Papal Sovereignty Research Articles

A New History of Christian Empire: Excavating Pope Sylvester’s Oratory, 1636

This article examines how antiquarians in Rome used archaeological evidence—a site excavated from under the church of San Martino in Monti in 1636—to argue that Pope Sylvester (314–335) exercised spiritual and temporal authority over the Roman Empire. The document which had formed the bedrock of papal sovereignty, the Donation of Constantine, was shown to be a forgery in the early modern period. Protestant reformers pointed to the document’s contradictions to dismantle the Catholic Church’s claims that its preeminence originated in the privileges bestowed on Sylvester by the Emperor Constantine. I use archival materials and a history of the site published in 1639 to describe how antiquarians claimed that they found the house church of Sylvester, which he converted into a church after Constantine’s baptism and then used to host a Roman Council in 324 (before Nicaea). I offer a new perspective on Catholic confessional historiography by observing how antiquarians used material evidence to provide a foundation for early papal power in the Roman Empire, thereby bypassing the need for spurious documents such as the Donation. This new tradition, which lives on today despite modern archaeological critiques, illustrates the malleability of Catholic epistemologies and historiography in the wake of textual criticism.

Consilium Interrumpitur: Understanding the Interrupted Work of the First Vatican Council (1869–1870)

Consilium Interrumpitur:Understanding the Interrupted Work of the First Vatican Council (1869–1870) Kenneth L. Parker (bio) Vatican I: The Council and the Making of the Ultramontane Church. By John W. O'Malley. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2018. 320 pages. Hardcover, $24.95. ISBN 9780674979987. Revered and Reviled: A Re-Examination of Vatican Council I. By John R. Quinn. New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 2017. vi + 117 pages. Hardcover, $49.10. ISBN: 0824523296. Australian Catholic Bishops and the First Vatican Council 1869–1870: An Historical Reflection. By Peter Price. Northcote, Victoria, Australia: Morning Star Publishing, 2017. 208 pages. Paperback, $35.66 AUD. ISBN: 0995416176. Vatican I and Vatican II: Councils in the Living Tradition. By Kristen M. Colberg. Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 2016. xiv + 162 pages. Paperback, $19.95. ISBN: 9780814683149. The impact of the First Vatican Council (1869–1870) permeates contemporary Roman Catholic life and culture, though few know the historical context of the Council or appreciate its perduring influence. Though disrupted by war after only eight months, never to reconvene, its definition of papal sovereignty and infallibility has shaped Roman Catholic understandings of ecclesiology and has been a point of contention inside and outside the Church ever since. As the sesquicentenary remembrance of the Council approaches, four books have been published, between 2016 and 2018, offering opportunities to inform gaps [End Page 72] in our knowledge and correct impressions that have circulated for 150 years. This review article opens with an overview of how the Council came to be and the impact of its reception. Attention then turns to the four texts under review, with consideration given to whether they represent continuity or change from prior approaches to the subject. The concluding portion of this essay reflects on the way these works reinforce John Henry Newman's enduring relevance in the study of the First Vatican Council and our reception of it in the twenty-first century. historical overview An impressive pontifical ceremony opened the First Vatican Council on the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception (8 December 1869), and the final conciliar vote on, and papal promulgation of, Pastor Æternus marked the last act of the Council (18 July 1870). The following day, 19 July 1870, the Franco-Prussian War erupted, French troops withdrew from Rome, and Italian nationalists gained control of the city two months later. Bishops fled Rome, and Pius IX prorogued the Council. It never reassembled. The pope declared himself a prisoner of the Vatican as the last territorial vestiges of his temporal power were annexed by the unified Italian nation, and Rome became its capital. Historians have noted the irony of the pope's supreme spiritual authority being defined in the Council as his temporal power ended.1 Yet this watershed moment in Roman Catholic history had been more than two centuries in the making. The late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries proved a period of defensive retrenchment for the papacy in the North Atlantic region. Nation after nation in western Europe negotiated, and received, concordats from the papacy that limited the authority of popes and gave governments discretion in shaping the ecclesial life of their subjects, particularly in the selection of bishops.2 These centuries witnessed the rise of ideologies that reflected evolving conciliar principles with roots in the fifteenth century. Gallicanism, Febronianism, cisalpinism, and Josephinism, as well as a striking form of Irish gallicanism in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries,3 all asserted the integrity of local, national churches and the authority of their local ordinary or bishop, and favored [End Page 73] limitations on the universal jurisdiction of the bishop of Rome. While these various forms of conciliar ecclesiology honored the pope as the center of unity and the arbiter of disputes, they affirmed the collective apostolic authority of bishops when gathered in council. Even when scattered throughout the world, episcopal consensus carried weight that popes must not ignore.4 As temporal rulers, popes of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries struggled with circumstances that forced them to choose alliances with religious foes against Catholic rulers in order to ensure the preservation of the papacy's temporal interests. These conflicts of interest eroded trust in...

