes Rector of the whole Church

The power of the Bishop of Rome increased as the imperial power of the Emperor declined. Edicts of the Emperor Theodosius II and of Valentinian III proclaimed the Roman bishop "as Rector of the whole Church." The Emperor Justinian, who was living in the East in Constantinople, in the sixth century published a similar decree. These proclamations did not create the office of the Pope but from the sixth century onward the Bishop of Rome's power and prestige increased so dramatically that the title of "Pope" began to fit the Bishop of Rome best. ^[12]

[edit] Imperial era 42-395

[edit] Christianity becomes the official religion of the Roman Empire

Christianity managed not only to survive Diocletian's attempts to crush it by persecution but to continue to grow in spite of his efforts. Christianity was legalized by Galerius, who was the first emperor to issue an edict of toleration for all religious creeds including Christianity in April of 311.^[13]

Constantine the Great was the first Roman Emperor to embrace Christianity, although he may have continued in his pre-Christian beliefs. He and the co-Emperor Licinius in the East were the first to bestow imperial favor on Christianity through the 313 Edict of Milan.

[edit] Changes in the structure of the church

After the Edict of Milan, the church adopted the same governmental structure as the Empire: geographical provinces ruled by bishops. These bishops of important cities therefore rose in power over the bishops of lesser cities.

Rome was not the only city that could claim a special role in the Church. Jerusalem had the prestige of being the city of Christ's death and resurrection, and an important church council was held there in the first century. Antioch was the place where Jesus' followers were first called "Christians" and, with Alexandria, was an important early center of Christian thought. Constantinople became highly important after Constantine moved his capital there in 330 AD.

[edit] Pope Militiades

The brief pontificate of Pope Miltiades (311-314) marked a transition to a very different role for the papacy. The Lateran Basilica (Basilica of Our Savior) became the episcopal seat of the Bishop of Rome. In 313, Miltiades held the Lateran synod openly in Rome, at the behest of the emperor. This event inaugurated a link between the papacy and temporal power which would last for over a millenium.

In 321, Constantine granted the Church the right to hold property and donated the palace of the Laterani to Pope Miltiades.

[edit] Western Imperial Era 395-476

By the fifth century, the bishop of Rome began to claim his supremacy over all other bishops, and some church fathers also made this claim for him.

[edit] Leo the Great

Pope Leo I was the first pope to indicate the real potential of the papacy. With the collapse of imperial authority in the western empire, as Visigoths, Vandals and Huns raided and despoiled Roman cities almost at will, Leo found the papacy well positioned to take a lead in temporal affairs. Ambrose in Milan had already demonstrated how a bishop could exert spiritual authority over an emperor.

During Leo's pontificate, Rome was threatened by Attila the Hun (in 452) and Gaiseric the Vandal (455). Leo negotiated with both, and is traditionally credited with persuading Attila to turn back short of Rome and with convincing Gaiseric that the city should not be utterly destroyed. Leo's actions presaged a broader role for the papacy.

[edit] Medieval Church

[edit] Key dates

• 496: Clovis I pagan King of the Franks, converts to the Catholic faith.
• 502: Pope Symmachus ruled that laymen should no longer vote for the popes and that only higher clergy should be considered eligible.
• 590: Pope Gregory the Great. Reforms church structure and administration. Establishes Gregorian Chant.
• 596: Saint Augustine of Canterbury sent by Pope Gregory to evangelise the pagan English.
• 638: Christian Jerusalem and Syria conquered by Muslim armies.
• 642: Egypt falls to the Muslims, followed by the rest of North Africa.

[edit] Symmachus

In 502, Pope Symmachus ruled that laymen should no longer vote for the popes and that only higher clergy should be considered eligible.

[edit] Lombards

The Lombard kingdom reached its height in the 7th and 8th century. Paganism and Arianism were at first prevalent among the Lombards but were gradually supplanted by Catholicism. Roman culture and Latin speech were gradually adopted and the Catholic bishops emerged as chief magistrates in the cities. Lombard law combined Germanic and Roman traditions.

[edit] Donation of Constantine

Main article: Donation of Constantine

In the middle of the eighth century, a fraudulent attempt was made to legitimize the transfer of power and authority from the Emperor Constantine to the Bishop of Rome. The Donation of Constantine was purported to be the legal document in which the Emperor Constantine donated to Sylvester, the Bishop of Rome (314-335), much of his property and invested him with great spiritual power and authority.

The vastness and splendor of the inheritance allegedly given by Constantine to Sylvester in this document is seen in the following quotation from the manuscript,

"We attribute to the See of Peter all the dignity, all the glory, all the authority of the imperial power. Furthermore, we give to Sylvester and to his successors our palace of the Lateran, which is incontestably the finest palace on the earth; we give him our crown, our miter, our diadem, and all our imperial vestments; we transfer to him the imperial dignity. We bestow on the holy Pontiff in free gift the city of Rome, and all the western cities of Italy. To cede precedence to him, we divest ourselves of our authority over all those provinces, and we withdraw from Rome, transferring the seat of our empire to Byzantium; inasmuch as it is not proper that an earthly emperor should preserve the least authority, where God hath established the head of his religion." ^[14]

This document was used by medieval popes to bolster their claims for territorial and secular power in Italy. It was widely accepted, though the Emperor Otto III denounced the document as a forgery. By the mid 15th-century, however, the Church had begun to realize that the document could not possibly be genuine. The Italian humanist Lorenzo Valla proved in 1440 that the Donation must be a fake by analyzing its language, and showing that while certain imperial-era formulas are used in the text, some of the Latin in the document could not have been written in the 4th century.

[edit] The Donation of Pepin

In 751, Aistulf, took Ravenna and threatened Rome. In 753, Pope Stephen II makes an unusual journey north of the Alps. He visits the Frankish king, Pepin III, to seek his help against the Lombards who have recently taken the city of Ravenna and who now pose a similar threat to Rome.

The pope anointed Pepin at the abbey of St Denis, near Paris, together with Pepin's two young sons Charles and Carloman. Pepin duly invaded northern Italy in 754, and again in 756. Pepin was able to drive the Lombards from the territory belonging to Ravenna but he does not restore it to its rightful owner, the Byzantine emperor. Instead, perhaps believing the fiction revealed in the forged Donation of Constantine, he handed over large areas of central Italy to the pope and his successors.

The land given to pope Stephen in 756, in the so-called Donation of Pepin, made the papacy a temporal power. This territory became the basis for the Papal States, over which the popes will rule until the Papal States are incorporated into the new Kingdom of Italy in 1870. The story of Rome, for the next eleven centuries, is almost synonymous with the story of the papacy.

[edit] Final defeat of the Lombards

After Aistulf's death King Desiderius renewed the attack on Rome. In 772, Pope Adrian I enlisted the support of Charlemagne, Pepin's successor, who intervened, and, after defeating the Lombards, added their kingdom to his own.

[edit] Ninth century

After being physically attacked by his enemies in the streets of Rome, Pope Leo III made his way in 799 through the Alps to visit Charlemagne at Paderborn.

It is not known what was agreed between the two, but Charlemagne traveled to Rome in 800 to support the pope. In a ceremony in St Peter's Basilica, on Christmas Day, Leo was supposed to anoint Charlemagne's son as his heir. But unexpectedly (it is maintained), as Charlemagne rose from prayer, the pope placed a crown on his head and acclaimed him emperor. It is reported that Charlemagne expressed displeasure but nevertheless accepted the honour. The displeasure was probably diplomatic, for the legal emperor was undoubtedly the one in Constantinople. Nevertheless this public alliance between the pope and the ruler of a confederation of Germanic tribes was a reflection of the reality of political power in the west. This coronation launched the concept of the new Holy Roman Empire which would play an important role throughout the Middle Ages. The Holy Roman Empire only became formally established in the next century. But the concept is implicit in the title adopted by Charlemagne in 800: 'Charles, most serene Augustus, crowned by God, great and pacific emperor, governing the Roman empire.'

