THE CHURCH'S BROKEN UNITY.

ROMANISM.

SANCTITY OF THE PAPAL SYSTEM.

(Continued from page 133.)

HE scenes of immorality detailed in the Pontificates of Sergius III.,

John XII., and Benedict IX., wrought their own cure. The whole Christian world became so scandalized, and the Church SO weakened and degraded, that it only needed the hand of a resolute reformer to cut off the diseased limb, and the body would

be restored to health. Such a reformer arose at the close of the cleventh century in the person of Hildebrand, who governed the Church under the name of Gregory VII. Of the extreme worldliness and insatiable ambition of Hildebrand, we have spoken before, but of his entire freedom from those sensual lusts which bad degraded his predecessors, there is no doubt. The stringency of his reforms, both as regards simony; and the celibacy of the clergy; and the vigour with which he pursued all deviations from the strictest purity of morals, mark him out as the great Reformer of his age; and so the Church both under him, and the Popes immediately succeeding him, no longer present the hideous features of ungodliness which stain the annals of the preceding centuries.

But when the air is infected with poison, and at the same time the whole body by its very constitution is weakened and paralyzed, it takes but little to bring back a disease which has only been subdued, not eradicated. The authority and influence of Gregory VII. faded away with time.

[PRICE 3d.

The worldliness of the Papal system brought back its inherent mischief, and men who could be induced to assume the Papal crown in order to be princes of this world, were not likely to set much store on the self-denial and bodily holiness which the Cross would demand. Thus it came to pass that in the fifteenth century, we have not only a repetition of the follies and sins of the tenth and

eleventh, but also an exaggeration of them in almost every feature of their wickedness. The kings of the earth now began to see that the occupier of the Papal throne was, as an Italian prince, possessor of unlimited power; and that by the junction of the temporal with the spiritual authority, he stood before the world in a peculiar light which no ordinary crowned head could approach. To prepare and advance junior branches of their own families, so that they might enjoy the riches, and share the spiritual supremacy of the Papal power, became their policy, and it soon followed as a matter of necessity, that no amount of moral vice or sensual ungodliness was any hindrance in the search for, or enjoyment of, that which was looked upon merely as a thing of the world. It was a mere political arrangement settled by the goHence the sins of the verning powers. natural man were no more a matter of

surprise in the Prince who sat upon the throne of the Papal States, than in any other Italian Prince. It was an accident that he was a Priest. The essential feature

of his position was in the temporal crown

which he wore.

John XXIII., Pope of Rome in the latter part of the fourteenth century, has already formed a subject for discussion in considering the great schism of which he formed a part, and which divided the

K

Church for so many years. See Vol. IV. No. 2. p. 17. Of the schismatic character of those proceedings in which he was involved it is not therefore necessary to speak again; but only of his moral character so far as it affected the sanctity of his episcopal office. He succeeded to a third portion of the Papal Chair in the year 1410, and very soon by the utter degradation of all the characteristics of a Christian man, much more of a Priest, he drew upon himself the censure of the whole Church, and eventually his expulsion from the office which he had assumed. It was a most important period of history. John Huss, Jerome of Prague, and Wickliffe, had severally dared to dispute the authority of the Pope; and private opinions on the mystery of the Sacraments began to be freely agitated. Three Popes simultaneously asserted an equal claim to that headship which the Holy Scriptures had said was only one in CHRIST Himself. Of these three, it would appear that John had the clearest title, and probably had his life been consistent with his office, the schism might have ended in his person. But there abided upon him the foul stain of unholiness, so deep and universal, that the Church could no longer endure his presence. The Council of Constance assembled in the year 1415, and its first business was to adjudicate upon the character of the Pope. Thirty Cardinals, three Patriarchs, twenty Archbishops, one hundred and fifty Bishops, one hundred Abbots, upwards of one hundred and fifty other Prelates, Priors, and heads of religious orders, all met at this Council. Therefore what was done, was not done in a corner; what was accused and what was proved, was known and done openly, and the world heard with astonishment what a Pope could be. It was said in the accusations brought against him that he (John XXIII.) "had been of a wicked disposition from his youth; lewd, dissolute, a liar, and addicted to almost every vice which could be named; that he had raised himself to the Pontificate by causing his predecessor to be poisoned; that he had committed fornication with maids, adultery with wives, and incest with his brother's wife; and as to the faith of the Church, that he had actually maintained that there is no future life, but that the soul dies with the body."