La noción de soberanía papal y sus límites en la teoría conciliar de Francisco de Vitoria

Este trabajo muestra cómo es la singular noción de soberanía papal postulada por Francisco de Vitoria en el ámbito eclesiástico la que articula su teoría conciliar, equidistante de las doctrinas radicales tanto del papalismo como del conciliarismo sorbonista. Una teoría de corte moderado y reformista, opuesta al absolutismo político, que apunta elementos capitales para la configuración jurídica de un modelo de gobierno limitado

TO THE QUESTION ABOUT BACKGROUND OF THE VATICAN CITY STATE

History of Vatican City State, as the spiritual center of Catholics, features of the formation and development of the worldʼs smallest state, activities and functioning of organs and symbiosis of temporal and spiritual power in the hands of the head of state - the Pope is extremely topical issues of interest to more people - both believers and atheists. This article is dedicated to the creation of Vatican City State by the signature of the Lateran Pacts, which took place on February 11th, 1929, in the Popesʼ Room at the Lateran Palace. The Lateran Pacts aimed to settle once and for all what was known as the «Roman Question», regarding relations between the Vatican and the former Papal States that had become modern Italy. The significant event ended decades of vicissitudes of the Papacy and the Church in Italy, beginning a new period of the history of the Church and of the Italian People. The Lateran Pacts occupy a primary and unique position in the sphere of the relations with Governments and States maintained by the Holy See. It was focused attention on the historical analysis of the prerequisites and consequences of the Lateran agreements. The Lateran Pacts was the birth of the independence of the Vatican as modern state. The state of the Vatican City became a sovereign state with the pope as its recognized leader. The papacy recognized the state of Italy with Rome as its capital. On the other hand, Italy recognized papal sovereignty over the Vatican City and also secured full independence for the pope. The status of the two states changed with each recognizing its territory and responsibilities. It was paid attention separately on the content and meaning of three parts of the Lateran Pacts. The Lateran Pacts signed by Mussolini on 11 February 1929, had three parts, namely: a political treaty, which gave Vatican its own microstate; a financial convention, which gave Vatican compensations and a concordat, giving the Holy See privileges within Italy and stating regulations establishing the relations between the Catholic Church and Italian state. It was determined also the issue of concentration absolute legislative, executive and judicial branches in the hands of the Pope.

Law, Principle, and the Theologico-Political History of Sovereignty

This article takes it cue from the debate between Carl Schmitt and Erik Peterson regarding the possibility of political theology within Christianity, and in response, offers a conceptual-historical portrait of sovereignty and its juridical dimensions. Beginning with the introduction of Roman law into the medieval Church, the article traces the logic of “legal principle” as the basis of sovereign decision and how the form of legal distinctions adopted into canon law translate the Romanitas of law into the theory of papal sovereignty. By the Romanitas of law, that is to say the principle of sovereignty in law. The article then seeks to describe the conceptual translations of Roman politics and Stoic metaphysics into theological form and the logic of this translation into medieval natural law. The article concludes by evaluating how the civic theology of Rome is conceptually inherited by the politics and legal framework of sovereignty and returns to Peterson’s critique of Schmitt, arguing that political theology can be understood as a dynamic where politics is theologized, assuming that in the history of religion, theology and politics are never fully distinct to begin with.

