I.--The Papacy at the Reformation
The papacy was intimately allied with the Roman Empire, with the empire of Charlemagne, and with the German or Holy Roman Empire revived by Otto. In this last the ecclesiastical element was of paramount importance, but the emperor was the supreme authority. From that authority Gregory VII. resolved to free the pontificate, through the claim that no appointment by a layman to ecclesiastical office was valid; while the pope stood forth as universal bishop, a crowned high-priest. To this supremacy the French first offered effectual resistance, issuing in the captivity of Avignon. Germany followed suit, and the schism of the church was closed by the secular princes at Constance and Basle. The papacy was restored in form, but not to its old supremacy.
The pontificates of Sixtus IV. and the egregious Alexander VI. were followed by the militant Julius II., who aimed, with some success, at making the pope a secular territorial potentate. But the intellectual movement challenged the papal claim, the direct challenge emanating from Germany and Luther. But this was at the moment when the empire was joined with Spain under Charles V. The Diet of Worms pointed to an accord between emperor and pope, when Leo X. died unexpectedly. His successor, Adrian, a Netherlander and an admirable man, sought vainly to inaugurate reform of the Church from within, but in brief time made way for Clement VII.
Hitherto, the new pope's interests had all been on the Spanish side, at least as against France; everything had been increasing the Spanish power in Italy, but Clement aimed at freedom from foreign domination. The discovery of his designs brought about the Decree of Spires, which gave Protestantism a legal recognition in the empire, and also the capture and sack of Rome by Frundsberg's soldiery. Charles's ascendancy in Italy and over the papacy was secured. Clement, now almost at his beck, would have persuaded him to apply coercion to the German Protestants; but this did not suit the emperor, whose solution for existing difficulties was the summoning of a general council, which Clement was quite determined to evade. Moreover, matters were made worse for the papacy when England broke away from the papal obedience over the affair of Katharine of Aragon.
Paul III., Clement's immediate successor, began with an effort after regeneration by appointing several cardinals of the Contarini type, associates of the Oratory of Divine Love, many of whom stood, in part at least, on common ground with avowed Protestants, notably on the dogma of justification by faith. He appears seriously to have desired a reconciliation with the Protestants; and matters looked promising when a conference was held at Ratisbon, where Contarini himself represented the pope.
Terms of union were even agreed on, but, being referred to Luther on one side and Paul on the other, were rejected by both, after which there was no hope of the cleavage being bridged. The regeneration of the Church would have to be from within.
II.--Sixteenth Century Popes
The interest of this period lies mainly in the antagonism between the imperative demand for internal reform of the Church and the policy which had become ingrained in the heads of the Church. For the popes, these political aspirations stood first and reform second. Alexander Farnese (Paul III.) was pope from 1534 to 1549. He was already sixty-seven when he succeeded Clement. Policy and enlightenment combined at first to make him advance Contarini and his allies, and to hope for reconciliation with the Protestants. Policy turned him against acceptance of the Ratisbon proposals, as making Germany too united. Then he urged the emperor against the Protestants, but when the success of Charles was too complete he was ill-pleased. He withdrew the Council from Trent to Bologna, to remove it from imperial influences which threatened the pope's personal supremacy. So far as he was concerned, reformation had dropped into the background.
Julius III. was of no account; Marcellus, an excellent and earnest man, might have done much had he not died in three weeks. His election, and that of his successor, Caraffa, as Paul IV., both pointed to a real intention of reform. Caraffa had all his life been a passionate advocate of moral reform, but even he was swept away by the political conditions and his hatred of Spain, which was an obsession. Professed detestation of Spain was a sure way to his favour, which, his kinsfolk recognising, they won his confidence only to their own ultimate destruction when he discovered that he had been deceived. Half his reign was worse than wasted in a futile contest with Spain; when it was done, he turned rigorously to energetic disciplinary reforms, but death stayed his hand.
A very different man was Pius IV., the pontiff under whom the Council of Trent was brought to a close. Far from rigid himself, he still could not, if he would, have altogether deserted the paths of reform. But most conspicuously he was inaugurator of a new policy, not asserting claims to supremacy, but seeking to induce the Catholic powers to work hand in hand with the papacy--Spain and the German Empire being now parted under the two branches of the House of Hapsburg. In this policy he was most ably assisted by the diplomatic tact of Cardinal Moroni, who succeeded in bringing France, Spain, and the empire into a general acceptance of the positions finally laid down by the Council of Trent, whereby the pope's ecclesiastical authority was not impaired, but rather strengthened.