Pope Gregory XI

“ A man of heart, power, and lofty purpose—a ruler who saw the opportunity and need of the Christian Church in Western Europe, who felt her new impulses, and who could guide her through a crucial period to a great and useful career—such a man the Roman senate, clergy, and people believed that they had found in the monk Gregory. He alone could save them from Teutonic anarchy, on the one hand, and from Roman decay on the other.
Although elected Pope unanimously by the senate, clergy, and people of Rome, Gregory did not want the office. ”

“ Of all the early Popes, save Leo I and Gregory I, it is true that we may be tolerably at home in the history of their times without knowing much about them. No Pope is ranked among the leading Western Fathers. The only considerable theologian who occupied the Holy See, before the year 1000, is Gregory I ”

“ Gregory IX. (Ugolino Conti de Segni) , pope from the 19th of March 1227, to the 22nd of August 1241, was a nobleman of Anagni and probably a nephew of Innocent III. He studied 574 at Paris and Bologna, and, having been successively archpriest of St Peter’s, papal chaplain, cardinal-deacon of Sant’ Eustachio, cardinal-bishop of Ostia, the first protector of the Franciscan order, and papal legate in Germany under Innocent III., and Honorius III., he succeeded the latter in the papacy. ”

“ In such a state of things Pope Gregory the Great raised the Papacy [A. D. 590] to a position of decisive eminence, and marked out the course of its future policy. The piety of emperors and nobles had conferred lands on the Roman Church, not only in Italy, but in Sicily, Corsica, Gaul, and even in Asia and Africa, until the Bishop of Rome had become the largest landholder in Italy. To defend his Italian lands against the incursions of the Lombards was a course suggested to Gregory by self-interest ”

“ There is a famous manoeuvre in the Spanish bull-fights, which may prove successful once, but which means death to the torreador should he attempt to repeat it. The result of Gregory's second bann was not unlike it. A storm of indignation rose against the pope, and the Lombard and German bishops rallied to Henry. First in Bamberg, then in Mainz, and finally in Brixen (see No. 13) , Gregory was declared deposed. Wibert of Ravenna was made pope in his stead. Gregory's letter of justification, written to Bishop Herrmann of Metz (see No. 14) , shows a power of reasoning worthy of the Jesuits. ”

“ Gregory was the organiser, reformer, and to some extent the author of the Antiphoner of the Mass. It is, of course, more difficult to say definitely what his work actually was in these three divisions, but a quite sufficient amount of certainty has been attained for us to realize the extent and the nature of the debt which succeeding ages have owed to the great Pope, and so far the attacks that have been made on the tradition have only resulted in setting it on a firmer and more definite basis. ”

“ S. Gregory II. was ordained sub-deacon by pope Sergius I., and under the four succeeding popes he acted as treasurer and librarian to the Church in Rome. When elected pope, he signalized himself by his unwearied zeal in defending the pure faith against heresy, and in combating the Iconoclasts who, protected by the Emperor Leo the Isaurian, waged war against sacred pictures and images. ”

“ For a time, he devoted himself to preaching the Crusade; and later, at the request of Pope Gregory X, caused the studies which the late wars had practically suspended to be resumed in the Dominican convent at Rome. After the death of Pope Gregory X he retired to one of the convents of his order, whence he was summoned by Innocent V and sent as papal legate to Tuscany. He restored peace between Venice and Genoa and also between Florence and Pisa. His name was inserted in the Roman Martyrology in 1577. His biographers exhibit his life as one of perfect humility. ”

“ It would seem that in all the tumultuous and factious city there was but one thought of horror at the 249 sacrilege, and determination to save the Pope if it were still possible. Gregory was not, like his great predecessor the first of that name, the idol of his people. He had not the wealth with which many great ecclesiastics had secured the homage of the often famished crowd; and a stern man, with no special geniality of nature, and views that went so far beyond the local interests of Rome, he does not seem the kind of ruler to have secured popular favour. ”