Leo's action in crowning Charlemagne will serve as precedent for later popes who claimed the right and power to make (and unmake) emperors.

[edit] Tenth century

During the tenth century, the papacy came under the control of local Roman noble families. Becoming Bishop of Rome was a matter of winning out in the feuds that raged among the various factions. Occasionally, German kings would come down and appoint good popes, but most of the time the Romans forced the election of extremely bad popes who were either incompetent or scandalously immoral and sacrilegious

[edit] Eleventh century

The eleventh century is often called the century of Saxon Popes: Pope Gregory VI (1045 - 1046), Pope Clement II (1046 - 1047), Pope Damasus II (1048), Pope Leo IX (1049 - 1054), Pope Victor II (1055 - 1057) and Pope Stephen IX (1057 - 1058).

Three popes Benedict IX, Sylvester III and Gregory VI all claimed to be the rightful pope. Henry deposed all three and held a synod where he declared no Roman priest fit for the title of pope. He subsequently appointed Suidger of Bamberg who, after being duly acclaimed by the people and clergy, took the name Clement II.

Days later, [[Clement II] then crowned Henry emperor. Over the next ten years, Henry personally selected four of the next five pontiffs. The ascendancy of these to the Papacy reflected the strength and power of the Holy Roman Emperor. However, Henry was the last emperor to dominate the papacy in this way because, after the death of Henry III, the Pope quickly moved to change the system to prevent such secular involvement in the election of future popes.

A central feature of this period was the mortal struggle between the popes (notably Pope Gregory VII) and the emperors (notably Henry IV) for control of the church. The struggle between the temporal power of the emperors and the spiritual influence of the popes came to a head in the reigns of Pope Nicholas II (1059 - 1061) and Pope Gregory VII (1073 - 1085) in their opposition to Henry IV. Henry was ultimately driven by a revolt among the German nobles to make peace with the Pope and appeared before Gregory in January 1077 at Canossa. Dressed as a penitent, the emperor is said to have stood barefoot in the snow for three days and begged forgiveness until, in Gregory's words: "We loosed the chain of the anathema and at length received him into the favor of communion and into the lap of the Holy Mother Church" ^[15].

These tensions between emperors and pontiffs were to continue into the twelfth century and ultimately gave rise to the "distinctive separation of Church and State when the emperor signed the Concordat of Worms (1122) forfeiting any right to invest bishops with the ring and the staff symbolic of spiritual authority". ^[16] This separation of the secular from the ecclesiastical nevertheless did not end aspirations on the part of the emperors to influence the papacy, nor the aspirations of the popes to exercise the power of emperors.

These power struggles had already led to a clericalization of the Western Church under Gregory VII (1073-1085). The authority of Gregory VII and those that followed him demonstrated the secular and imperial nature of the pontifical office. With Gregory VII, we find the creation of a Christian commonwealth under papal control. In the Dictatus Papae, Gregory claimed:

• That the Roman pontiff alone is rightly called universal.
• That he alone has the power to depose and reinstate bishops.
• That he alone may use the imperial insignia.
• That all princes shall kiss the foot of the pope alone.
• That he has the power to depose emperors.
• That he can be judged by no one.
• That no one can be regarded as catholic who does not agree with the Roman church.
• That he has the power to absolve subjects from their oath of fealty to wicked rulers

^[17]

[edit] Gregory VII

During the reign of Pope Gregory VII, the title “pope” was officially restricted to the bishop of Rome. Gregory VII was also responsible for greatly expanding the power of the papacy in worldly matters. One of the great reforming popes, Gregory is perhaps best known for the part he played in the Investiture Controversy, which pitted him against Emperor Henry IV.

[edit] Investiture Controversy

Main article: Investiture Controversy

The Investiture Controversy also known as the Lay investiture controversy, was the most significant conflict between secular and religious powers in medieval Europe. It began as a dispute in the 11th century between the Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV, and the Gregorian Papacy concerning who would control appointments of church officials (investiture). The controversy, undercutting the Imperial power established by the Salian Emperors, would eventually lead to nearly fifty years of civil war in Germany, the triumph of the great dukes and abbots, and the disintegration of the German empire, a condition from which it would not recover until the unification of Germany in the 19th century.

In 1046, Henry III deposed three rival popes. Over the next ten years he personally selected four of the next five pontiffs. But after the death of Henry III, the Pope quickly moved to change the system to prevent such secular involvement in the election of future popes.

Pope Nicholas II, elected in 1058, initiated a process of reform which exposed the underlying tension between empire and papacy. In 1059, at a synod in Rome, Nicholas condemned various abuses within the church. These included simony (the selling of clerical posts), the marriage of clergy and, more controversially, corrupt practices in papal elections. Nicholas then restricted the choice of a new pope to a conclave of cardinals, thus ruling out any direct influence by secular powers. The primary objective of these actions was to restrict the influence of the Holy Roman Emperor on papal elections. In 1061, the assembled bishops of Germany, the emperor's own faction, declared all the decrees of this pope null and void.

In 1059, Nicholas II took two steps of a kind which, while unusual at this period, would later become commonplace for the medieval papacy. He granted land, which was already occupied, to recipients of his own choice, engaging those recipients in a feudal relationship with the papacy, or the Holy See, as the feudal lord. The beneficiaries of Nicholas' land grants were the Normans, who were granted territorial rights in southern Italy and Sicily in return for feudal obligations to Rome.

[edit] East-West Schism

Main article: East-West Schism

The East-West Schism was the event that divided Chalcedonian Christianity into Western Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy. Though normally dated to 1054, the East-West Schism was actually the result of an extended period of estrangement between the two Churches. The primary causes of the Schism were disputes over papal authority—the Pope claimed he held authority over the four Eastern Greek-speaking patriarchs, and over the insertion of the filioque clause into the Nicene Creed by the Western Church. Eastern Orthodox today claim that the primacy of the Patriarch of Rome was only honorary, and that he has authority only over his own diocese and does not have the authority to change the decisions of Ecumenical Councils. There were other, less significant catalysts for the Schism, including variance over liturgical practices and conflicting claims of jurisdiction.

The Church split along doctrinal, theological, linguistic, political, and geographic lines, and the fundamental breach has never been healed. Attempts were made to reunite the two churches in 1274 (by the Second Council of Lyon) and in 1439 (by the Council of Basel), but in each case the councils were repudiated by the Orthodox as a whole, charging that the hierarchs had overstepped their authority in consenting to these so-called "unions". Further attempts to reconcile the two bodies have failed.

[edit] Urban II

The origins of the Crusades lie in Western developments earlier in the Middle Ages, as well as the deteriorating situation of the Byzantine Empire. The breakdown of the Carolingian empire in the later 9th century, combined with the relative stabilization of local European borders after the Christianization of the Vikings, Slavs and Magyars, meant that there was an entire class of warriors who now had very little to do but fight among themselves and terrorize the peasant population. The Church tried to stem this violence with the Peace and Truce of God movements, forbidding violence against certain people at certain times of the year. This was somewhat successful, but trained warriors always needed an outlet for their violence.

