PAPACY
632
PAPACY
against beinj:; stripped of the more extensive authority of their predecessors; the majority of Catholic scholars chafed ai^aiiisr the condition of abject servitude which the papal liierarchy, as it was understood by the Jes- uits, assigned to them ; and many governments became alarmed at the excessive claims, in behalf of the papacy, which were set up in the schools and the books of the Jesuits ; but public sentiment in Catholic countries was, on the whole, in their favor. Thus, the popes were emboldened to reassert from time to time the medieval ideas of their predecessors, the most signilicant fact in this respect being the famous bull In Cana Domini, to which Urban VIII (1C23-1G44) gave its tinal form, and in which not only Saracens, pirates, and princes, who impose arbitrary taxes, but Lutherans, Zwinglians, and Calvinists were anathematized.
The Peace of Westphalia (1G48) demonstrated, how- ever, anew that the actual influence of the (lopcsupon the secular affairs, even in Catholic states, had irretrievably departed. The representatives of Protestant and Cath- olic governments met in common council to deliberate upon the peace of the world; the legal existence of Protestantism was recognised by all Catholic govern- ments ; while the pope, by his solitary and entirely in- effectual protest, revealed to the world, in a very con- spicuous manner, that however obstinately the theo- cratic ideas of the Middle Ages might still be adhered to by the ecclesiastical functionaries and devoted theo- logians, he had lost all control of the political world. In fact, the popes, from a political point of view, more and more appeared as the rulers of a petty Italian state (the states of the Church) rather than as the heads of a grand theocratical world-empire. Even in the College of Cardinals this view gradually gained strength ; and while none of tlie old claims of the papacy were dis- carded, many popes appeared to care as such for their particular state. The greater importance which now attached to the pope's character, as secular prince, man- ifests itself in the habit of selecting nearly all the occu- pants of the papal chair from among the great Italian families, and in the fact that none but Italians have been elected popes since Adrian VI (1522, 1523), who was a native of Holland. At the same time a tendency showed itself at times among the cardinals to increase the influence of their college by electing popes who were chiefly remarkable for the absence of energy and any prominent qualities of mind. Thus it was said that Innocent X (1644^1655) was made pope on the ground that he never said much, and had done still less; Clement X (1670-1C76), a feeble octogenarian, "did nothing except to weep over the administration of his family favorites;" Benedict XIII (1727-1730) "seemed always to regard the convent of the Domini- cans as his world ; Avhile his hypocritical favorite, Coscia, bartered away both Church and State, until primitive Christian simplicity became utterly ridiculous in a court so recklessly conformed to the world ;" and Clement XII (1730-1740) "was raised to the throne when old and blind" (Ilase, Church Hi.ttorii\
The episcopal tendencies in the Catholic Church which had made such a gallant struggle against the absorption of the old rights of the episcopacy by papal absolutism at the councils of Pisa, Constance, and Basle, and which even at Trent had lieon sufficiently powerful to thwart a part of the i)npal designs, made at the close of the 17th century a grand demonstration. An assembly of P>ench bishops and barons, which was convoked bj- Louis XIV in 1682, defined the views of the Galilean Church in regard to the prerogatives of the papacy in the four following famous propositions: 1, That Peter and his successors have received power from (lod in spiritual, but not in seculai- ajfairs ; 2, That this power is limited, not only by the decrees of the ("ouncil of Constance re- lating to the authority of general councils, but, 3, by the established prescriptions and usages of the (iallican Church ; and, 4, That the decisions of the pope, when not sustained by the authority of the Church, are not
infallible. This was one of the grandest and most im- portant manifestoes on the part of the bishops of the Catholic world against the papal theories of (iregory VII and his successors. The bishops of France, with but few exceptions, concurred in these resolutions; and thus one of the largest and oldest Catholic countries bore a unanimous, and therefore so significant a testi- mony, that France and the popes were radically dis- agreed as to the powers which in the Catholic Church belong to the papacj'. The pope. Innocent XI (167C- 1682), parried the dangerous blow with courage and skill. He had the proposition of the Galilean Assembly publich' burned at Home by the common hangman, and refused to sanction the consecration of any newly appointed bishops until the revocation of the four prop- ositions. The bishops in this conflict showed them- selves as cowardly as the pope was resolute, and the king likewise soon effected a reconciliation by comply- ing with the pope's demand. The bishops of France fur a long time remained divided into a (iallican and a papal or Ultramontane party, but the latter steadily gained ground.
A still greater triumph was gained by the papacy in the long doctrinal controversies caused by a post- humous work of bishop Jansenius of the Netherlands. The views on grace which were propounded in this work were accepted by many of the most eminent theologians of France and other countries, but the Jes- uits caused five of its propositions to be condemned. The friends of Jansenius contended that the five propo- sitions had been misunderstood at Eome, and had a sense different from the one in which they were con- demned by the pope. It was the first time that the question came up whether the pope had not only the right to make decisions in doctrinal controversies, but could also demand that his interpretation of any theo- logical work must be accepted as correct. Alexander VII (1655-1607) made this demand, and assured the world that the propositions of Jansenius were actually condemned in the sense intended by Jansenius. The Catholic world was for a long time agitated by this question ; but as the French government was deter- mined upon the extermination of the Jansenists even more than the pope, the novel demand of the jiapacy for an acknowledgment of its right to give an infallible interpretation of any theological work was tacitly ac- quiesced in. Only a small body in the Netherlands, the so-called Jansenists, persisted, under an archbishop of Utrecht and two bishops, in their resistance to this papal claim, maintaining to the present day, in spite of the oft-repeated papal anathemas, an independent ecclesiastical organization.