Pope Clement XIV
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Clement XIV | |
 |
|
| Papacy began | May 19, 1769 |
|---|---|
| Papacy ended | September 22, 1774 |
| Predecessor | Clement XIII |
| Successor | Pius VI |
| Birth name | Giovanni Vincenzo Antonio Ganganelli |
| Born | October 31, 1705 Sant' Arcangelo di Romagna, Romagna |
| Died | September 22, 1774 (aged 68) Rome, Italy |
| Other popes named Clement | |
Pope Clement XIV (31 October 1705 – 22 September 1774), born Giovanni Vincenzo Antonio Ganganelli, was Pope from 1769 to 1774. At the time of his election, he was the only Franciscan friar in the College of Cardinals.
Contents |
[edit] Biography
[edit] Early life
Ganganelli was born in Santarcangelo di Romagna. He received his education from the Jesuits at Rimini and the Piarists of Urbino, and in 1724, at the age of nineteen, entered the Order of Friars Minor Conventual of St. Francis with the Franciscan name of Lorenzo Francesco. In 1741 he was made definitor generalis of the order (Catholic Encyclopedia). Ganganelli became a friend of Pope Benedict XIV (1740–58). In 1758 he was appointed by that Pope to investigate the issue of the traditional blood libel regarding the jews, which he found to be untrue[1]. Pope Clement XIII (1758–69) appointed him a cardinal in 1759, at the insistence of Lorenzo Ricci, the General of the Jesuits.
Ganganelli was elected Pope Clement XIV on May 19, 1769 and was installed on June 4, 1769, after a conclave that had been sitting since 15 February 1769, heavily influenced by the political manoeuvres of the ambassadors of Catholic sovereigns who were opposed to the Jesuits. Some of the pressure was subtle: for an unprecedented impromptu visit to the conclave by Emperor Joseph II (1765–90) and his brother the Grand Duke of Tuscany, officially incognito, the seals were broken, the Austrians inspected the proceedings with great interest and brought with them a festive banquet (Pirie 1965 p 269). During the previous pontificate the Jesuits had been expelled from Portugal and from all the Bourbon courts: France, Spain, Naples, and Parma; now the general suppression of the order was urged by the faction called the "court cardinals", who were opposed by the diminished pro-Jesuit faction, the Zelanti ("zealous"), who were generally opposed to the encroaching secularism of the Enlightenment.
King Louis XV's (1715–74) minister, the duc de Choiseul, had former experience of Rome as French ambassador, and was Europe's most skilled diplomat. "When one has a favour to ask of a Pope", he wrote, "and one is determined to obtain it, one must ask for two." Choiseul's suggestion, advanced to the other ambassadors, was that they should press, in addition to the Jesuit issue, territorial claims upon the Patrimony of Peter: the cession of Avignon and the Comtat Venaissin to France; to Spain the duchies of Benevento and Pontecorvo; for Naples an extension of territory adjoining the Papal States; and for Austria an immediate and final settlement of the vexed question of Parma and Piacenza that had occasioned a diplomatic rift with Pope Clement XIII.
[edit] Election to the papacy
Cardinal Ganganelli was elected pope on May 19, 1769, largely due to support of the Bourbon courts, which had expected that he would suppress the Society of Jesus. He took the name Clement XIV.
[edit] Pontificate
| Papal styles of Pope Clement XIV |
|
|
|
|
| Reference style | His Holiness |
| Spoken style | Your Holiness |
| Religious style | Holy Father |
| Posthumous style | None |
Clement XIV's policies were calculated from the outset to smooth the breaches with the Catholic Crowns that had developed during the previous pontificate. The dispute between the temporal and the spiritual Catholic authorities was perceived as a threat by Church authority, and Clement XIV worked towards the reconciliation of the European sovereigns. The arguing and fighting among the monarchs seemed poised to lead Europe towards heavy international competition – a situation which would have resembled the European situation in the late nineteenth century.
By yielding the Papal claims to Parma, Clement XIV obtained the restitution of Avignon and Benevento, and in general he succeeded in placing the relations of the spiritual and the temporal authorities on a friendlier footing. The Pope went on to engage in the suppression of the Jesuits, the decree to this effect being written in November 1772, and signed in July 1773.
This measure, to late nineteenth century Catholics, had covered Clement XIV's memory with infamy in his church, and was also quite controversial, with the Catholic Encyclopedia (?) supporting Clement XIV's suppression of the Jesuits as "abundantly justified".
His work was hardly accomplished, before Clement XIV, whose usual constitution was quite vigorous, fell into a languishing sickness, generally attributed to poison. No conclusive evidence of poisoning was ever produced. The claims that the Pope was poisoned were denied by those closest to him, and as the Annual Register for 1774 stated, he was over 70 and had been in ill health for some time.
Clement XIV expired on September 22, 1774, execrated by the Ultramontane party, but widely mourned by his subjects for his popular administration of the Papal States.