For these reasons, a plea for help from the Byzantine Emperor Alexius I in opposing Muslim attacks thus fell on ready ears. Although the eastern Mediterranean area had been conquered by the Arabs in the seventh century, Christians had been permitted to visit the sacred places in the Holy Land until 1071 when the Seljuk Turks swept in from Asia and defeated the Byzantines at the Battle of Manzikert. Seizing all of Asia Minor as well as the Holy Land the Seljuk Turks soon impeded Christian pilgrimages to Jerusalem, forcing the Byzantine emperor, Alexius Comnenus, to ask Pope Urban II (1088-1099) for help against the Turks in the early 1090s.

Urban II viewed this request as a great opportunity. Not only could it restore Christian control over the Holy Land, but it also provided a means of domestic pacification that focused the aggression of the European nobility towards the Moslems instead of each other. In addition, coming to the aid of Byzantium held the possibility of a reunion between the eastern and western Churches after almost four decades of schism, thereby strengthening the western Church in general and the papacy in particular.

On November 27, 1095, Urban II made one of the most influential speeches in the Middle Ages at the Council of Clermont combining the ideas of making a pilgrimage to the Holy Land with that of waging a holy war against infidels. The pope called for a “War of the Cross,” or Crusade, to retake the holy lands from the unbelievers. France, the Pope said, was already overcrowded and the Holy Lands of Canaan were overflowing with milk and honey. Pope Urban II asked the Frenchmen to turn their swords in favour of God's service, and the assembly replied "Dieu le veult!" -- "God wills it!"

[edit] Twelfth century

[edit] Innocent III

On January 8, 1198, Lotario de' Conti di Segni was elected Pope Innocent III. The pontificate of Innocent III is considered the height of temporal power of the papacy.

[edit] Episcopal inquisition

Main article: Inquisition

The first medieval inquisition, the episcopal inquisition, was established in the year 1184 by a papal bull entitled "Ad abolendam," "For the purpose of doing away with." The inquisition was in response to the growing Catharist heresy in southern France. It is called "episcopal" because it was administered by local bishops, which in Latin is episcopus. The episcopal inquisition was not very effective for many reasons. The bishops often did not reside in their dioceses, living in far-off cities such as Rome and rarely, if ever, visiting. When they did visit, bishops were busy and had many other responsibilities. Also, the procedures used in this inquisition were not effective. For example, according to the Ad abolendam, it was required to reveal the name of the accuser to the accused, and this would often lead to the revenge killing of the accuser before the trial.

[edit] Thirteenth century

[edit] Papal inquisition

Main article: Inquisition

In the 1230s the Church responded to the failures of the episcopal inquisition with a series of papal bulls which became the papal inquisition. The papal inquisition was staffed by professionals, trained specifically for the job. Individuals were chosen from different orders and secular clergy, but primarily they came from the Dominican Order. The Dominicans were favored for their history of anti-heresy, education, and skill in debate. As mendicants, they were accustomed to travel and not interested in personal gain. Unlike the haphazard episcopal methods, the papal inquisition was thorough and systematic, keeping detailed records.

[edit] Council of Lyons

At the second ecumenical Council of Lyons in 1274, the bishops declared that the Roman church possessed “the supreme and full primacy and authority over the universal Catholic Church,” which of course gave the bishop of Rome quite a lot of power.

[edit] Avignon Era (the "Babylonian Captivity") 1309-1377

The Catholic Church endured a prolonged period of crisis that lasted from 1305 until 1416. During these years, the Church found its authority undermined, openly challenged, and divided among rivals. Although it emerged at the end of the period with its authority seemingly intact, the struggle brought significant changes to the structure of the Church and sowed seeds that would later sprout in the Protestant Reformation.

This century of crisis can be divided into two periods of unequal length.

[edit] Avignon Papacy

Main article: Avignon Papacy

In the first phase, the popes were resident not in Rome but in Avignon, in southern France. Because a bishop is supposed to reside in his see, this circumstance, which lasted from 1305 to 1378, undermined the authority and prestige of the papacy. During this period, seven popes, all French, resided in Avignon:

• Pope Clement V: 1305–1314 (moved Papal residency in 1309, his 4th year of office, having consented to, if not colluded with, King Phillip IV in the mass imprisonments & property seizures in 1307 in southern France of the Knights Templar, a wealthy organization Papally-ordained in 1128 as subject to no Kingly authority, only to the Pope)
• Pope John XXII: 1316–1334
• Pope Benedict XII: 1334–1342
• Pope Clement VI: 1342–1352
• Pope Innocent VI: 1352–1362
• Pope Urban V: 1362–1370
• Pope Gregory XI: 1370–1378

In 1378, Gregory XI moved the papal residence back to Rome and died there.

[edit] The Western Schism and the Antipopes

Main article: Western Schism

After seventy years in France the papal curia was naturally French in its ways and, to a large extent, in its staff. Back in Rome some degree of tension between French and Italian factions was inevitable. This tension was brought to a head by the death of the French pope Gregogy IX within a year of his return to Rome. The Roman crowd, said to be in threatening mood, demanded a Roman pope or at least an Italian one. In 1378 the conclave elected an Italian from Naples, Pope Urban VI. His intransigence in office soon alienated the French cardinals. And the behaviour of the Roman crowd enabled them to declare, in retrospect, that his election was invalid, voted under duress.

The French cardinals withdraw to a conclave of their own, where they elected one of their number, Robert of Geneva. He took the name Pope Clement VII. By 1379 he was back in the palace of popes in Avignon, while Urban VI remained in Rome.

This was the beginning of the period of difficulty from 1378 to 1417 which Catholic scholars refer to as the "Western schism" or, "the great controversy of the antipopes" (also called "the second great schism" by some secular and Protestant historians), when parties within the Catholic church were divided in their allegiances among the various claimants to the office of pope. The Council of Constance in 1417 finally resolved the controversy.

[edit] Resolution of the Western Schism

For nearly forty years the Church had two papal curias and two sets of cardinals, each electing a new pope for Rome or Avignon when death created a vacancy. Each pope lobbied for support among kings and princes who played them off against each other, changing allegiance when according to political advantage.

In 1409 a council was convened at Pisa to resolve the issue. The council declared both existing popes to be schismatic (Gregory XII from Rome, Benedict XIII from Avignon) and appointed a new one, Alexander V. But the existing popes had not been persuaded to resign so the church had three popes.

Another council was convened in 1414 at Constance. In March 1415 the Pisan pope, John XXIII, fled from Constance in disguise; he was brought back a prisoner and deposed in May. The Roman pope, Gregory XII, resigned voluntarily in July.

The Avignon pope, Benedict XIII, refused to come to Constance. In spite of a personal visit from the emperor Sigismund, he would not consider resignation. The council finally deposed him in July 1417. Denying their right to do so, he withdrew to an impregnable castle on the coast of Spain. Here he continued to act as pope, creating new cardinals and issuing decrees, until his death in 1423.

The council in Constance, having finally cleared the field of popes and antipopes, elected Pope Martin V as pope in November.

[edit] Impact of the Western Schism on the papacy

Political theorists in the mid 14th century began to express the view that the papacy was not even the supreme power source in the church, but that a duly-convened council of the higher clergy could override popes in circumstances that warranted intervention. The Schism was the supreme example of such circumstances, and the actions of the Council of Constance, which deposed three rival popes and elected a single pope to take up residence in Rome, represented the high point of conciliarist influence. Soon after, however, Pope Martin V, the very pope whom the council had put in place began the work at setting aside conciliarist attempts to make regular meetings of councils a permanent feature of church governance.

[edit] Early Modern Europe

[edit] Renaissance

The Renaissance, also known as the Age of Humanism, was a period of secularization of Western civilization. The Renaissance Church became a secular institution in this period, shedding its spiritual roots, with insatiable greed for material wealth and temporal power. The Italian Renaissance produced little of what could be considered great ideas or institutions by which men living in society could be held together in harmony. Indeed, the greatest of all European institutions, the Roman Church, fell into neglect under the Renaissance popes, whose fall from spiritual grace sparked the Reformation.