"Whereas to us it has been made manifestly to appear that our lord Pope, John XXIII., has, ever since his promotion to the Papacy, ill administered that office, that by his damnable life and execrable manners he has set a bad example to the people; that he has with the most notorious simony disposed of cathedral churches, monasteries, priories, and other ecclesiastical benefices, and that being charitably admonished to

desist from such practices, and reform his life, he has

persevered, and still perseveres, in his wicked courses, notoriously scandalizing the Church of GOD; for these reasons we pronounce, decree, and declare by this our present sentence, that the said lord Pope John ought to be suspended from all administration in spirituals, as well as in temporals, belonging to him as Pope, and we declare him accordingly actually sus pended, for his notorious simony and wicked life.”*

So decided and so beyond all doubt, were the proofs of his guilt that the Pope himself submitted to the decree, abandoned all claim to the Papacy, and was kept for the remainder of his life under the custody of the Elector Palatine. He died in the year 1419, after submitting to Pope Martin V. as the only lawful Pope, and under whom the great schism terminated.

Sixtus IV. was Pope of Rome from the year 1471 to 1484, a man of the profoundest learning and ability, and a most vigilant and active ruler of the States of the Church. As far as his political character is concerned, he is principally noted for the expedition in which he engaged nearly all Christendom against the Turks. But for his moral character, let the following facts decide. He had a nephew, one Girolamo Riario. This nephew according to the general principles of the Papal policy which then prevailed, he was desirous of establishing as the head of a great Italian family, and it was his object to constitute the fertile plains of Romagna to be a principality over which he might set Riario, as prince and governor. But, as might be expected, this idea was not received in a friendly spirit by the Italian princes, and among the rest by the great family of *See Dupin. XV. Century, ch. 2.

the Medici, in Florence. There were at that time two brothers, Lawrence and Julian, who governed the Florentine Republic. It was desired by the Medici family to make Lawrence a Cardinal, but the Pope refused. Upon this, one of those miserable feuds, so prevalent in the Italian states, soon ripened into a scene of most atrocious wickedness, with Pope Sixtus at the head of it. A conspiracy, accompanied with a secret treaty was entered upon between Sixtus and one Francis de Pazzi, by which it was stipnlated that the two brothers Lawrence and Julian de Medici, should be assassinated, and that upon their death. the Republic should be at the disposal of the Pope. The execution of this plot was entrusted to that same Girolamo Riario, for whom the Pope intended the Romagna, and he, with others, pursued it with all the eagerness of an evil spirit. The two brothers were to attend at Mass in the Church of S. Reparata, on Sunday, the 20th of April. The holiness, neither of the place nor of the occasion, were any impediment to the atrocious deed; on the contrary, they seemed to promise a greater security of success; and to crown all, the elevation of the Host was chosen as a signal for the attack. Julian was mortally wounded, and died under the hands of the assassin, but Lawrence escaped, and fled into the vestry, where he was defended from further attack by his friends, being only slightly wounded in the fray. The report of this dreadful scene soon spread through the city, and the inhabitants in their indignation seized most of the conspirators, and forthwith. hanged them on the spot, and among others Bartholomew Salviati, Archbishop of Pisa, who, to encourage the other conspirators, had assisted at Mass in his pontifical robes. In these very same sacred robes, polluted and stained by sacrilegious murder, the Archbishop was hanged by the infuriated populace. Then, to crown the whole, the Pope, enraged at the failure of his plot, and pretending as his ground of complaint, the execution of the Archbishop, placed the whole Republic of Florence under an interdict, and Lawrence de Medici under sentence of excommunication. A strange discipline indeed, and a righteous judge! the very instigator of the crime condemning those

who had fallen under his own hand, and he who had contrived the plot surveying the scene of his own sin, and then apostrophizing virtue. But this did not last long. Louis, King of France, espoused the cause of the injured Florentines, and compelled the Pope to give way.*

Nor was this by any means the only instance of the same kind of violence and tyranny. Any opposition to the will of the Pope; any one who rose up to dispute his power or stood in the way of the fulfilment of his commands, was immediately attacked, set aside, and if needs be, destroyed. The Colonna family, one of the first at Rome, were the great opponents of that Riario, whom the Pope desired to raise to the chief dignities of the Church. The family remonstrated and objected to the proposed principality which the Pope aspired to make; but Sixtus was not a man to brook such an opposition. He seized upon the estates of the Colonnas, which were called "Marino," pursued the head of the family who fled thither for refuge, and there made him prisoner. He seems to have promised that if Marino should be given. up to him, to set Colonna at liberty, but without more ado, he at once caused him to be put to death. The mother of Colonna flew to the place where the corpse lay, and lifting the severed head by the hair, she exclaimed: "Behold the head of my son! Such is the truth of the Pope! He promised my son should be set at liberty if Marino were delivered into his hands; he is possessed of Marino and behold we have my son-but dead. Thus does the Pope keep his word."+