«Romaniser» la liturgie lyonnaise au 19e s. Les conditions d’une alliance entre Lyon et Rome

In light of the liturgical diversity of French dioceses at the beginning of the Restoration, Rome strove towards the unification of rituals, including those of Paris and Lyon. Therefore, the imposition of the Roman Liturgy became the subject of a fierce debate between the defenders of Gallican practices and partisans of ultramontane rituals. Despite the stubbornness of local clergy, fixed in their old ways, a vast majority of bishops agreed to the restoration of the Roman Rite in their dioceses in 1860, thus marking a step forward in the process of centralisation initiated by Rome and the battle in favour of the doctrine of “Ultramontanism”. However, in 1863, Cardinal de Bonald attempted to mediate the question of the Lyonese Liturgy with Pius IX. Indeed, a Lyonese Rite had been in existence since the 8th century, a ritual with which the local clergy had become very attached. The city’s scholars feared the loss of this distinctive liturgy and fought to defend the Lyonese Rite. Pius IX then pressured Cardinal de Bonald to introduce the Roman Liturgy in his own diocese, but the opposition by his clergy was fierce. Supported by the “Ultramontane” elites of the city, the Cardinal travelled to Rome in 1864 with the aim of reaching a compromise. Rome finally agreed to a specific adaptation of the liturgy in the capital of Gaul. The breviary was published in 1865, and the following year, a Roman-Lyonese missal was published, remaining in force until the mid-20th century. In this article, we revisit the neglected issue of the defense of the Lyonese Rite, highlighting, in particular, the growing influence of the spiritual authority of the capital of Gaul and its primacy in the 19th century while displaying the attachment of Lyonese Catholicism to papal sovereignty.

Review: La magnificenza e l'utile: Progetto urbano e monarchia papale nella Roma del Seicento, by Aloisio Antinori

Aloisio Antinori ; La magnificenza e l'utile: Progetto urbano e monarchia papale nella Roma del Seicento ; Roma, storia, cultura, imagine, 19. Rome: Gangemi Editore, 2008, 159 pp., 22 color and 133 b/w illus. €€30, ISBN 9788849215656 La magnificenza e l'utile, the magnificent and the useful, paired in the title of Aloisio Antinori's study of seventeenth-century urban projects in Rome, are terms that derive from the documents; Antinori explores them in the context of the relationship between papal sovereignty and public building. For scholars of Baroque architecture in Rome this is hardly news. What is intriguing is that, while examining this familiar patronage relationship, Antinori discovers moments of indecision that reveal tensions between building to celebrate the Church and her sovereign and building in the service of the Roman public. This slender volume opens with an introduction to the urban development of Rome in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, driven by projects focused on public building——especially on judicial building and grain storage——and papal residential architecture, specifically the Palazzo del Quirinale. It also treats the opening of new paths for circulation, all advanced by the usual suspects——popes Gregory XIII, Sixtus V, Clement VIII, and Paul V. This introduction orients us to the case studies that form the core of the book, made up of four chapters, each of which focuses on a papal project that involved, to varying degrees, the building of architecture and the reshaping of urban fabric. In terms of method each case is grounded in archival materials, some newly presented and all newly considered. Antinori does a commendable job of weaving together his archival discoveries with documentation published previously by others. Two of the case studies also incorporate reconsiderations of the iconography of these projects. …

The Papacy, Scotland and Northern England, 1342-1378.