The Catholic Encyclopedia (or the 1876 Encyclopædia Britannica) opines that:
- no Pope has better merited the title of a virtuous man, or has given a more perfect example of integrity, unselfishness, and aversion to nepotism. Notwithstanding his monastic education, he proved himself a statesman, a scholar, an amateur of physical science, and an accomplished man of the world. As Pope Leo X (1513–21) indicates the manner in which the Papacy might have been reconciled with the Renaissance had the Reformation never taken place, so Ganganelli exemplifies the type of Pope which the modern world might have learned to accept if the movement towards free thought could, as Voltaire wished, have been confined to the aristocracy of intellect. In both cases the requisite condition was unattainable; neither in the 16th nor in the 18th century has it been practicable to set bounds to the spirit of inquiry otherwise than by fire and sword, and Ganganelli's successors have been driven into assuming a position analogous to that of Popes Paul IV (1555–59) and Pius V (1566–72) in the age of the Reformation. The estrangement between the secular and the spiritual authority which Ganganelli strove to avert is now irreparable, and his pontificate remains an exceptional episode in the general history of the Papacy, and a proof how little the logical sequence of events can be modified by the virtues and abilities of an individual.
Jacques Cretineau-Joly, however, wrote a critical history of the Pope's administration.
[edit] Bull forbidding Jesuits forever
On July 21, 1773, in Rome, pope Clement XIV finally issued a papal bull forbidding the Jesuits forever and irrevocably. The bull was called 'Dominus ac Redemptor Noster' (or Our Master and Redeemer). Here is the quote from this bull[2] that states this permanent suppression:
"Actuated by so many and important considerations, and, as we hope, aided by the presence and inspiration of the Holy Spirit; compelled, besides, by the necessity of our ministry, which strictly obliges us to conciliate, maintain, and confirm the peace and tranquility of the Christian republic, and remove every obstacle which may tend to trouble it;
having further considered that the said Company of Jesus can no longer produce those abundant fruits, and those great advantages, with a view to which it was instituted, approved by so many of our predecessors, and endowed with so many and extensive privileges; that, on the contrary, it was very difficult, not to say impossible, that the Church could recover a firm and durable peace so long as the said Society subsisted;
in consequence hereof, and determined by the particular reasons we have here alleged, and forced by other motives which prudence and the good government of the Church have dictated; the knowledge of which we reserve to ourselves; conforming ourselves to the examples of our predecessors, and particularly to that of Gregory X in the general Council of Lyons; the rather as, in the present case, we are determining upon the fate of a society classed among the mendicant orders, both by its institute and by its privileges; after a mature deliberation, we do, out of our certain knowledge, and the fulness of our apostolical power,
SUPPRESS AND ABOLISH THE SAID COMPANY: we deprive it of all activity whatever, of its houses, schools, colleges, hospitals, lands, and, in short, every other place whatsoever, in whatever kingdom or province they may be situated; we abrogate and annul its statutes, rules, customs, decrees, and constitutions, even though confirmed by oath, and approved by the Holy See or otherwise;
in like manner we annul all and every its privileges, indults, general or particular, the tenor whereof is, and is taken to be, as fully and as amply expressed in the present Brief as if the same were inserted word for word, in whatever clauses, form, or decree, or under whatever sanction their privileges may have been conceived. We declare all, and all kind of authority, the General, the provincials, the visitors, and other superiors of the said Society to be FOR EVER ANNULLED AND EXTINGUISHED, of what nature soever the said authority may be, as well in things spiritual as temporal.
We do likewise order that the said jurisdiction and authority be transferred to the respective ordinaries, fully and in the same manner as the said generals, &c. exercised it, according to the form, places, and circumstances with respect to the persons and under the conditions hereafter determined; forbidding, as we do hereby forbid, the reception of any person to the said Society, the novitiate or habit thereof.
And with regard to those who have already been admitted, our will is, that they be not received to make profession of the simple, solemn, absolute vows, under penalty of nullity, and such other penalties as we shall ordain;
Further, we do will, command, and ordain, that those who are now performing their novitiate be speedily, immediately, and actually sent back to their own homes; we do further forbid that those who have made profession of the first simple vows, but who are not yet admitted to either of the holy orders, be admitted thereto under any pretext or title whatever; whether on account of the profession they have already made in the said Society, or by virtue of any privileges the said Society has obtained, contrary to the tenor of the decrees of the Council of Trent.
[edit] Clement XIV and Mozart
Pope Clement XIV and the customs of the Catholic Church in Rome are described in letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and his father Leopold Mozart written from Rome in April and May of 1770 during their tour of Italy the same year. Leopold found the upper clergy offensively haughty, but was received by the pope with his son after Wolfgang demonstrated an amazing feat of musical memory. The papal chapel was famous for performing a Miserere by the seventeenth-century composer Gregorio Allegri whose music was not to be copied outside of the chapel on pain of excommunication. The fourteen-year-old Wolfgang was able to transcribe the composition in its entirety after a single hearing. Clement XIV knighted the young Mozart, the only ruler who ever accorded him a similar honor in his lifetime. Ever after, Mozart was able to pass himself off as a noble when he cared to.
[edit] References
- Initial text from the 9th edition (1876) of the Encyclopædia Britannica
- Valérie Pirie, 1965. The Triple Crown: An Account of the Papal Conclaves from the Fifteenth Century to Modern Times Spring Books, London
[edit] External links
"Pope Clement XIV" in the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia.
| Roman Catholic Church titles | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Clement XIII |
Pope 1769–1774 |
Succeeded by Pius VI |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