The papacy that emerged from the Western Schism no longer put its energy into playing a dominant role in a united Christendom, but instead focused on building and expanding its political base in Italy. During the Renaissance, the popes expanded the papal territories dramatically, most notably under Pope Alexander VI and Pope Julius II. In addition to being the head of the Church, the Pope became one of Italy's most important secular rulers , signing treaties with other sovereigns and fighting wars. In practice, though, most of the territory of the Papal States was still only nominally controlled by the Pope with much of the territory being ruled by minor princes. Control was often contested; indeed it took until the 16th century for the Pope to have any genuine control over all his territories.

[edit] Reconstruction of Rome

At the beginning of the fifteenth century, Rome had experienced a long decline from the glory of the Roman Empire. The skyline of the city was littered with the ruins of once spectacular structures. Wild animals ran free through the overgrowth dominating the center of the city. The city that had dominated the entire world centuries earlier was just a shadow of its former self. In the first century, Rome had a population of about one million. At the start of the fifteenth century the population of the city numbered about 25,000. Rome was no longer a great center of commerce, and the papacy, which had long sustained the city through its riches and international influence, had moved from Rome to Avignon during the fourteenth century.

In 1420, the papacy returned to Rome under Pope Martin V. During the subsequent centuries the papacy would rebuild the city, and the Papal States, centered in Rome, would assume a position of great importance in Italian affairs. The papacy closely supervised the Renaissance revival of Rome, maintaining its economic power, and thus control of the city, through the sale of church offices and taxation of the Papal States. Throughout the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, there were periodic spurts of support for political independence from church control. However, the Papacy kept a tight grip on its territorial holdings and the destinies of city and church remained inextricably intertwined.

After the return of the papacy, the first step in resurrecting Rome was the ascension of Pope Nicholas V in 1447. When he was a monk in Tuscany, Nicholas V had been helped financially by the Florentine banker Cosimo de Medici, who had lent him money without demanding any collateral. In repayment for this favor, Nicholas later appointed Cosimo the Papal banker. Financed by the Medici family, Nicholas founded the Vatican Library. In his eight short years as pope, Nicholas V initiated changes that would transform Rome into a Renaissance city.

After the death of Nicholas V, the Papacy continued to be a force for change in Rome. However, as Rome became wealthier and more powerful, corruption in the Papacy grew. The pattern continued throughout the fifteenth century. With the election of Pope Sixtus IV in 1471, the Papacy began a plunge toward moral degradation while Rome itself ascended to the greatest splendor it had achieved since Roman times. Under Sixtus IV, nepotism reached new and corrupt heights. Sixtus' 'nephews' (the papal nephew was a long-standing way of referring to the pope's illegitimate children) were granted influential posts and huge salaries. Pope Sixtus IV even entered into a conspiracy to have the powerful Medici family assassinated when he thought they were getting in the way of one of his nephews. This pattern of behavior became the model for papal rule throughout the Renaissance, undermining papal moral authority, but allowing the Papacy to grow strong politically and economically.

At the same time, Pope Sixtus IV initiated a major drive to redesign and rebuild Rome, widening the streets and destroying the crumbling ruins. He commissioned the construction of the famed Sistine Chapel and summoned many great Renaissance artists from other Italian states to work on rebuilding and redecorating Rome.

The already corrupt Papacy reached its nadir during the reign of Rodrigo Borgia, who was elected to the papacy in 1492 after the death of the generally unnoteworthy Pope Innocent VIII, and who assumed the name Pope Alexander VI. Borgia, a Spaniard, had been at the center of Vatican affairs for 30 years as a Cardinal. When he became pope, myth and legend quickly rose up around his family. Alexander VI had four acknowledged children, three males and one female. Alexander VI was himself known as a corrupt pope bent on his family's political and material success, to an even greater extent than Sixtus IV had been. It was no secret that Alexander VI's oldest son Cesare, was a murderer, and had killed many of his political opponents. Lucrezia Borgia, Alexander VI's daughter, was married three times to aid the pope's efforts to create advantageous alliances with other families. Under Alexander VI, the Papacy continued to grow strong politically and economically, but the means by which it grew were much vilified throughout Italy.

Alexander VI died in 1503, and was succeeded by Pope Julius II. Under Julius II, both the city of Rome and the Papacy entered a Golden Age. Julius II continued the consolidation of power in the Papal States, encouraged the devotion to learning and writing in Rome begun by Pope Nicholas V, and, foremost, continued the process of rebuilding Rome physically. The most prominent project among many was the rebuilding of the Basilica of St. Peter, one of the most sacred buildings in Christianity. The creation of a new St. Peter's, and indeed a new Rome, taxed the city. Ancient structures were demolished to make room and building materials for the new buildings of the city.

Rome received its final push to Renaissance glory from Pope Leo X, second son of Lorenzo de Medici who ascended to the papal throne in 1513, following Julius II. Leo X was at ease in social situations, a skilled diplomat, demonstrated great skill as an administrator, and was an intelligent and beneficent patron of the arts. He encouraged scholarly learning, and supported the theatre, an art form considered to be of ambiguous morality until that time. Most prominently, he supported the visual arts of painting and sculpture. He is well known for his patronage of Raphael, whose paintings played a large role in the redecoration of the Vatican. The death of Leo X in 1521 signalled the effective end of Rome's Golden Age, and the Renaissance as a whole began to lose its energy.

[edit] Inter caetera

Columbus' discovery in 1492 of supposedly Asiatic lands in the western seas threatened the unstable relations between the kingdoms of Portugal and Castile, which had been jockeying for position and possession of colonial territories along the African coast for many years. The king of Portugal asserted that the discovery was within the bounds set forth in Papal bulls of 1455, 1456, and 1479. The king and queen of Castile disputed this and sought a new Papal Bull on the subject. Pope Alexander VI, a native of Valencia and a friend of the Castilian king, responded with three bulls, dated May 3 and 4, which were highly favorable to Castile. The third of these bulls was titled "Inter caetera", awarded Spain the sole right to colonize most of the New World.

[edit] Reformation

In the early 16th century, the papacy was confronted with a challenge posed by Martin Luther to the traditional teaching on the church's doctrinal authority and too many of its practices as well. The seeming inability of Pope Leo X (1513 - 1521) and those popes who succeeded him to comprehend the significance of the threat that Luther posed - or, indeed, the alienation of many Christians by the corruption that had spread throughout the church - was a major factor in the rapid growth of the Protestant Reformation. By the time the need for a vigorous, reforming papal leadership was recognized, much of northern Europe was lost to Catholicism.

In 1517, Martin Luther published his 95 Theses On the Power of Indulgences criticising the Church, including its practice of selling indulgences. He was building on work done by John Wycliffe and Jan Hus, and other reformers joined the cause. Church beliefs and practices under attack by Protestant reformers included purgatory, particular judgment, devotion to Mary, intercession of the saints, most of the sacraments, and authority of the Pope.

Many Catholics were troubled by the way the Church abused its power. The Church allowed the sale of indulgences (substitutes for confession that had to be bought) and allowed people to buy the titles in the church such as priest, bishop, etc. The Church even went so far as to allow people to buy more than one title, a man could be both a priest and a bishop. Luther's timely protest against the church led to the reformation. Since many people were troubled by the corruption in the Church they readily joined Luther's cause.