“ Gregory does not stop with asserting the pope's complete supremacy over the Church; he goes still further and claims for him the right to restrain the civil government when it seems necessary in the cause of righteousness. He says that "the Pope is the only person whose feet are kissed by all princes"; that he may depose emperors and "absolve subjects from allegiance to an unjust ruler." No one shall dare to condemn one who appeals to the pope. No one may annul a decree of the pope, though the pope may declare null and void the decrees of all other earthly powers ”

“ The bishops of Rome had for some time meditated the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons. Pope Gregory, who is surnamed the Great, affected that pious design with an uncommon zeal; and he at length found a circumstance highly favorable to it in the marriage of a daughter of Charibert, a king of the Franks, to the reigning monarch of Kent. This opportunity induced Pope Gregory to commission Augustin, a monk of Rheims, and a man of distinguished piety, to undertake this arduous enterprise. ”

“ The church was half filled with soldiers armed to the teeth, and drawn up on either side, and his body-guard of Roman nobles, stood even within the railing of the altar, capped and motionless, conveying, as everything else does, the irresistible impression that it was the worship of the Pope, not of God.
Gregory the sixteenth, is a small old man, with a large heavy nose, eyes buried in sluggish wrinkles, and a flushed, apoplectic complexion. He sits, or is borne about with his eyes shut, looking quite asleep, even his limbs hanging lifelessly. ”

“ It was imperative, under any circumstances and at any price, to secure his absolution from Gregory before the period named, otherwise he could scarcely foil his opponents in their intention to pursue their attack against himself and justify their measures by an appeal to his excommunication. At first he attempted to attain his ends by an embassy, but when Gregory rejected his overtures he took the celebrated step of going to Italy in person. The pope had already left Rome, and had intimated to the German princes that he would expect their escort for his journey on January 8 in Mantua. ”

“ No pope was more capable than Gregory the Great (590–604) of uniting the different and scattered elements of which the liturgy was composed. [220] To him is due the merit of having been the first to put forth a revised issue of the books of religious service, and who impressed the stamp of his genius on the Roman Catholic ceremonial. Before him, however, Pope Gelasius had collected the prayers used in the administration of the sacraments, and had prepared the first missal or book of masses. The latter was remodelled and corrected by Gregory. ”

“ Gregory to do it!
In every public or private trouble or upheaval, as well as in every effort to reorganise and restore, his name, his presence is dominant. After becoming Pope, he lived chiefly at the Lateran palace, then the official Papal residence, and they still keep there the narrow pallet that served him for a bed, and—mark this, ye modern schoolboys!—the little rod which he had to use to keep his dark-eyed, rampageous young choristers in order!
The men who can govern others with the most unerring wisdom are often entirely mistaken in their appreciation of themselves. ”

“ In the years of conflict that followed Gregory looked far beyond this point; he set his aim ever higher; until, in the end, his idea was to concentrate all ecclesiastical power in the hands of the pope, and to raise the papacy to the dominion of the world. Thus was to be realized the old dream of Augustine: that of a Kingdom of God on earth under the rule of the Church. But it was not given to Gregory to reach this goal, and his successors had to return again to the strife over investiture. ”

“ Gregory, "if your holiness calls me universal pope, you deny yourself what I should then be altogether." The author interpolates in his quotation the copulative and, which is not in St. Gregory's text. It is not to the title of pope that St. Gregory objects, which was and is applied to simple presbyters, but the title universal, which he will not permit to be applied to any man, because it excludes others from all participation in the hierarchy, or even the priesthood. If you call a man a universal presbyter, you deny that any others are presbyters ”

“ Pope Gregory, clothed in vestments of cloth of gold embroidered with precious stones, his tiara "almost as an aureole of sanctity about his head," sat stiffly on his pontifical throne like some carved image, surrounded by cardinals in crimson garments and bishops in white stoles. All eyes were fixed upon this splendid group, and it is not improbable that among the spectators stood Pietro Bernardone and Madonna Pica, and many who had reviled Francis in his early days of sanctity, and now, within two years of his death, witnessed him placed among the greatest of the saints. ”