The lengthy period of the Avignon papacy in the fourteenth century created circumstances in which the burgeoning bureaucracy of the papal curia could flourish. Papal involvement in the everyday business of the church at local level reached its fullest extent in the years before the Great Schism. This book examines the impact of that involvement in Scotland and northern England, and analyses the practical effect of theories of papal sovereignty at a time when there was still widespread acceptance of the role of the Holy See. The nature and importance of political opposition, from both crown and parliament, is investigated from the standpoint of the validity of the complaints as indicated by local evidence, and a new interpretation is offered of the various statutory measures taken in England in Edward III's reign to control alleged abuses of papal power. Points of similarity and difference between Scotland and England are also given due emphasis. This is the first work to attempt to analyse the full breadth of papal involvement in late medieval Britain by utilising the rich local sources in association with material from the Vatican archives.

The Byzantine view of Papal Sovereignty

THE idea of papal sovereignty was foreign to the Byzantines. They had trouble enough trying to understand the Western interpretation of papal primacy. Papal ‘sovereignty’ was beyond them, unintelligible, unreasonable, and unhistorical. It is true that the East Roman Christians, whom for convenience we call Byzantines, did not all live in one generation. Their cultural and political roots were in Constantinople, the ancient Byzantium; and their empire endured in one form or another for 1,100 years, from the fourth to the fifteenth centuries. In so long a span their ideas naturally evolved and changed, as did their society. But their concept of the order of the Christian world remained stable. It was based upon the formula devised by the first Christian historian, Eusebius of Caesarea, in the fourth century. The formula was an amalgam of pre-Christian, Hellenistic notions of monarchy, with Old and New Testament elements. The Christian Roman Emperor was the elect of God and, as God’s vice-gerent on earth, he ruled over what was the terrestrial reflection, albeit a poor copy, of the Kingdom of Heaven. His patriarchs or supreme bishops of the Christian Empire, especially the Patriarch of Constantinople, his capital city, were the spiritual heads of the Christian world, acting in harmony with him. Church and State were therefore one, indissoluble and interdependent.

The Election of Innocent III

The English chronicler, Roger of Howden, gives a particularly interesting contemporary insight into events in Rome in the last months of the pontificate of the sick and ailing nonagenarian Celestine III (1191-8). If he is to be believed, we have a description of the attempt by a wily old pope to extend his influence beyond the grave. The man he wanted to succeed him was John of S. Paolo, Cardinal Priest of S. Prisca whom ‘he loved for his wisdom, sanctity and justice beyond all the other cardinals.’ As proof of this love and respect, he had already allowed him to act in his own place, undertaking every duty save that of consecrating bishops. In an extraordinary offer, according to Roger of Howden, Celestine even went so far as to express his willingness to abdicate so that the cardinals could appoint John of S. Paolo before his death. All the cardinals, however, ‘with one voice, made answer that they would not be willing to elect him on such conditions and alleged that it was a thing unheard of for the Supreme Pontiff to abdicate.’ In attempting this, Celestine was making a far-reaching claim for papal sovereignty, prefiguring the later suggestion of Augustinus Triumphus, in the early fourteenth century, that the pope had a right to choose his own successor. It was unthinkable that the College of Cardinals in the last years of the twelfth century would so relinquish their right to vote. Any such designation by Celestine would have represented a direct challenge to the position of the cardinals as electors of the pope.

The "1007 Anonymous" and Papal Sovereignty: Jewish Perceptions of the Papacy and Papal Policy in the High Middle Ages. Kenneth R. Stow

<i>The "1007 Anonymous" and Papal Sovereignty: Jewish Perceptions of the Papacy and Papal Policy in the High Middle Ages</i>. Kenneth R. Stow