Beginning with Martin Luther, Protestants attacked the Pope as representing the power of the Anti-Christ and the Roman Catholic Church as the Whore of Babylon prophesied in the Book of Revelations. The identification of the Papacy as the Anti-Christ was an article of faith for many Protestant denominations:

Westminster Confession of Faith:

25.6. There is no other head of the Church but the Lord Jesus Christ: nor can the Pope of Rome in any sense be head thereof; but is that Antichrist, that man of sin and son of perdition, that exalts himself in the Church against Christ, and all that is called God.

The London Baptist Confession of 1689:

26.4. The Lord Jesus Christ is the Head of the church, in whom, by the appointment of the Father, all power for the calling, institution, order or government of the church, is invested in a supreme and sovereign manner; neither can the Pope of Rome in any sense be head thereof, but is that antichrist, that man of sin, and son of perdition, that exalteth himself in the church against Christ.

The four most important traditions to emerge directly from the reformation were the Lutheran tradition, the Reformed/Calvinist/Presbyterian tradition, the Anabaptist tradition, and the Anglican tradition. Subsequent Protestant traditions generally trace their roots back to these initial four schools of the Reformation. It also led to the Catholic or Counter Reformation within the Roman Catholic Church.

[edit] Counter-Reformation

Main article: Counter-Reformation

The Catholic Church did not mount an organized and deliberate response to the Protestant Reformation until the election (1534) of Pope Paul III, who placed the papacy itself at the head of a movement for churchwide reform. Pope Paul III established a reform commission, appointed several leading reformers to the College of Cardinals, initiated reform of the central administrative apparatus at Rome, authorized the founding of the Jesuits, the order that was later to prove so loyal to the papacy, and convoked the Council of Trent, which met intermittently from 1545 to 1563. The council succeeded in initiating a number of far-ranging moral and administrative reforms, including reform of the papacy itself, that was destined to define the shape and set the tone of Roman Catholicism into the mid-20th century.

The Catholic Reformation was comprehensive and comprised five major elements:

1. Doctrine
2. Ecclesiastical or Structural Reconfiguration
3. Religious Orders
4. Spiritual Movements
5. Political Dimensions

Such reforms included the foundation of seminaries for the proper training of priests in the spiritual life and the theological traditions of the Church, the reform of religious life to returning orders to their spiritual foundations, and new spiritual movements focus on the devotional life and a personal relationship with Christ, including the Spanish mystics and the French school of spirituality.

[edit] The Council of Trent

Main article: Council of Trent

Pope Paul III (1534-1549) initiated the Council of Trent (1545-1563), a commission of cardinals tasked with institutional reform, to address contentious issues such as corrupt bishops and priests, indulgences, and other financial abuses. The Council clearly rejected specific Protestant positions and upheld the basic structure of the Medieval Church, its sacramental system, religious orders, and doctrine. It rejected all compromise with the Protestants, restating basic tenets of the Catholic faith. The Council clearly upheld the dogma of salvation appropriated by faith and works. Transubstantiation, during which the consecrated bread and wine were held to become (substantially) the body and blood of Christ, was upheld, along with the Seven Sacraments. Other practices that drew the ire of Protestant reformers, such as indulgences, pilgrimages, the veneration of saints and relics, and the veneration of the Virgin Mary were strongly reaffirmed as spiritually vital as well.

But while the basic structure of the Church was reaffirmed, there were noticeable changes to answer complaints that the Counter Reformers tacitly were willing to admit were legitimate. Among the conditions to be corrected by Catholic reformers was the growing divide between the priests and the flock; many members of the clergy in the rural parishes, after all, had been poorly educated. Often, these rural priests did not know Latin and lacked opportunities for proper theological training. (Addressing the education of priests had been a fundamental focus of the humanist reformers in the past.) Parish priests now became better educated, while Papal authorities sought to eliminate the distractions of the monastic churches. Notebooks and handbooks thus became common, describing how to be good priests and confessors.

Thus, the Council of Trent was dedicated to improving the discipline and administration of the Church. The worldly excesses of the secular Renaissance church, epitomized by the era of Alexander VI (1492-1503), exploded in the Reformation under Pope Leo X (1513-1522), whose campaign to raise funds in the German states to rebuild St. Peter's Basilica by supporting sale of indulgences was a key impetus for Martin Luther's 95 Theses. But the Catholic Church would respond to these problems by a vigorous campaign of reform, inspired by earlier Catholic reform movements that predated the Council of Constance (1414-1417): humanism, devotionalism, legalist and the observatine tradition.

The Council, by virtue of its actions, repudiated the pluralism of the Secular Renaissance Church: the organization of religious institutions was tightened, discipline was improved, and the parish was emphasized. The appointment of Bishops for political reasons was no longer tolerated. In the past, the large landholdings forced many bishops to be "absent bishops" who at times were property managers trained in administration. Thus, the Council of Trent combated "absenteeism," which was the practice of bishops living in Rome or on landed estates rather than in their dioceses. The Council of Trent also gave bishops greater power to supervise all aspects of religious life. Zealous prelates such as Milan's Archbishop Carlo Borromeo (1538-1584), later canonized as a saint, set an example by visiting the remotest parishes and instilling high standards. At the parish level, the seminary-trained clergy who took over in most places during the course of the seventeenth century were overwhelmingly faithful to the church's rule of celibacy.

[edit] Further efforts at reform

The reign of Pope Paul IV (1555-1559) is associated with efforts of Catholic renewal. Paul IV is sometimes deemed the first of the Counter-Reformation popes for his resolute determination to eliminate Protestantism - and the institutional practices of the Church that contributed to its appeal. Two of his key strategies were the Inquisition and censorship of prohibited books. In this sense, his aggressive and autocratic efforts of renewal greatly reflected the strategies of earlier reform movements, especially the legalist and observantine sides: burning heretics and strict emphasis on Canon law. It also reflected the rapid pace toward absolutism that characterized the sixteenth century.

While the aggressive authoritarian approach was arguably destructive of personal religious experience, a new wave of reforms and orders conveyed a strong devotional side. Devotionalism, not subversive mysticism would provide a strong individual outlet for religious experience, especially through meditation such as the reciting of the Rosary. The devotional side of the Counter-Reformation combined two strategies of Catholic Renewal. For one, the emphasis of God as an unknowable absolute ruler - a God to be feared - coincided well with the aggressive absolutism of the papacy under Paul IV. But it also opened up new paths toward popular piety and individual religious experience.

The Papacy of St. Pius V (1566-1572) represented a strong effort not only to crack down against heretics and worldly abuses within the Church, but also to improve popular piety in a determined effort to stem the appeal of Protestantism. Pius V was trained in a solid and austere piety by the Dominicans. It is thus no surprise that he began his pontificate by giving large alms to the poor, charity, and hospitals rather than focusing on patronage. As pontiff, he practiced the virtues of a monk. Known for consoling the poor and sick, St. Pius V sought to improve the public morality of the Church, promote the Jesuits, support the Inquisition. He enforced the observance of the discipline of the Council of Trent, and supported the missions of the New World. The Spanish Inquisition, brought under the direction of the absolutist Spanish state since Ferdinand and Isabella, stemmed the growth of heresy before it could spread.

The pontificate of Pope Sixtus V (1585-1590) opened up the final stage of the Catholic Reformation characteristic of the Baroque age of the early seventeenth century, shifting away from compelling to attracting. His reign focused on rebuilding Rome as a great European capital and Baroque city, a visual symbol for the Catholic Church.

[edit] Modernity

In 1793, a French diplomat in Rome, Nicolas de Basseville, indulged in a provocative display of the tricolour, symbol of French anti-clerical republicanism. A Roman crowd attacked him and he dies the next day. Four years later, when Napoleon reaches as far south as Ancona in an advance on Rome, this incident remains a specific grievance for which France holds the pope responsible - demanding and receiving 300,000 livres as compensation for Basseville's family.

