Nor did the fall of the holy city put the fear of God into the hearts of the prelates for more than a moment. The Medici, Clement, who never sold his soul but only pawned it from time to time, without entirely abandoning the idea of reform, indefinitely postponed it. Procrastinating, timid, false, he was not the man to deal with serious abuses. He toyed with the idea of a council but when, on the mere rumor that a council was to be called the prices of all salable offices dropped in a panic, he hesitated. Moreover he feared the council would be used by the emperor to subordinate him even in spiritual matters. Perhaps he meant well, but abuses were too lucrative to be lightly affronted. As to Lutheranism, Clement was completely misinformed and almost completely indifferent. While he and the emperor were at odds it grew mightily. Here as elsewhere he was irresolute; his pontificate, as a contemporary wrote, was "one of scruples, considerations and discords, of buts and ifs and thens and moreovers, and plenty of words without effect."
[Sidenote: Paul III, 1534-49]
The pontificate of Paul III marks the turning point in the Catholic reaction. Under him the council of Trent was at last opened; the new orders, especially the Jesuits, were formed, and such instrumentalities as the Inquisition and Index of prohibited books put on a new footing. Paul III, a Farnese from the States of the Church, owed his election partly to his strength of character, partly to the weakness of his health, for the cardinals liked frequent vacancies in the Holy See. Cautious and choleric, prolix and stubborn, he had a real desire for reform and an earnest wish to avoid {382} quarrels with either of the great powers that menaced him, the emperor and France. The reforming spirit of the pope showed itself in the appointment of several men of the highest character to the cardinalate, among them Gaspar Contarini and Fisher, Bishop of Rochester. In other cases, however, the exigencies of politics induced the nomination of bad men, such as Del Monte and David Beaton. At the same time a commission was named to recommend practical reforms. The draft for a bull they presented for this purpose was rejected by the Consistory, but some of their recommendations, such as the prohibition of the Roman clergy to visit taverns, theaters and gambling dens, were adopted.
[Sidenote: May, 1535 Consilium delectorum cardinalium et aliorum praelatorum]
A second commission of nine ecclesiastics of high character, including John Peter Caraffa, Contarini, Pole and Giberti, was created to make a comprehensive report on reform. The important memorial they drew up fully exposed the prevalent abuses. The root of all they found in the exaggeration of the papal power of collation and the laxity with which it was used. Not only were morally unworthy men often made bishops and prelates, but dispensations for renunciation of benefices, for absenteeism and for other hurtful practices were freely sold. The commission demanded drastic reform of these abuses as well as of the monastic orders, and called for the abolition of the venal exercise of spiritual authority by legates and nuncios. But the reform memorial, excellent and searching as it was, led to nothing. At most it was of some use as a basis of reforms made by the Council of Trent later. But for the moment it only rendered the position of the church more difficult. The reform of the Dataria, for example, the office which sold graces, privileges, indults, dispensations and benefices, was {383} considered impossible because half of the papal revenue, or 110,000 ducats annually, came from it. Nor could the fees of the Penitentiary be abolished for fear of bankruptcy, though in 1540 they were partially reduced. [Sidenote: 1538] The most obvious results of the Consilium was to put another weapon into the hands of the Lutherans. Published by an unauthorized person, it was at once seized upon by the Reformers as proof of the hopeless depravity of the Curia. So dangerous did it prove to simple-minded Catholics that it was presently put on the Index!
Paul's diplomacy tried to play off the Empire against France and to divert the attention of both to a crusade against the Turk. Hoping to advance the cause of the church by means of the war declared by Charles V on the Schmalkaldic League, the pope, in return for a subsidy, exacted a declaration in the treaty, that the reason of the war was religious and the occasion for it the refusal of the Protestants to recognize the Council of Trent's authority. But when Charles was victor he used his advantage only to strengthen his own prerogative, not effectively to suppress heresy. Paul now dreaded the emperor more than he did the Protestants and his position was not made easier by the threat of Charles to come to terms with the Lutherans did Paul succeed in rousing France against him. In fact, with all his squirming, Paul III only sank deeper into the Spanish vassalage, while the championship of the church passed from his control into that of new agencies that he had created.
[Sidenote: Julius III, 1550-55]
It was perhaps an effort to free the Holy See from the Spanish yoke that led the cardinals to raise to the purple, as Julius III, Cardinal John Mary Ciocchi del Monte who as one of the presidents of the oecumenical council had distinguished himself by his opposition to {384} the emperor. Nevertheless his pontificate marked a relaxation of the church's effort, for policy or strength to pursue reform he had none.
[Sidenote: Marcellus II, April 9-May 1, 1555]
Marcellus II, who was pope for twenty-two days, would hardly be remembered save for the noble Mass of Pope Marcellus dedicated to him by Palestrina.