United States or Philippines ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The Papacy, the great political Church of mediaeval Europe, is the historical continuation of the State religion of Rome and the Pontificate of the Roman emperors. The Greek Church is the historical continuation of the Eastern offset of the same system. The national State Churches are the historical continuations of the tribal religions and priesthoods of the Northern tribes.
THE GALLICAN CHURCH. Louis XIV. desired, without any rupture with Rome, to take to himself a power in ecclesiastical affairs like that assumed in England by Henry VIII. Under the pontificate of Innocent XI., the assembly of the French clergy passed four propositions asserting the rights of the national Gallican Church, and limiting the Pope's prerogative . The king had for his ecclesiastical champion the able and eloquent Bossuet, the Bishop of Meaux.
At this moment the long vacancy of the papacy, which followed the pontificate of Benedict XI., Boniface VIII.'s short-lived successor, had not yet come to an end. Soon, however, Winchelsea's zeal on behalf of papal taxation was to be ill requited.
While in Asia he spent much time with the old philosopher Euphrates, of whose daily life he has given a pleasing description in the tenth letter of his first book. On his return he studied for the bar, and pleaded with success. He passed through the several offices of state, and prided himself not a little on the fact that he attained the consulate and pontificate at an earlier age than Cicero.
It was under this pontificate, and during the seven months in which Rome, conquered by the Lutheran soldiers of the Constable of Bourbon, saw holy things subjected to the most frightful profanations, that Francesco Cenci was born.
A little farther on, Benvenuto tells us that many, even after the election of Benedict to the Papacy, reputed Celestine to be still the true and rightful Pope, in spite of his renunciation, because, they said, such a dignity could not be renounced. To this statement the translator adds, "because it comes directly from God," a clause for the benefit of readers under the pontificate of Pius IX.
It was followed in 1805 by the Life and Pontificate of Leo the Tenth, which, though also a work of great ability, had not the same success his treatment of the Reformation offending Protestants and Roman Catholics alike. Both works were translated into various languages.
In the sixteenth century the Pontificate exposed to new dangers more formidable than had ever before threatened it, was saved by a new religious order, which was animated by intense enthusiasm and organized with exquisite skill. When the Jesuits came to the rescue of the Papacy, they found it in extreme peril: but from that moment the tide of battle turned.
For many years Hildebrand was the real director of papal policy, and long before his election as pope, in 1073, he worked to accomplish the reforms that distinguish his pontificate, which continued till his death, in 1085. As a part of the Holy Roman Empire, Italy held a dual relation to the emperor and the pope.
And if they trusted in the riches of the merchants of that colony, it was seen afterwards how fallacious such a hope was, for in all the years that the pontificate was held by Leo and Clement of the Medici family, by Julius III, and by Marcellus, who all came from Florentine territory, although the last-named lived but a short time, and for all the greatness of so many Cardinals and the riches of so many merchants, it remained, as it still does, in the same condition in which it was left by our San Gallo.
Word Of The Day