In 1796 French Republican troops under the [[command of Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Italy, defeated the papal troops and occupied Ancona and Loreto. Pius VI sued for peace. The price of persuading the French intruder to head north again, agreed in the Treaty of Tolentino, was a massive indemnity, the removal of many works of art from the Vatican collections and the surrender to France of Bologna, Ferrara and the Romagna.

However, on December 28 of that year, a popular French general was killed in a riot outside the French embassy in Rome, thus providing a new pretext furnished for invasion by the French. French army units marched to Rome, entered it unopposed on and, proclaiming a Roman Republic, demanded of the Pope the renunciation of his temporal authority. Upon his refusal to do so, Pius VI was taken prisoner, and on February 20 was ultimately brought to the citadel of Valence in France where he died.

[edit] French Concordat of 1801

The new pope, Pope Pius VII, was at first conciliatory towards Napoleon. He negotiated the French Concordat of 1801 which reaffirmed the Roman Catholic Church as the major religion of France and restored some of its civil status. , removing it from the authority of the Pope. While the Concordat restored some ties between France and the papacy, the agreement was slanted largely in favor of the state; the balance of church-state relations had tilted firmly in Napoleon Bonaparte's favor.

[edit] Coronation of Napoleon as Emperor of the French

In 1804, Pius VII, traveled to Paris in 1804 to officiate at Napoleon's imperial coronation. On December 2, Napoleon crowned himself Emperor of the French in the Cathedral of Notre Dame, Paris, in the presence of Pope Pius VII. Claims that he seized the crown out of the hands of Pope Pius VII during the ceremony in order to avoid subjecting himself to the authority of the pontiff are apocryphal; in fact, the coronation procedure had been agreed upon in advance.

[edit] Deterioration of relations with the French

But by 1808 relations had deteriorated. The pope annoyed Napoleon by refusing to sanction the annulment of his brother Jerome's marriage and, perhaps more significantly, by not bringing the ports of the papal states into the Continental System.

The result was that a French army occupied Rome in February 1808. In the following month another section of the papal states (the Marches) was annexed to the Napoleonic kingdom of Italy. Napoleon followed up these affronts by annexing in 1809 all that remains of the papal states, including the city of Rome, and by announcing that the pope no longer has any form of temporal authority. Pius VII responded by an immediate use of his spiritual authority, excommunicating Napoleon himself and everyone else connected with this outrage. Piux VII was immediately arrested and removed to imprisonment in France.

These are the events which brought the entire Italian peninsula under French control by 1809. The situation remained unchanged until after Napoleon's defeat at Leipzig in 1813 - an event followed by Austrian recovery of much of Italy and a subsequent seal of approval at the congress of Vienna.

[edit] The revolutions of 1848

During the reigns of Pope Leo XII (1823-9) and Pope Gregory XVI (1831-46), Rome became strongly identified with the anti-liberal sentiments of most of the ruling European houses of the day. The election of Pope Pius IX in 1846 seemed to promise a less reactionary papacy. However, in 1848, nationalist and liberal revolutions began to break out across Europe; in 1849, a Roman Republic was declared and the Pope fled the city. Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, recently elected president of the newly declared French Second Republic, saw an opportunity to assuage conservative Catholic opinion in France, and in cooperation with Austria sent troops to restore Papal rule in Rome. After some hard fighting, Pius was returned to Rome by a victorious French army, and repenting of his previous liberal tendencies pursued a harsh, conservative policy even more repressive than that of his predecessors.

[edit] The Savoyard Era 1870-1929

[edit] Republican Italy

In the years that followed, Italian nationalists–both those who wished to unify the country under the Kingdom of Sardinia and its ruling House of Savoy and those who favored a republican solution–saw the Papal States as the chief obstacle to Italian unity. Louis Napoleon, who had now seized control of France as Emperor Napoleon III, tried to play a double game, simultaneously forming an alliance with Sardinia and playing on his famous uncle's nationalist credentials on the one hand and maintaining French troops in Rome to protect the Pope's rights on the other.

After the Austro-Sardinian War, much of northern Italy was unified under the House of Savoy's government; in the aftermath, Garibaldi led a revolution that overthrow the Bourbon monarchy in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Afraid that Garibaldi would set up a republican government in the south, the Sardinians petitioned Napoleon for permission to send troops through the Papal States to gain control of the Two Sicilies, which was granted on the condition that Rome was left undisturbed. In 1860, with much of the region already in rebellion against Papal rule, Sardinia conquered the eastern two-thirds of the Papal States and cemented its hold on the south. Bologna, Ferrara, Umbria, the Marches, Benevento and Pontecorvo were all formally annexed by November of the same year, and a unified Kingdom of Italy was declared. The Papal States were reduced to Latium, the immediate neighborhood of Rome.

Rome was declared Capital of Italy in March 1861, when the first Italian Parliament met in the kingdom's old capital Turin in Piemonte. However, the Italian Government could not take possession of its capital because Napoleon III kept a French garrison in Rome protecting Pope Pius IX. The opportunity to eliminate the last vestige of the Papal States came when the Franco-Prussian War began in July 1870. Emperor Napoleon III had to recall his garrison from Rome for France's own defence and could no longer protect the pope. Following the collapse of the Second French Empire at the battle of Sedan, widespread public demonstrations demanded that the Italian Government take Rome. King Victor Emmanuel II sent Count Ponza di San Martino to Pius IX with a personal letter offering a face-saving proposal that would have allowed the peaceful entry of the Italian Army into Rome, under the guise of offering protection to the pope.

The Pope’s reception of San Martino [10 September 1870] was unfriendly. Pius IX allowed violent outbursts to escape him. Throwing the King’s letter upon the table he exclaimed: "Fine loyalty! You are all a set of vipers, of whited sepulchres, and wanting in faith." He was perhaps alluding to other letters received from the King. After, growing calmer, he exclaimed: "I am no prophet, nor son of a prophet, but I tell you, you will never enter Rome!" San Martino was so mortified that he left the next day. [Raffaele De Cesare, The Last Days of Papal Rome, Archibald Constable & Co, London (1909) Chap. XXXIV, p. 444]

On September 10, Italy declared war on the Papal States, and the Italian Army, commanded by General Raffaele Cadorna, crossed the papal frontier on 11 September and advanced slowly toward Rome, hoping that a peaceful entry could be negotiated. The Italian Army reached the Aurelian Walls on 19 September and placed Rome under a state of siege. Although the pope's tiny army was incapable of defending the city, Pius IX ordered it to put up at least a token resistance to emphasize that Italy was acquiring Rome by force and not consent. On September 20, the Bersaglieri entered Rome and marched down Via Pia, which was subsequently renamed Via XX Settembre. Rome and Latium were annexed to the Kingdom of Italy after a plebiscite.

In Chapter XXXIV De Cesare also made the following observations:

The Roman question was the stone tied to Napoleon’s feet--that dragged him into the abyss. He never forgot, even in August 1870, a month before Sedan, that he was a sovereign of a Catholic country, that he had been made Emperor, and was supported by the votes of the Conservatives and the influence of the clergy; and that it was his supreme duty not to abandon the Pontiff. [p. 440]

For twenty years Napoleon III had been the true sovereign of Rome, where he had many friends and relations ... . Without him the temporal power would never have been reconstituted, nor, being reconstituted, would have endured. [p. 443]

This event, described in Italian history books as a liberation, was taken very bitterly by the Pope. The Italian government had offered to allow the Pope to retain control of the Leonine City on the west bank of the Tiber, but Pius rejected the overture. Early the following year, the capital of Italy was moved from Florence to Rome. The Pope, whose previous residence, the Quirinal Palace, had become the royal palace of the Kings of Italy, withdrew in protest into the Vatican, where he lived as a self-proclaimed "prisoner", refusing to leave or to set foot in St. Peter's Square, and forbidding (Non Expedit) Catholics on pain of excommunication to participate in elections in the new Italian state.