Such was this Christian Bishop and father of the faithful! Oppression, murder, rapine, and every kind of violence in the tyranny of a temporal Prince, appearing in almost every action, gilded over by the covering of a spiritual Father. A man of war, and fierceness, and wrath, without acknowledging any obstacle to the fulfilment of his own will, forgetting, or if remembering, remembering only to despise them, the lessons of the meek and gentle Master, whose disciple and representative he would have himself to be.

But let us proceed.

In the reign of this Sixtus IV. there Machiavel. Hist. Floren. 1. 8.

+ See Ranke's History of the Popes. Vol. I. p. 35

was one Roderic Borgia, Chancellor of the Apostolic See, and a Cardinal, a man who from his earliest years had given. conspicuous proofs of the greatest genius and ability. He was frequently employed by Sixtus as his legate in embassies of importance, and was altogether very much. engaged in the political affairs which then agitated the Italian world. This Roderic Borgia in his youth had dedicated himself to the study of the law, but tired of its labours betook himself to a military life. It happened that during this second stage of his life, still full of his military profession, his uncle Alphonso Borgia was raised to the Papal throne by the title of Calixtus III. It was immediately suggested either by his own mind, or by the interventions of worldly friends, that he might improve his position by changing the sword for the cassock, and that through his uncle Pope, the road lay open to him to many lucrative ecclesiastical offices. This suggestion was not lost upon him, and the military life was exchanged for that of the Priesthood. It was not customary at that time, any more than at the present, for nephews, or indeed any relations of those high in office, to remain in the Church without suitable advancement, and therefore it very soon came to pass that Roderic Borgia, at first the advocate, and then the soldier, under such peculiar advantages, should be invested with the purple. Previously however to this conspicuous advancement in the Church, Cardinal Borgia had been in no slight degree notorious for various criminal. indulgences in open violation of the seventh commandment. The following is an illustration :-There was a widow who had two daughters. With these women simultaneously a life of sin was carried on. The mother however died, but the incestuous intercourse pursued with one of the daughters, whose name was Vanozza, produced five children, of whom Francis and Cæsar, as sons, and Lucretia as daughter were most spicuous. All this miserable state of sin was at that time unknown to the public, for the Cardinal, with great dexterity had concealed his mistress Vanozza at Venice, only going thither to visit her occasionally. And this was continued until the Pontificate of Innocent VIII. who succeeded Sixtus.

con

During that Pontificate, Vanozza and

her family were brought to Rome, and although the laws of the Roman Church was very stringent as to the celibacy of the clergy, it does not seem that there was so much restraint in other matters, but that the Cardinal being dexterous and somewhat unscrupulous in the manage ment of his conscience, could still retain his concubine, and publicly, and in the face of the Church, advance his children, being nevertheless a Priest.

*

Innocent VIII. died in the year 1486, and then Cardinal Borgia who had never lost sight of his worldly interest from the timo of his becoming a Cardinal, and who also well understood the artifices and the value of simony, without much dificulty brought about his own election as the new Pope. With concubine and children openly recognized in a strange parallel with priestly celibacy, he appears in the list of Pontiffs, under the title of Alexander VI.

And now comes the history of the very darkest time in all the annals of the Papal government. Impurity and unholiness begins the scene, simony carries it onward, murder and lust complete it. Francis, the eldest son of the Pope, was made Duke of Gandia, and Cæsar, the second son, was made a Cardinal. But the Cardinal becoming jealous of the Duke, as one interfering with his own designs, determined to be rid of him. Fratricide was the simple means of removing the elder brother from a share in that power which the younger brother desired to possess alone. The court of the Papal government, headed by the father and son, became one constant scene of terror. There was no crime from which they shrunk as too horrible, or too audacious for their perpretation.

