YOUTH'S INSTRUCTER

AND

GUARDIAN.

AUGUST, 1852.

GREGORY XII., EX-POPE.

(With a Portrait.)

ANGELO CORARIO, or Gregory XII. Pope, or Gregory XII. anti-Pope, or ex-Pope, as you may please to call him, is a remarkable example of notoriety without eminence, or of eminent position without any elevation of merit. His name, however, is not without historic value, inasmuch as it marks a condition of the Papacy, that has often recurred, and sometimes for many years together, utterly incompatible with the boast of unity, as well as with a certain validity of sacred orders which the Church of Rome imagines to result from the due election of her Popes, and communication of authority to her Bishops from those Popes, as a continuous fountain of power and sacramental virtue.

The Church of Rome was cleft in twain. The house was divided against itself again and again; and therefore it became certain that it must fall. A part of it did fall; and on the ground thus cleared now stands Protestant Christendom. Conscious of the ruin impending over them, the two "obediences," as they were called,—that is to say, the hostile parties who professed obedience, some to one Pope, and some to the other, made mutual overtures of reconciliation, in hope of averting that calamity; and thus they preserved a great part of the house. Taught by experience, Romanism has latterly become more and more united, and, by this prudent unity has made, and still is making, great progress VOL. XVI. Second Series. P

in the world. Of us Protestants it is often said that we are split into innumerable factions, and that, by consequence, our house must fall; but the truth is, that we have a centre of unity in Christ, which keeps us up. And, on the other side, it must be admitted, even by Romanists themselves, that elements of confusion are boiling within the bosom of their Church that break forth in schism on every occasion; and that whenever the pressure of an external force is withdrawn, hosts of Priests instantly arise in open disaffection to the Court and Pope of Rome. But here is a theme for long discourse. We must leave it, and come to Gregory XII.

Innocent (how charming a name ! It reminds one of the pure, unspotted lambs'-wool, whereof is woven, by virgins' hands, the pallium to be thrown over the shoulders of some high Prelate, who might seem to be robed in innocence,

"Integer vitæ, scelerisque purus."

One thinks of the white that glistens on the outside of a sepulchre, in spite of all the rottenness and dead men's bones within)—Innocent VII., himself an anti-Pope, died at Rome on the 6th of November, 1406. Some say that the messenger of death was a stroke of apoplexy, and some that it was a dose of poison. But all agree that his departure was regarded on both sides with delight, even greater than the satisfaction that is usually experienced when a real, entire, and peerless Pope breathes his last.

The Cardinals of his obedience, fourteen in number, went into conclave two days afterwards, to deliberate on the election or non-election of a successor. If they did not choose one, they would have none to adore and obey but a stubborn Spaniard, whom they hated, their bitter enemy, Pedro de Luna, or Benedict XIII. If they did choose one, they would only create a new chief to carry on the schism of which all Popedom was weary. If they did not elect a Pope at Rome, the Romans would set up a master of their own to rule the state, and leave the Cardinals without any temporal power. If they did make an election, they would place themselves under the command of a man of war, and must be content to fight his battle. After long debate, they struck out a middle way, a compromise between right

and wrong; and such a compromise, as it is not right, cannot but be wrong. They drew up a paper to the effect that whoever was made Pope should resign his crown so soon as Benedict would resign his, or so soon as death had uncrowned Benedict. Every Cardinal signed the paper, and swore to it; and then they elected a Venetian, Angelo Corario, CardinalPresbyter of St. Mark, and saluted him as their Holy Father, under the name of Gregory XII.

Gregory seemed to be a perfect zealot for peace and unity. He was an old man of not less than threescore years and ten, but he said that he would make any effort to heal the wounds of his bleeding spouse, the Church; that, in compassion on her misery, he would make a pilgrimage to any spot where the great business of union was to be transacted, and there would piously lay down the triple crown as a votive offering to peace and charity. If there were not a proud galley, befitting his dignity, to be had, he would trust himself to the sea in a fishing-boat; or if the journey must be performed on land, and a beast were not forthcoming to carry him, he would trudge it on foot; for on one thing his heart was determinately set, to be rid of his new dignity as quickly as possible. Strange to tell, they had made him what he was under an oath to unmake himself again.

Gregory wrote, even before his coronation, to Benedict, who was then at Marseilles, with his Court of Cardinals, exhorting him to surrender, and professing himself willing to disrobe, in like manner, as soon as the two could agree on a ceremony that would give decorum to their spontaneous abdication. Benedict answered the letter sweetly; and the world wondered to see the chiefs of two hostile armies talk to each other so lovingly across the barrier which alone prevented them from edifying Christendom with a visible embrace. The King of France dispatched an embassy to ask the Spaniard to love his competitor, the Venetian, not in word only, but in deed and in truth, and in proof of sincerity, to sign an act of cession. He replied graciously, but gave reasons for waiting some adjustment, and did not sign. Gregory, too, sent an embassy to Paris, to pray the King to hasten by his good offices the happy moment when he might expire

in the person of Gregory, and revive in the humbler person of Corario. The King sent an embassy, in turn, to Rome, and prayed this disinterested temporary Pope to meet Benedict for conference at Savona. Gregory, as if to achieve the proposed conference with greater dignity, imposed a heavy tax upon the people of his obedience, to defray the cost, and looked around him at the same time for reasons to set aside the expedition, which its expensiveness, he hoped, would make unpopular. This done, and suddenly changing his note, he alleged reason upon reason why he neither could nor would go to Savona. Ships, hostages, castles, every assurance and all inducements that could be thought of were offered, but Gregory was immovable. Benedict, when he knew that his antagonist would not go to the place appointed, went thither himself, but at the same time excommunicated the King for presuming to interfere in the quarrel of a Pope; and thus the "concurrents" both agreed to carry on the war, each choosing to be a half-Pope, rather than not be Pope at all. Afterwards it was ascertained that they were in a secret agreement to pursue this course. The Cardinals who had elected Gregory were mortified; but he made other Cardinals. The old ones appealed to a Council; but he laughed at their appeal, and excommunicated them all at one stroke. France, in disgust, refused obedience to both Popes; and happy would it have been for France if she had persisted in that refusal until now.

The Cardinals of both obediences then joined in a determination to convoke a Council at Pisa, to set aside the refractory Innocent and Benedict at the same time; but each of these made the best of his position by creating new Cardinals, and attaching himself to political factions in Italy, or to friendly interests abroad, wherever he could find them. Affairs were embroiled more and more, the belligerents flew to arms, and Europe was in flames of strife and terror. A Council, however, assembled at Pisa, and, by a large majority, deposed both anti-Popes. The Patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem ascended a spacious pulpit together, in the cathedral of Pisa, and solemnly pronounced the two troublers deposed as "schismatics, abettors of schism, heretics, obstinate, perjured, and engaged in an incorrigible manner in divers