In October a plebiscite in Rome and the surrounding Campagna resulted in a vote for union with the kingdom of Italy. Pius IX refused to accept this act of force majeure. He remained in his palace, describing himself as a prisoner in the Vatican. However the new Italian control of Rome did not wither, nor did the Catholic world come to the Pope's aid, as Pius IX had expected.

The provisional capital of Italy had been Florence since 1865. In 1871, the Italian government moved to the banks of the Tiber. Victor Emmanuel installed himself in the Quirinale Palace. Rome became once again, for the first time in thirteen centuries, the capital city of a united Italy.

Rome was unusual among capital cities only in that it contained the power of the Pope and a small parcel of land (Vatican City) beyond national control. This anomaly was not formally resolved until the Lateran pacts of 1929.

[edit] Recovery of papal prestige

Paradoxically, the eclipse of papal temporal power during the 19th century was accompanied by a recovery of papal prestige. The monarchist reaction in the wake of the French Revolution and the later emergence of constitutional governments served alike, though in different ways, to sponsor that development. The reinstated monarchs of Catholic Europe saw in the papacy a conservative ally rather than a jurisdictional rival. Later, when the institution of constitutional governments broke the ties binding the clergy to the policies of royal regimes, Catholics were freed to respond to the renewed spiritual authority of the pope.

The popes of the 19th and 20th centuries exercised their spiritual authority with increasing vigor and in every aspect of religious life. By the crucial pontificate of Pope Pius IX (1846 - 1878), for example, papal control over worldwide Catholic missionary activity was firmly established for the first time in history.

[edit] First Vatican Council

Main article: First Vatican Council

Even before the Franco-Prussian War, Pius IX had foreseen the temporal power of the Church draining away and had begun redefining the Catholic church as a spiritual power that would serve as a firm bulwark against the liberal and scientific trends of the period.

The First Vatican Council established clear theoretical underpinnings to Pius IX's commitment to an intensified centralization of ecclesiastical government in Rome. The council's companion definition of papal infallibility strengthened the energetic exercise of the papal magisterial power that was so marked a feature of the years between the first and second Vatican Councils.

The pope's primary purpose was to obtain confirmation of the position he had taken in his Syllabus of Errors (1864), condemning a wide range of positions associated with rationalism, liberalism, and materialism.

The purpose of the council was, besides the condemnation, to define the doctrine concerning the church. In the three sessions, there was discussion and approval of only two constitutions: Dei Filius, the Dogmatic Constitution On The Catholic Faith and Pastor Aeternus, the First Dogmatic Constitution on the Church of Christ, dealing with the primacy and infallibility of the bishop of Rome when solemnly defining dogma.

Seven months later, on 18 July 1870, the prelates assembled in St Peter's accepted an uncompromising dogma - that the pope, when speaking from his throne on a matter of faith or morals, is inspired by God and is therefore infallible. Papal infallibility was merely the most striking example of the authoritarian stance now being established. The direction in which Pius IX was taking the church was made very plain in a document of 1864 known simply as the Syllabus. It is a list of eighty modern errors. They include such broad topics as socialism, civil marriage and secular education.

The final error is the most sweeping of all. It is the concept that 'the Roman Pontiff can and should reconcile himself to and agree with progress, liberalism and modern civilization'.

[edit] The Vatican Era 1929-present

[edit] Relations with Fascists

The pontificate of Pope Pius XI was marked by great diplomatic activity and the issuance of many important papers, often in the form of encyclicals. In diplomatic affairs, Pius was aided at first by Pietro Gasparri and after 1930 by Eugenio Pacelli (who succeeded him as Pope Pius XII). Cardinal Gasparri's masterpiece was the Lateran Treaty (1929). Nevertheless, the Fascist government and the pope were in open disagreement over the restriction of youth activities; this culminated in a strong papal letter (Non abbiamo bisogno, 1931), arguing the impossibility of being at once a Fascist and a Catholic. Relations between Mussolini and the Holy See were cool ever after.

[edit] Lateran pacts of 1929

Main article: Lateran treaty

Negotiations for the settlement of the Roman Question began in 1926 between the government of Italy and the Holy See, and in 1929 they culminated in the agreements of the three Lateran Pacts, signed for King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy by Prime Minister Benito Mussolini and for Pope Pius XI by Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Gasparri in the Lateran Palace (hence the name by which they are known).

The Lateran treaty included a political treaty, which created the state of the Vatican City and guaranteed full and independent sovereignty to the Holy See. The Pope was pledged to perpetual neutrality in international relations and to abstention from mediation in a controversy unless specifically requested by all parties. The concordat established Catholicism as the religion of Italy. And the financial agreement was accepted as settlement of all the claims of the Holy See against Italy arising from the loss of temporal power in 1870.

The sum thereby given to the Holy See was actually less than Italy declared it would pay under the terms of the Law of Guarantees of 1871, by which the Italian government guaranteed to Pope Pius IX and his successors the use of, but not sovereignty over, the Vatican and Lateran Palaces and a yearly income of 3,250,000 lire as indemnity for the loss of sovereignty and territory. The Holy See, on the grounds of the need for clearly manifested independence from any political power in its exercise of spiritual jurisdiction, refused to accept this settlement, and the Popes thereafter considered themselves prisoners in the Vatican, a small, limited area inside Rome.

[edit] Reichskonkordat

Main article: Reichskonkordat

The Reichskonkordat, signed on July 20, 1933, between Germany and the Holy See remains the most important and controversial of Pacelli's concordats. A national concordat with Germany was one of Pacelli's main objectives as secretary of state. As nuncio during the 1920s, he had made unsuccessful attempts to obtain German agreement for such a treaty, and between 1930 and 1933 he attempted to initiate negotiations with representatives of successive German governments, but the opposition of Protestant and Socialist parties, the instability of national governments and the care of the individual states to guard their autonomy thwarted this aim. In particular, the questions of denominational schools and pastoral work in the armed forces prevented any agreement on the national level, despite talks in the winter of 1932.^[18][19]

Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor on 30 January 1933 and sought to gain international respectability and to remove internal opposition by representatives of the Church and the Catholic Centre Party. He sent his vice chancellor Franz von Papen, a Catholic nobleman and former member of the Centre Party, to Rome to offer negotiations about a Reichskonkordat.^[20] On behalf of Cardinal Pacelli, his long-time associate Prelate Ludwig Kaas, the out-going chairman of the Centre Party, negotiated first drafts of the terms with Papen.^[21] The concordat was finally signed, by Pacelli for the Vatican and von Papen for Germany, on 20 July and ratified on September 10, 1933.^[22]

Between 1933 to 1939, Pacelli issued 55 protests of violations of the Reichskonkordat. Most notably, early in 1937, Pacelli asked several German cardinals, including Michael Cardinal von Faulhaber to help him write a protest of Nazi violations of the Reichskonkordat; this was to become Pius XI's encyclical Mit Brennender Sorge. The encyclical, condemning the view that "exalts race, or the people, or the State, or a particular form of State ... above their standard value and divinizes them to an idolatrous level", was written in German instead of Latin and read in German churches on Palm Sunday 1937.^[23]

[edit] World War II

When Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, the Vatican declared neutrality to avoid being drawn into the conflict and also to avoid occupation by the Italian military. In 1944, the German Army occupied Rome. Adolf Hitler proclaimed that he would respect Vatican neutrality. However several incidents, such as giving aid to downed Allied airmen, nearly caused Nazi Germany to invade the Vatican. Rome was liberated by the Allies after only a few weeks of occupation.

