THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
tion to the emperor and other princes subject to the pope's control. In the Church the pope alone commands the supreme and summary power — which exalts him above all accountability before any human judge and above and before a general council. This was claimed not in virtue of the ancient canons, but solely through the dogma of divine right. The pope claimed a general right of dispensation and absolution; he alone could translate and remove bishops; whereas the archbishops and such titular bishops as he consecrated were required to render an oath of obedience patterned after the vassal's oath of allegiance. He heard cases of appeal from all quarters of the Church, and even decided primary cases. He reserved benefices for his own disposal; he assessed particular churches and the clergy for general ecclesiastical objects; and he sent abroad his delegates to all parts of the contemporary Roman Catholic world to carry out his rightful behest, overruling the ordinary local church tribunals. These theories reach their high tide at the beginning of the fourteenth century, are collectively termed the " papal system," and found their classic expression in the much-quoted bull of Bonifacius VIII., Unam sanctam ecclesiam (q.v.; text in Reich, Documents, pp. 193-195; Eng. transl. in Thatcher and McNeal, Source Book, pp. 314-317). At the same period, and primarily in France, the temporal power began to react against the excessive stretch of papal power, and its encroachments upon the temporal jurisdiction, wThile toward the close of the same century, evoked by the great schism (see Schism) which began in 1378, there cropped out a new trend, the so-called " episcopal " system, canceling or denying the " papal," which was dogmatically rejected by the Vatican Council of 1869-70, and that deliverance has been accepted by the Roman Catholic Church as complete and final.
The present canon law doctrine distinguishes the pope's rights under two heads, " primacy of jurisdiction " and " primacy of honor." In virtue of the primacy of jurisdiction, there ac- 6. Primacy crues to him the supreme power over
of Juris- the Church in government and leaderdiction, ship ; and in the execution of his charge he is bound only by dogma and the divine right. As touching any other law that has force in the Church, he is to respect the same so long as it exists. The most important rights involved in the primacy are the supreme right of legislation; the supreme direction and final decision of matters affecting ecclesiastical offices; the supreme judicial competency in cases of dispute, correction, discipline; regulation of the various religious institutions, particularly the orders and congregations; the supreme control of the ecclesiastical exchequer and assets of property; the right to uphold unity in the liturgy, as also in the administration of the sacraments and use of sacramentals; to direct the festivals in the Church at large; the right of beatification and canonization; the right of according indulgences and regulating fasts; and that of reserving for himself the absolution from sins pertaining to the sphere of conscience. Furthermore, the primacy carries with it the supreme
doctrinal authority. And when the pope voices his decisions in this respect, speaking or publishing ex cathedra; when in virtue of his apostolic authority as pastor and teacher of all Christians he defines a proposition affecting faith or morals in the interests of the whole Church, his pronouncements are then informed with infallibility by reason of divine assistance, without need of any further assent on the part of the Church, as in a general council (in the Constitutio Vaticana of July 18, 1870, the bull Pastor ceternus, iv.). It is in virtue of this doctrinal authority that he can issue spiritual decrees in the cause, of enlarging the dogma, and of defining questionable dogmatic subjects; that he can condemn errors of doctrine, institute and direct missions, found educational establishments, and watch over the instruction therein dispensed. According to this " Vatican Constitution " the pope is not only empowered to exercise all these rights which his primacy conveys, in the manner of a supreme court, but he is also, by virtue of the same primacy, the universal bishop in all the Church. That is, he has an immediate, complete and canonical episcopal power over all churches, dioceses, and believers. For although it is an exaggerated statement to say, as do the Old Catholics, that under this Vatican dogma the bishops have become legally dwarfed into mere vicars or attorneys of the pope, yet the Ultramontanists may deny that any change whatever has been brought about in the status of the bishops by force of the Vaticanum. While the Vatican Council by no means put aside the episcopal office as a distinct, or " independent " office, yet the bishops are in fact reduced to the same position as the vicars dependent on the pope directly. Owing to his supreme directive authority over the Church, the pope also represents the Church abroad, particularly in relation to civil governments, and this with a standing recognized in international law. But this is not to imply that, even in the states where Roman Catholics are in the majority, he enjoys a sovereignty over Roman Catholic citizens on like terms with the civil power; nor that his position in respect to civil governments is to be deemed equivalent to that between two independent sovereigns and states.
The pope's " primacy of honor " finds expression as follows: (1) In certain specified designations,
titles, and forms of address appertain- 7. Primacy ing to him alone: such as papa, pontiof Honor, fex maximus, or summus pontifex;
vicarius Petri, vicarius Dei or Christi; servus servorum Dei; and in the forms of address, Sanctitas tua, or vestra, or sanctissime pater. (2) In the insignia of the papal dignity: the tiara, a headdress evolved from the combination of miter and crown, with three golden bands about the miter; the pedum rectum (straight pastoral staff); and the pallium, which, in distinction from the archbishops, he wears at all times and places, when officiating at mass. (3) The pope is entitled to the so-called adoratio, the homage due to him by tin1 faithful in genuflection and kissing the papal foot, now restricted solely to ceremonious audiences and formal acts of homage; while with ruling princes, it consists merely in kissing his hand. Apart from