Like some brave life whose sweetness but is known
When holy silence doth world-sounds dethrone.
PAPAL ELECTIONS.
I.
The succession of the Roman pontiffs rests on the word of God; other lines of princes may fail, their line shall last until the end of the world. Still, although there will ever be a series of legitimate successors in the Papacy, the manner of succession has varied, being left to human prudence, which accommodates itself to times and places, yet ever under an overruling Providence that directs to its own ends no less the vices than the virtues of men.
The election of a pope is the most important event that takes place in the world. It affects immediately several hundred millions of Catholics in their dearest hopes of religion, and it touches indirectly the interests of all other people on the earth besides. In the pope the world receives a vicar of Christ, a successor of St. Peter, and an infallible judge in matters of faith and morals. The Papacy was always conferred regularly by way of election—from the chief of the apostles, chosen by our Lord himself, to Pius IX., now reigning, who was selected by the cardinals of the Holy Roman Church on the 17th of June, 1846. Between these there have been two hundred and sixty popes, if we follow the number given by the Gerarchia Cattolica, which is published annually at Rome.
On the 25th of July, 1876, our Holy Father, in a discourse to the students of the several colleges in Rome subject to the Propaganda, took occasion to speak quite earnestly of attempts that were being made in Italy to unsettle the minds of Catholics on papal elections by teaching that they were originally popular ones, and that the natural right of the laity in them (which, it was asserted, had been exercised without question for twelve hundred years) was arbitrarily and unlawfully taken away by Pope Alexander III. The errors of this new schismatical party may be reduced to two points—viz., that the share which the people were once usually allowed to take in the election of sacred ministers was a right and not a privilege accorded by the visible head of the church to ages of faith and fervor; and that Alexander III. deprived the Romans of this right in the election of their chief pastor.
Let us state, in the first place, that it is heretical to maintain that the laity have a strict—i.e., inherent or divine—right to elect their pastors, and historically false to assert that such a right was ever allowed by the rulers of the church or was ever exercised by the Christian people. The authorities to confirm our statement are so numerous as to cause almost an embarras de richesses. Besides the great collections which are the common sources of ecclesiastical erudition—the Fathers, the councils, annals, papal bulls; the Bollandists, and particularly, as regards papal elections, the Propylæum ad septem tomos Maji; the works of Thomassin, Gretser, Bellarmine, and others—we may cite here Selvaggio’s Antiquitatum Christianarum Institutiones, lib. i. par. i. cap. xxi.; Mamacchi’s Origines et Antiquitates Christianæ, tom. iv. lib. iv.; and Colenzio’s Dissertationi intorno varie Controversie di Storia ed Archeologia Ecclesiastica, diss. vi. Del preteso dritto del popolo cristiano nell’ clezione dei Sacri Ministri.
The earliest manner of electing the popes was by the votes of the Roman clergy cast in the presence of the faithful, who assisted as witnesses to the godliness of the subject proposed, and to testify that besides his personal merits he was an acceptable person on account, perhaps, of his birth, his nationality, his appearance, or of some other adventitious circumstance which enhanced his popularity with the great body of the people, and would cause him, also, to be looked upon with less disfavor by them who are without.[[114]] Although these elections belonged to the clergy and laity of the Roman Church—or we should say, rather, to the higher clergy and the representatives of the laity—the relative rights or parts of each class of electors were not apparently determined by express enactment, but upon grounds of common sense and equity; such, for instance, as that Episcopus deligatur, plebe præsente, quæ singulorum vitam plenissime norit, et uniuscujusque actum de ejus conversatione prospexit,[[115]] or that Nullus invitis detur episcopus.[[116]] Bellarmine,[[117]] Sixtus Senensis,[[118]] Petrus de Marca,[[119]] and Thomassin[[120]] prove that the people’s part in such elections was more perfunctory than real, since testimony of a man’s good repute could be otherwise obtained, and that even an expression of preference was not always heeded; as we learn from the same Pope Celestine, who wrote to the bishops of Apulia and Calabria: Docendus est populus, non sequendus; nosque si nesciunt, eosquid liceat quidve non liceat, commonere non his consensum præbere debemus.[[121]] The Roman people, then, did not and could not have, except by usurpation and abuse, a decisive voice in the election of the pope; for such an act is by God’s ordinance placed beyond the jurisdiction of the laity.