[edit] Second Vatican Council

The continuing strength of the forces within the church favoring theological innovation and energetic reform became unmistakably evident at the Second Vatican Council, convened by Pope John XXIII (1958 - 1963), and found expression especially in its decrees on ecumenism, religious liberty, the liturgy, and the nature of the church. The ambivalence of some of those decrees, however, and the disciplinary turmoil and doctrinal dissension following the ending of the council, brought about new challenges to papal authority.

On October 11, 1962, Pope John XXIII opened the Second Ecumenical Vatican Council. The 21st ecumenical council of the Catholic church emphasized the universal call to holiness and brought many changes in practices, including an increased emphasis on ecumenism; fewer rules on penances, fasting and other devotional practices; and initiating a revision of the services, which were to be slightly simplified and made supposedly more accessible by allowing the use of native languages instead of Latin. Opposition to changes inspired by the Council gave rise to the movement of Traditionalist Catholics who disagree with changing the old forms of worship.

On December 7, 1965, a Joint Catholic-Orthodox Declaration of His Holiness Pope Paul VI and the Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras I lifted the mutual excommunication against Catholic and Orthodox which had been in force since the Great Schism of 1054.

During the Second Vatican Council, Catholic bishops drew back a bit from the doctrine of papal primacy. They opted instead for a vision of church administration which looked a bit more like the church during the first millennium: collegial, communal, and a joint operation among a group of equals rather than an absolute monarchy under a single ruler.

The bishops didn’t go so far as to say that the pope didn’t exercise supreme authority over the church, but they did insist that all bishops share in this authority. In essence, the idea is that the Christian community is one that consists of communion of local churches which do not entirely give up their authority as a result of membership in a larger organization. In this view, the pope serves as a symbol of unity and works to ensure the continuation of that unity.

[edit] Challenges to Papal authority

The establishment of national conferences of bishops tended to erode papal authority to some degree, and Pope Paul VI's encyclical Humanae Vitae (1968), reaffirming the prohibition of artificial birth control, was met with both evasion and defiance. By the late 1970s papal authority itself had become a bone of contention.

[edit] Traditionalist Catholics

On June 30, 1988, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre of the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX), consecrates four men as bishops at Ecône, Switzerland without the express permission of the Pope. Lefebvre et al. automatically incurs excommunication according to canon law. Traditionalist SSPX have been in schism ever since.^[24]

[edit] Sedevacantism

Main article: Sedevacantism

Sedevacantism is a theological position embraced by a minority of traditionalist Catholics which holds that the papacy has been vacant since the death of Pope Pius XII in 1958 (or, in some cases, the death of Pope John XXIII in 1963). Sedevacantists believe that the subsequent claimants to the papal office — Paul VI (1963–1978), John Paul I (1978), John Paul II (1978–2005) and Benedict XVI (since 2005) — have been neither true Catholics nor true popes.

The term "sedevacantism" is derived from the Latin phrase sede vacante, which means "while the see is vacant". The phrase is used (though not exclusively) to refer to the Holy See in the period between a pope's death or resignation and the election of his successor.

Some groups of traditionalist Catholics reject the generally recognized Popes and give allegiance instead to alternative Popes of their own choosing, resulting in a schism. Since they hold that the See of Rome is headed by their nominee and thus is not vacant, they are not sedevacantists in the strict sense. However, the term "sedevacantist" is often applied to them because, in order to proceed to select their own Pope, they had first to declare that the Holy See had become vacant. Another term for them is "conclavist".

[edit] Pope Paul VI

Pope Paul VI (1963-1978), however, continued the ecumenical efforts of John XXIII in his contacts with Protestant and Orthodox churches, as in his attempt to make discreet moves in the direction of pragmatic accommodation with the communist regimes of eastern Europe, a policy that would have been unthinkable during the reigns of Pope Pius XI and Pope Pius XII. Paul VI also reorganized the curia and spoke strongly for peace and social justice.

[edit] John Paul II

With the accession of Pope John Paul II, the church had, for the first time since Adrian VI in the 16th century, a non-Italian pope.

John Paul II has been credited with helping to bring down communism in eastern Europe by sparking what amounted to a peaceful revolution in his Polish homeland. Lech Walesa, the founder of the Solidarity worker movement that ultimately toppled communism, credited John Paul with giving Poles the courage to rise up. "The pope started this chain of events that led to the end of communism," Walesa said. "Before his pontificate, the world was divided into blocs. Nobody knew how to get rid of communism. "He simply said: Don't be afraid, change the image of this land."

Gorbachev himself acknowledged publicly the role of John Paul II in the fall of Communism. "What has happened in Eastern Europe in recent years would not have been possible without the presence of this Pope, without the great role even political that he has played on the world scene" (quoted in La Stampa, March 3, 1992).

Perhaps the most significant statement the pope made after the fall of Communism throughout his entire pontificate was that "the claim to build a world without God has been shown to be an illusion" (Prague, April 21, 1990). For John Paul II it was only a matter of when and how Communism would fall. Communism as a system, in John Paul II's opinion, fell not only by the hand of divine Providence, but as a consequence of its own mistakes and abuses. John Paul II repeated the content of Christianity, its religious and moral message, its defense of the human person, insisting that this is a principle to be followed. Thus, in his estimation, Christianity itself became the determining factor in the fall of Communism.

While celebrating the fall of Communism, however, John Paul warned against the dangers of capitalism. "Unfortunately, not everything the West proposes as a theoretical vision or as a concrete lifestyle reflects Gospel values." He saw in capitalism certain "viruses": secularism, indifferentism, hedonistic consumerism, practical materialism, and also formal atheism.

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

• Pennington, Arthur Robert (1882). Epochs of the Papacy: From Its Rise to the Death of Pope Pius IX. in 1878. G. Bell and Sons. 
• Duffy, Eamon (2002). Saints and Sinners: A History of the Popes. Yale University Press. 
• Richard McBrien, Lives of the Popes: The Pontiffs from St. Peter to John Paul II
• P. G. Maxwell-Stuart, Chronicle of the Popes: The Reign-by-Reign Record of the Papacy over 2000 Years
• Claudio Rendina, The Popes: Histories and Secrets
• Geoffrey Barraclough, The Medieval Papacy (Library of World Civilization)
• Scott Butler, Jesus, Peter and the Keys
• Brandon Toropov, The Complete Idiot's Guide(R) to the Popes and the Papacy
• Sullivan, Francis A. From Apostles to Bishops: The Development of the Episcopacy in the Early Church, ISBN 0-8091-0534-9.
• McCabe, Joseph, 'A History Of The Popes', Watts & Co, London, 1939.
• Wright, Larry, 'Christianity, Astrology And Myth,(2000)Oak Hill Free Press, California, USA. ISBN: 0 9518796 1 0
• James L. Barker, 'Apostasy from the Divine Church, (1960), Bookcraft, Salt Lake City, Utah, ISBN 0 8849454 4 8

[edit] See also

• Pope
• Avignon Papacy
• Holy See
• History of the Vatican City
• List of Popes
• List of popes (graphical)
• Chronological list of Popes
• List of 10 longest-reigning Popes
• List of 10 shortest-reigning Popes
• List of ages of Popes
• African popes
• List of French popes
• List of German popes
• List of canonized Popes
• Caesaropapism
• Sedevacantism
• Investiture Controversy
• Myths and legends surrounding the Papacy
• Prophecy of the Popes