Φιλολoγικά/Philologica : Pope Leo X · New blog on the kid : Margaret Sanger is a "Saint" of Feminism, like LaVey is a "Saint" of Satanism
Quoting an entry from the article of Popes in connection with St Thomas More:
Pope Leo X
Next comes Leo X, famous for the line “Since God has given us the papacy, let us enjoy it.” In 1513 when he became Pope, More was undersheriff of London and slowly working up the civil service to be Under-Treasurer of the Exchequer when Leo died in 1521 (“Treasurer of the Exchequer” is similar to US Secretary of the Treasury). He was the son of Lorenzo the Magnificent, ruler of Florence and lived like it. He was a cardinal at 13. As Pope, he used the Papal army and funds to secure his nephew as Duke of Urbino. He spent money as fast as he could and borrowed without a second thought.
Leo oversaw the breakoff of Martin Luther, and large sections of modern Germany and Scandinavia started separating from the Catholic Church. He seemed more focused on Italian politics than the loss of northern territories to Protestantism.
As far as I could research, Leo was probably chaste although this is a topic of debate.
An entry from : What Popes Did Saint Thomas More Die For?
October 25, 2018 by Fr Matthew P. Schneider, LC
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/throughcatholiclenses/2018/10/what-popes-did-saint-thomas-more-die-for/
Was he really famous for that? “Since God has given us the papacy, let us enjoy it.” - Or was he just reputed for that by bilious Bale?
- Wikiquote Leo X
- Since God has given us the papacy, let us enjoy it.
- Statement to his brother, Giuliano, as quoted in The Claims of Christianity (1894) by William Samuel Lilly, p. 191
It would seem, William Samuel Lilly, while influential in the English speaking world, was not exactly a source contemporary to Pope Leo X or his brother Giuliano. I suspect that one intermediate was Bilious Bale. I am not sure Bilious Bale was not the ultimate source.
But supposing the quote is true, it is not per se catastrophic. It depends on how he meant "enjoy". According to last line in entry, he did not mean it like in abusing it for getting a mistress.
As Pope, he used the Papal army and funds to secure his nephew as Duke of Urbino.
May I remind you, back then the Popes were also worldly rulers of Papal States?
Was it as "Pope" or as worldly ruler of Papal states, you may say "Pope in his secular capacity" that he did that? I'd say the latter.
What is the problem?
Bishop Saint Remigius was for ten years, on the death of Syagrius, worldly ruler of the central parts of France, both including Paris and his own episcopal city of Rheims (where part of Douay Rheims version was printed, btw). He also made a very impacting decision in politics of Roman Gaul : through him, Chlodevechus Rex became lawful Roman ruler of a large chunk of Roman Empire, later granted the title Patricius (if I recall right, it could be Consul) by the Basileus or Imperator in Constantinople. Both of them, as well as the woman Saint Genevieve and Saint Chlotildis, are founders of Western Europe, even, through Charlemagne, of Central Europe.
I do not consider "John Paul II" a saint or even a Pope. Is it to his discredit that he fought Communism? No, it's more the means by which he did it, like Assisi Prayer meeting and before that, thirteen days before Chernobyl disaster, visit of Rome's synagogue which are discrediting. A worldly ruler using his money and army for a political venture is not discrediting. Of course, securing his nephew as Duke of Orbino was a personal selfish thing, but better that than securing a nephew for bishop or cardinal!
Bishops and abbots being also secular rulers is not the norm (my kingdom is not of this world), but it is an acceptable exception (all nations - and such involve their governments, whether national, or as in 16th C. Italy regional to local). And what kind of Pope Leo X was spiritually is not determined by what he did in his secular capacity any more than what he did in his personal one. It's determined by what he did in his capacity of pastor of the Church.
Leo oversaw the breakoff of Martin Luther, and large sections of modern Germany and Scandinavia started separating from the Catholic Church.
I hope you will agree this is Luther's fault, not his.
Now, on items of his disagreements with Luther, Luther seems to have been a "stricter" (or more "wooden") adherent than he to the definition of Council of Vienne in Isère, which not just disciplinary-wise banned the taking of interest, but also doctrinally defined as heresy defending it, since Luther was condemning all taking of interest, even Montes Pietatis, while Leo X defined Montes Pietatis as not charging for the loan, but for transaction costs. Note, Pope Leo also defined, it is much holier that half of transaction costs are covered by municipal contribution, whether from municipal property income or from municipal taxes.
But in the items of their actual quarrel, Luther was definitely both maligning the justice of God as if it were offended by a soul in purgatory seeking relief, on the pretext that the purgatory was God's sentence (Luther later rejected the idea of purgatory), and maligning the honesty of the mendiants. If Alexander VI had burned Savonarola on the stake, Luther would have banned him from collecting money.
He seemed more focused on Italian politics than the loss of northern territories to Protestantism.
Let me remind you of dates ....