Paridis de Puteo: A Fifteenth-Century Civilian’s Concept of Papal Sovereignty

Sovereignty—suprema potestas—in the later Middle Ages was not blessed with Austinian simplicity: it was a complex and contradictory thing. Held by the ecclesiastical and lay powers, held by pope, emperor, king, and city-state, few populi were subjected to one authority alone. Not only did there exist a hierarchy of sovereign powers in the Western community, de iure and de facto, but the suprema potestas was in itself limited. It was the extent of this limitation and the degree of sovereignty possessed by the various governments which exercised, to a very large extent, the minds of later medieval and Renaissance jurists. A major reordering of the relationship between the spiritual and secular authorities was occasioned with the propounding of the via media by Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth century. Thomistic doctrine did much to promote and enhance the importance of civil government at the expense of hierocratic theories, but, as Michael Wilks observes in his fundamental study of medieval sovereignty, it proved to be almost as dangerous to the concept of the societas humana as to that of the societas christiana. Quite simply, as long as moral standards were applied to earthly government, political evaluation was forced into the theological sphere, and so, to some degree, into the realm of papal determination. And to Thomistic influences, as Michael Wilks again remarks, the civilians nearly all succumbed. Laying their claims very largely upon the bases of Roman law and Aristotle, legists expounded a profoundly secular philosophy; but the seemingly logical conclusion—logical, that is, to the modern mind—that secular man was freed from the theological order was not reached. The pope retained both a unique degree of dignitas and a superior degree of authority; he was head of the populus christiana, and this awesome position bestowed upon him certain ultimate rights and responsibilities in the affairs of secular corpora, even though these corpora were sovereign entities. In other words, papal sovereignty, although increasingly restricted and relegated to the realm of theory as the early modern State evolved, none the less remained a potent force; indeed, as it will be seen, in a particular aspect it fulfilled for the jurist a critical need of the young State.

Papal Sovereignty and Episcopal Privilege - Kenneth Pennington: Pope and Bishop: The Papal Monarchy in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1984. Pp. xv + 225. $30.00.)

Papal Sovereignty and Episcopal Privilege - Kenneth Pennington: Pope and Bishop: The Papal Monarchy in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1984. Pp. xv + 225. $30.00.) - Volume 48 Issue 1

Infidels and Jews: Clement VI’s attitude to persecution and toleration

Clement VI was a pope who appeared to face both ways. This impression is confirmed by the fact that some historians have hailed him as a humanist pope, if not the first humanist pope, whereas his conception of the Christian society and of papal sovereignty followed thoroughly traditional and authoritarian lines. A glance at his best known political sermon, that preached in 1346 to approve the future emperor Charles IV as king of the Romans, would suffice to show this. His attitude to infidels and Jews also appears paradoxical, for he persecuted the one and tolerated the other, and this despite the threat presented by both to the purity of the Faith. This is not to suggest that Clement was the only pope to exhibit this dichotomy, for it was a common enough one: it was just that his views on infidels and Jews were more extreme than those of others, and the contrast therefore more pointed.

La canonística medieval y su contribución al desarrollo del pensamiento constitucional contemporáneo

Se analiza la contribución de la canonística medieval al desarrollo de las bases jurídicas del pensamiento constitucional contemporáneo en tres ámbitos:1) El origen y el desarrollo del principio de soberanía, desde las nociones de jurisdictio y potestas. La soberanía papal y sus límites, a partir de la construcción de la plenitudo potestatis.2) La relación entre el poder unipersonal y colegial a partir de la abstracción jurídica de la universitas y de la persona representata.3) Su aportación a la teoría consensual del poder y la construcción doctrinal de la noción de congregatio fidelium.

The Political Ideas of Conciliarism and Papalism, 1430–1450

Until comparatively recently, it was tacitly assumed that the supporters of the Council of Basle (1431–49) and of pope Eugenius IV (1431–47) had little to contribute to ecclesiology, and (with the exception of Nicholas of Cusa) virtually nothing to political thought. The Council of Constance has generally been taken as the climax of medieval ecclesiastical constitutionalism; and it seemed that the subject of papal sovereignty had been thoroughly exhausted in the previous centuries.