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Monday, October 1, 2012

Lesson 25 - The Papacy from Innocent III to Boniface VIII


1.   INTRODUCTION
-           Since Gregory VII, the papacy achieved a dizzying and untenable height with Innocent III.
-   In Germany, Henry VI died leaving his two-year old son Frederick II as heir. There was a struggle in the succession which reinforced the primatial position of the papacy in the whole Western Church.
-   All that the Gregorian reform had striven for and Gregory VII had demanded in his Dictatus Papae (1075) was realized under Innocent III.

KEY CONCEPTS OF PAPACY AS ZENITH OF POWER
-   PLENITUDO POTESTATIS:   The Pope fully possessed the plenitudo potestatis (plenitude of power) as he is the supreme legislator, judge, and administrator and exercise this sovereign assurance over the whole Church in so far the universal to fulfill their mission and the mission of Christ to be fulfilled.
-   IMPERIUM ROMANUM:   The Imperium Romanum is the idea of papal world domination deeply rooted not just in the religious and political thought of the age but stemmed from the Christian responsibility which a reformed papacy felt for Western Christianity. Nothing political, Germany still has its own king and not lose independence. It is focused on the universality of mankind, the ideal of common value with common destiny.
-   CHRISTIANITAS/ POPULUS CHRISTIANUS:   The Christianitas/ Populus Christianus is the global unity of the people who share the same faith. It is supernatural and therefore the supranational community of all Christians.  The real ruler is Jesus Christ who is represented by the two lights: the Pope (sun) and the Emperor (moon) in governing Christendom.
-   CAPUT CHRISTIANITATIS:   The Pope is the caput Christianitatis because he is the head and guide of the western world which, though consisting of many people, was united in the same faith.
-   IMPERATOR:  The Supreme Judge. It is meant here without any political connotation.
-   VICARIUS CHRISTI:   a more theological title which means the administration of the papal office solely in the knowledge of his responsibility to God.


2.   INNOCENT III (1198-1216)
-           Lothar Segni was born in 1160.
-           He studied Theology and canon law in Paris and Bologna.
-   He became a member of the college of cardinals during the papacy of his uncle Clement III (1187-1191)

HIERARCHIA
-   Innocent III showed a great openness to all the problems of an age which was filled with cultural, political, social, and religious tensions and contrasts.
-   Through internal consistency and strength he forced the many diverse tendencies to conform to a uniform principle of order which, in light of the time, could only be papal order.
-   If Innocent interfered with secular matters, he did so out of responsibility and the conviction that all things in the world must submit to God’s Order, and that even kings and princes were subject to God’s judgment.
-   The world appeared to Innocent III as Hierarchia which means holy order/ arrangement. Everything is arranged by God. Everything is established in beautiful arrangement; the fine distinction between purely political and purely spiritual, between Church and State, had not been so refined that overlapping and infringement could be avoided.

RATIONE PECCATI
-   The pope always felt justified and even obligated to intervene whenever order was disturbed through moral guilt or objective injustice.

ARBITER MUNDI
-   Thus as caput Christianitatis he must be an arbiter mundi meaning any difficult questions may be referred to him.

DOUBLE ELECTION OF 1198
-       Because the Pope is the arbiter mundi, he intervened with the German struggle for the throne after the double election of 1198.
-       He did not claim approbation of election itself but merely the judgment of moral qualities of the candidates.
-       He rejected Staufen[1] Philipp of Swabia – violent man + Staufic Sicilian policy[2]
-       But when Philipp of Swabia turned out to be a moderate man and gave guarantees with respect to his Sicilian policy after victory over anti-king Otto IV à Pope concluded peace with him.
-       In 1208, Philipp was assassinated and Otto won recognition in the empire à the pope crown him unhesitantly as emperor in 1209.
-       The pope was disappointed because Otto did not keep his word and in 1210 he upholds the Staufic Sicilian policy
-       Innocent III now disputed Otto’s right to the crown and set against him the now adult Frederick II who sworn not to attempt to unite Sicily with the German crown. 

IMPLICATION OF THE SICILIAN POLICY TO THE PAPACY
-       It is not a purely territorial one but affects the whole Church and therefore universal.
-       The unification of Sicily with the German empire will make the Pope as subordinate imperial bishop and would have taken from the Pope the independence from the universal empire.
-       The Western dualism will be lost.
-       Innocent III believed that the papacy could only fulfill its universal function if there is independence and sovereignty of the Church State.

INNOCENT III’S CONCEPT OF THE PROPER STRUCTURE OF THE EUROPEAN WORLD
-       The state should be combined in a higher order under papa leadership since the spiritual is superior to the secular.
-       Hence, idea of a papal liege lordship over the Christian people of the West
-       No question on the establishment of hierocracy
-       The Christianitas headed by the Pope was not to be a state; it was not at all a real societas, but the relationship the relation of the Papacy and the Christian world which is appropriate to the age.
-       Therefore, the sovereignty of the secular rulers remain and the papal claim to leadership was only an indirect character.
-       Papal leadership merely demanded the acknowledgment of the Supreme norms of the Christian faith and of the moral authority of the papacy. So, dualism was preserved.