Pope Leo X (11 December 1475 – 1 December 1521),
from Pope Leo X, wikipedia
In 1521, the extant reformers were Luther, Zwingli with Oecolampadius, Münzer,
The events that caused Bucer to leave the Dominican Order arose from his embrace of new ideas and his growing contact with other humanists and reformers. A fellow Dominican, Jacob van Hoogstraaten, the Grand Inquisitor of Cologne, tried to prosecute Johann Reuchlin, a humanist scholar. Other humanists, including the nobles Ulrich von Hutten and Imperial Knight Franz von Sickingen, took Reuchlin's side. Hoogstraten was thwarted, but he now planned to target Bucer. On 11 November 1520, Bucer told the reformer Wolfgang Capito in a letter that Hoogstraaten was threatening to make an example of him as a follower of Luther. To escape Dominican jurisdiction, Bucer needed to be freed of his monastic vows. Capito and others were able to expedite the annulment of his vows, and on 29 April 1521 he was formally released from the Dominican order.[16][17]
For the next two years, Bucer was protected by Sickingen and Hutten. He also worked for a time at the court of Ludwig V, Elector Palatine, as chaplain to Ludwig's younger brother Frederick.[18][19] Sickingen was a senior figure at Ludwig's court.[20] This appointment enabled Bucer to live in Nuremberg, the most powerful city of the Empire, whose governing officials were strongly reformist. There he met many people who shared his viewpoint, including the humanist Willibald Pirckheimer and the future Nuremberg reformer Andreas Osiander. In September 1521, Bucer accepted Sickingen's offer of the position of pastor at Landstuhl, where Sickingen had a castle, and Bucer moved to the town in May 1522.[21] In summer 1522, he met and married Elisabeth Silbereisen, a former nun.[22]
... Bucer, excommunicated and without means of subsistence, was in a precarious situation when he arrived in Strasbourg. He was not a citizen of the city, a status that afforded protection, and on 9 June 1523 he wrote an urgent letter to the Zürich reformer, Huldrych Zwingli, pleading for a safe post in Switzerland. Fortunately for Bucer, the Strasbourg council was under the influence of the reformer, Matthew Zell; during Bucer's first few months in the city he worked as Zell's unofficial chaplain and was able to give classes on books of the Bible.[28][29] The largest guild in Strasbourg, the Gärtner or Gardeners, appointed him as the pastor of St Aurelia's Church on 24 August 1523. A month later the council accepted his application for citizenship.[30]
So, an early key figure for the eventual great success of Protestantism, was when he died a broken man "with no foreseeable future" as one would say these days.
By contrast, Pope Leo X was far from being as inactive about Luther as Fr Schneider pretends. Here is Thomas Cajetan, for you:
In 1517, Leo X made him cardinal presbyter of San Sisto in Rome for his services. In the following year, he became bishop of Palermo. He resigned as bishop of Palermo in 1519 to become bishop of Gaeta, as granted him by the Emperor Charles V, for whose election De Vio had labored zealously.
In 1518 he was sent as legate to the Diet of Augsburg and to him, at the wish of the Saxon elector, was entrusted the task of examining and testing the teachings of Luther. According to Catholic polemicist Hilaire Belloc, "[Luther] had not been treated roughly by his opponents, the roughness had been on his side. But things had gone against him, and he had been made to look foolish; he had been cross-examined into denying, for instance, the authority of a General Council--which authority was the trump card to play against the Papacy."[3]
In 1519, De Vio helped in drawing up the bill of excommunication against Luther.
De Vio was employed in several other negotiations and transactions, being as able in business as in letters. In conjunction with Cardinal Giulio de' Medici in the conclave of 1521‑1522, he secured the election of Adrian Boeyens, bishop of Tortosa, as Adrian VI.
Not only does Pope Leo X send Cajetan to Luther, basically, he made him cardinal (I think he was a better cardinal than that nephew who was certainly better off as Duke of ... Urbino (I had to check)), and this cardinal along with one relative of the Medici Pope, actually helps to elect a more serious Pope than Leo himself had been.
No, while he had side interest not totally worthy of a spiritual charge - but certainly not totally unworthy either - he was, as Pope, a good one. Bishop Nicola Bux would not have any grave issues with Pope Leo X, were he Pope now. I hope Fr Schneider does understand the difference between a corrup man who is Pope (Alexander VI comes to mind) and a man who is corrupt as a Pope (if such at all).
Also, dying for Papal Supremacy is not necessarily "dying for the Pope". With the alternative being Royal Supremacy over the Church, it is more like dying, like did St Thomas Beckett, over "ut ecclesia Anglicana libera sit". That not meaning what is now called "Anglican Church"
Hans Georg Lundahl
Torcy
Vigil of Sts Simon and Jude
27.X.2018
* I recalled an earlier check on the matter as giving me the info, Lelio and Fausto were around in 1517, checking now, this seems not to be so. Wiki:
The ideas of Socinianism date from the element of the Protestant Reformation known as the Radical Reformation and have their root in the Italian Anabaptist movement of the 1540s, such as the Antitrinitarian Council of Venice in 1550.
This means, Pope Leo can not be prioritising the more important since more evil Sozzinis, as I had thought to do, but it is still early enough for Session IV of Trent to be concerned with such ideas and condemning them:
Pope Paul III, who convoked the Council, oversaw the first eight sessions (1545–47),
Confer:
Socinian theology, as summarised in the Racovian Catechism, rejected the views of orthodox Christian theology on God's knowledge, on the doctrine of the Trinity and the divinity of Christ, and on soteriology.
Do you find my Catholic Apologetics interesting? There is more of it, over at Great Bishop of Geneva!
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