“ Saint Gregory, the first Benedictine to be elected Pope, was the creator of the Liturgy, the master of plain-song. He was alike devoted to justice and to charity, and a passionate patron of art; and this admirable Pope, with his broad and comprehensive spirit, regarded it as a temptation of the Devil that made the bigots, the Pharisees of his day, proclaim their determination not to read profane literature; for, said he, it helps us to understand that which is sacred. ”

“ At last, after six years of what must have been the most anxious work, requiring all that the great man had of wisdom and firmness and tact, he returned to Italy—to find his beloved Rome in terrible distress from a visitation of the pestilence. Gregory at once devoted himself to the care of the sick and dying, and one can fancy how the poor people’s eyes lighted up when he appeared among them again. Then the good Pope Pelagius succumbed to the disease, and at once all eyes turned to Gregory, who was unanimously elected as his successor. ”

“ We have, therefore, now presented in a general view the history of the rise and consolidation of the temporal sovereignty of the Popes between the two great eras of St. Gregory I. and St. Gregory VII. From that time forward the political history of the Papacy relates chiefly to the rise and subsequent decline of the temporal power of the Pope over all Christendom, until at last, in the disruption of political unity among European states, the Holy See is once more subject to the same struggle for independence in its immediate patrimony which preceded the period of its mediæval power. ”

“ He completed his commentary on Job, and collected endless stories of devils and angels, saints and sinners, visions and miracles; until one day, in 590, the Romans broke into the austere monastery with the news that Pelagius was dead and Gregory was to be his successor. He fled from Rome in horror, but he was the ablest man in Italy, and all united to make him Pope.
If these things do not suffice to show that Gregory was the first mediæval Pope, read his Dialogues, completed a few years later; no theologian in the world to-day would accept that phantasmagoria of devils and angels and miracles. ”

“ They are born to be angels!” cried Gregory, and straightway he flew to the Pope and besought permission to go with some of his monks to Britain to preach the Gospel. The Pope, taken by surprise, consented, and before he had time to think over the matter Gregory, with his volunteers, had put three days of travelling between himself and Rome. Then the news leaked out, and the people rose like one man and rushed to the Pope, who was on his way to St. Peter’s, and, arresting his progress, burst into indignant cries: “You have offended St. Peter! ”

“ This time the cry of sorrow and indignation was uttered by Pope Gregory VII., that illustrious pontiff whose ardent and resolute nature, in the midst of the universal disorder and disorganization of government and society, seemed to have a divine mission to fulfil in settling upon an indestructible basis the supreme authority of the Church. “The miseries suffered by the Eastern Christians,” he wrote, “have so stirred up my heart that I almost long for death, and I would rather expose my life in delivering the holy places than reign over the universe. ”

“ An eastern Council, at his prompting, strives to make that bishop the second bishop of the whole Church on a false foundation, because Constantinople is Nova Roma. Every Byzantine monarch adds his stone to the Byzantine bishop's pillar of pride. St. Leo exposes and censures the assumption. Pope Gelasius does not reckon him among the patriarchs. Justinian enacts him to be ecumenical patriarch, which St. Gregory pronounces to be a title of diabolical pride: being, in fact, the building of spiritual power on temporal lordship. ”

“ For if there is any one principle which seems to serve as the favourite maxim of his whole pontificate, it is that expressed in a letter to the bishop of Syracuse. That bishop had been speaking of an African primate who had professed that he was subject to the Apostolic See. St. Gregory's comment is: "If a bishop is in any fault, I know not any bishop who is not subject to it. But when no fault requires it, all are equal according to the estimation of humility." [196] Natalis, archbishop of Salona, in Dalmatia, had given the Pope much trouble. ”