-       Papal liege lordship was started in the contested Italy.
-       Empress Constance, Kings of Denmark, England, Aragon, Dalmatia, Portugal, Poland, Bohemia, Hungary and other smaller territories accepted their countries from the Pope as fiefs.
-       The preservation of law and peace, the traditional duties of the emperor, passed to the papacy and a papal system of vassalage developed which was constructed entirely on the strong moral authority of the Pope.
-       Papal Primacy:   papal intervention in Episcopal elections and reserve the causae maiores for the Curia in Rome.
-       (+) reform in papal administrative offices, of monasticism and of the clergy à good order

INQUISITION
-       The pope put unworthy prelates and bishops before the inquisitional court.
-       At first, he is mild and lenient but upon the death of Cistercian Peter Castelnou, his papa legate, in Jan 1208 by the Cathari in Southern France à crusade of 1209  à papal legate Arnaldus Amalrici and Count Simon of Montfort were to blame for the bloodshed.

INNOCENT III ON THE POVERTY MOVEMENT
-       1201 –  he gave his special concern to the Lombardic Humiliati
-       1208 –  he founded the Alliance of Poor Catholics
-       1209/1210 – kind reception to St. Francis of Assisi who requested for papal authorization.
-       Innocent III distance from wealth and never felt its addiction.

FOURTH LATERAN COUNCIL (November 1215): PEAK OF INNOCENT III’S PONTIFICATE
-       Attended by 500 bishops and 800 abbots
-       Definition of the doctrine of transubstantiation, ordinances regarding obligatory annual confession, and communion at Easter.
-       Innocent died soon after the council in July 16, 1216 and his successors did not maintain the high ideals of a Universal Church.

3.   THE LAST BATTLE BETWEEN THE PAPACY AND THE EMPIRE

FREDERICK II
-       Frederick II  revived the question on the precedence of the State or the Church
-       Frederick II revived the Staufic policy over Sicily instead of going to the crusade as he promised à   threat to the Pal States à Gregory IX excommunicated him in 1228
-       While under the ban, he went to the crusade and successfully obtain the cession of the Holy land to the Christians by treaties with Sultan Al Kamil.
-       1230 – Gregory IX lifted the ban
-       1239 - He was excommunicated again for his revival of the Staufic policy.
-       1241 – His goal was to capture Rome and make it the seat of his universal empire à reducing the Pope into a mere imperial episcopate.
-       His death created distuirbed peace in germany because of elections and counter-elections.

INNOCENT IV (1243-1254) AND THE STAUFIC POLICY (Again!)
-       Innocent died soon after the council in July 16, 1216 and his successors did not maintain the high ideals of a Universal Church.
-       First Council of Lyons – excommunicated Frederick II once more.
-       To escape the danger of the Staufic policy, he transferred lower Italy, Sicily and Naples as papal fiefs to Charles of Anjou.
-       After Fredrick II’s death, Conrad IV (1250-1254) fought for the Staufic heritage
-       After Conrad IV’s death, Manfred, his half brother, retains the crown to his 2 year-old son, Conradin
-       After Manfred’s death (1266), Conradin set out in 1267 to regain Lower Italy but he was beheaded by Charles of Anjou in 1268.
-       Imperial power comes to a cruel destruction.
-       The Papacy also declines as it can’t maintain its Universal position because of the rising national states and dissolution of the western community.
-       France now became the strongest power.

4.   BONIFACE VIII (1294-1303)
-       Pope of the Jubilee; He is the last Medieval Pope
-       He dreams of a universal theocratic western state under papal leadership
-       Now that France is the strongest power, Philip the Fair (1285-1314) will be his enemy because he also dreams of French world domination.

UNAM SANCTAM (1302) [10 points]
-       Relied on the doctrine of the two-swords and declared obedience to the pope is a necessity for salvation.
-       It asserts the supremacy of the papacy and and the universal rule of Papacy over State.

THE FALL OF BONIFACE VIII AND THE PAPACY
-       Pope was arrested in the papal palace of Anagni in September 1303
-       The sacrilege of the family of Sciarra Colonna in the Palace of Anagni, where the Pope was spitted on, insulted and seriously beaten by the followers of the Colonnas with the approval of the powerful French William of Nogaretà symbol of rebellion of the New Age against the Middle ages:  
a.     rising laicism and secularism against ecclesiasticism
b.     triumph of absolutistic nationalism over universal Christian spirit
-       The citizens of Anagni liberated the Pope after 2 days.
-       After few weeks, Boniface VIII died.



[1] a dynasty of German emperor who wants to control Sicily.
[2] Staufic concept of uniting lower Italy and Sicily with the German empire was regarded by the papacy as reprehensible, dangerous and illegal.

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