"It was a common practice," says Guicciardini, the principal historian of the time, "both with the father and the son, to dispatch with poison, not only those

*"The chief contest was between Ascanio Sforza whose superior rank and powerful family gave him great credit, and Roderigo Borgia, who counterbalanced the influence of his opponent, by his long experience, deep dissimulation, and the riches amassed from the many lucrative offices which he had enjoyed. openly was his scandalous traffic carried on, that Roderigo sent four mules laden with silver to Ascanio, and presented to another Cardinal, 5,60) gold crowns, as an earnest of what he was afterwards to receive."-Roscoe's Life of Leo X. Quotation from Burchard,

f

whom they resolved to sacrifice to their revenge and jealousy, but all other persons whose wealth tempted their unhallowed avarice; not sparing Cardinals, nor other courtiers, nor even their most intimate friends, nor even their most faithful and useful ministers."* Ranke describes the character of Cæsar Borgia thus:

"With no relative or favourite would Cæsar Borgia endure the participation of his power. His own brother stood in the way, Cæsar caused him to be murdered and thrown into the Tyber. His brotherin-law was assailed by his orders on the steps of his palace. The wounded man was nursed by his wife and sister, the latter preparing his food with her own hands to secure him from poison, and the Pope set a guard upon the house to protect his son-in-law from his son. Cæsar laughed these precautions to scorn, "What cannot be done at noon-day," said he, " may be brought about about in the evening." When the prince was on the point of recovery, he burst into his chamber, drove out the wife and sister, called in the common executioner, and caused his unfortunate brother-in-law to be strangled. Towards his father, whose life and station he valued only as the means of his own aggrandizements, he displayed not the slightest respect or feeling. He slew Peroto, Alexander's favourite, while the unhappy man clung to his patron for protection, and was wrapped within the pontifical mantle. The blood of the favourite flowed over the face of the Pope." +

Nor was this all. The historians of this period dwell much upon a crime, which is almost too horrible to relate, and which we would rather pass over in silence, were it not that truth demands its record. It is to the effect that Pope Alexander, the father, and Cæsar Borgia, the son, were both guilty of incestuous sin with Lucretia the daughter of one, the sister of the other. One would gladly cast aside the disgusting tale, if possible, and Roscoe in his history of Leo X. tries to disprove it; but there it stands out in records which we cannot pass over. Burchard, who lived at the court of Alexander as master of the ceremonies, and afterwards wrote a minute account of the private life of the Pope, mentions scenes of infamy which would go far to confirm the horrible fact. These pages must not be polluted by the minute details which he relates, but this only we gather, that the Apostolic palace was turned into a brothel, harlots were invited to public entertainments, and obscenities which would disgrace an eastern court, were openly prac

Guicciand: L. v. Instances are given in Tomasi and Burchardus.

+ Ranke's History of the Popes, Vol. 1.

p.

38.

ticed in the presence of the Pope and his daughter Lucretia. "In short, none of the Eastern, none of the Roman Emperors, however lewd and debauched, exceeded Alexander in lewdness and debauchery."* And thus it is that the name of Lucretia Borgia stands out in the pages of history with an infamy and horror, to account for which, this short allusion must be sufficient.

And then came the end; an end worthy of such a monstrous life, and without any breach of charity, we may say, singularly marking the just retribution of ALMIGHTY GOD.

There was one Hadrian, Cardinal of Corneto among the most wealthy and powerful of the sacred college. This Cardinal, it was desirable for reasons best known to the Pope and his son, to set aside. He was an impediment in the way of certain projects which they had in view. The Pope would therefore, according to the custom of those times, sup with the Cardinal, and for this purpose, sent him by the hands of his cook, some flasks of wine and some special confections. But the Cardinal was not without suspicion, both of his guests and of their gifts. Fearing a danger, he won over the cook by promises and bribes to betray his master's secret. The wine and the confections were set apart, and when the Pope arrived, he received at the hands of his own cook the very poison which he had prepared for another. A different version is given of this story by some, who say that the poisoned wine being sent by Alexander, and put by, the Pope came in to the banquet before his right time, and being thirsty demanded wine; upon which, a servant, ignorant of the circumstance, handed the wrong wine to the Pope, and so he drank of it. But the different versions of the story affect not the main fact. The Pope died the next day, and his body, swollen, black, and shockingly disfigured, was carried to S. Peter's for burial, the people crowding round and congratulating each other on being at last released from so execrable a tyrant.

And now, what shall we say of this revolting picture. Some things may be, no doubt, exaggerated, and many distorted by the party spirit of those unscrupulous times; but upon the whole, the evidence

*Burchard, Diar. p. 77. and Tomasi.