Papal election

“ As for the priests here, should they attempt to set up any secular authority, they would only expose themselves to derision. There is vastly more reverence for the decisions of the Papal see among the Roman Catholics of our country, than there is among the Brazilians. Were a bishop here to interfere at an election, it would cost him his episcopate. It is for us Americans to submit to such an outrage on the sanctity of the ballot-box. ”

“ It is but natural that a Pope who suffered so much from the persistent opposition of successive pretenders, backing their claims with an embarrassing show of canonical election, should have been deeply impressed with the necessity for surrounding such elections in future with safeguards against the recurrence of similar perplexing returns. ”

“ To insure, therefore, the object of this act of legislation—the quick and safe election of a successor,—the Cardinals were empowered forthwith to confer amongst themselves on all points of importance for the election, as the appointment of a suitable locality to hold it in, and the mode in which to conduct it, the faculty of dispensing, if they saw fit, even with the practice of immurement in Conclave being conceded, though not that of canvassing in behalf of a specific candidate during the Pope's lifetime. So direct an approach to election was absolutely forbidden. ”

“ The Cardinals were beginning to take steps and measures for the new Papal election.
Everywhere they bemoaned the approaching demise of the brilliant leader. They feared that the good fortune which had followed the Church's standard under Leo XIII might not be faithful to it under the leadership of his successor. There were many who had hoped that this Pope would succeed in winning back Rome and the Ecclesiastical States. Others, again, had dreamed that he would bring back into the bosom of the Church some of the large Protestant countries. ”

“ II. IT will hardly be necessary to remind the reader that the existing mode of Papal election, by which the prerogative of naming the Supreme Pontiff is vested exclusively in those ecclesiastical dignitaries who have attained the rank of Cardinals, is a matter of comparatively late creation. ”

“ Democracy means a people with power, not a populace excluded from all functions of government. The people in the Papal Church are absolutely stripped of all part in government. They are a mere populace. The clergy are disfranchised officials. That Church is a society with a populace, but without a democracy. Before the Vatican Council, it had a constitutional aristocracy. Since then, the bishops are nobles without any but delegated power. Maret clearly states the familiar fact, that in the earlier centuries both clergy and laity took part in the election of bishops. ”

“ By the Bull of Pius IV. it was, however, distinctly ruled that no Cardinal still a layman should exercise the privileges of his dignity in Conclave. To be entitled to vote in the election of a Pope he must have taken deacon's orders, and this rule has been observed in practice until in Rome it is the general off-hand statement that this is laid down in canon law. ”

“ The election of a pope is one of the most solemn deeds of the Church, and is safeguarded by strict regulations. On the death of the pontiff the Cardinal Chamberlain, as representative of the Sacred College, assumes charge of the papal household, notifying to all the cardinals of the Church the death of the pope and the impending election. Every cardinal has the right to vote in the conclave, but he must be present in person to do so. Each one may take with him a secretary, who is generally a priest, and a servant. ”

“ It had thus been solemnly ruled that the power of making a Pope should reside with the Cardinals alone, and that no Pope coùld be legitimate except by the vote of two-thirds of the electors present; but as to any obligatory conditions of form to be observed in such election, little, if anything, had as yet been defined. On this head, as on the others, the organic laws that have definitely regulated matters were plainly dictated by instincts springing out of practical experiences. ”

“ The idea has, in fact, been entertained in circles 'worthy of credit, that, in view of the political dangers besetting the Holy See, some Papal instrument has been duly provided by Pius IX., absolving the Cardinals from the obligatory observance of the prescribed forms of election, and empowering them to make, if they saw fit, a new Pope over his yet warm corpse. There can be no question as to the Pope's perfect competency in principle to authorize so grave a departure from the custom of ages by an individual act, even without the concurrence of any Cardinals. ”

“ For a protest to have effect it must, however, be lodged before a canonical majority has been actually obtained; for a Pope, once created according to the prescribed forms, cannot be unmade by the intervention of any power. So it is said that in 1823 Leo XII. owed his election to a surprise—the French Cardinals, Clermont and De la Fare, who were instructed to exclude him, having been outwitted by the stealthy suddenness of the final ballot. The latest instance of actual exclusion was in 1831, when Cardinal Giustiniani was excluded by Spain, at which Court he had been Nuncio. ”

“ In the middle of the eleventh century a movement was begun to reform the method of conducting papal elections, which eventually limited them within the legitimate circle of ecclesiastical prerogatives, totally excluding the direct influence of the inferior clergy and the aristocratic and popular element of the laity. ”

“ A Cardinal's right to record his vote at Papal elections is regarded as so sacred that it has been guarded by perfectly exceptional provisions, such as seem to constitute in canon law the single limitation set on the Pope's plenary authority. ”

“ If a cardinal fall ill and choose to remain in conclave, provision is made to take his vote; but he may retire, if he wish, losing his vote, however, which cannot be given outside of the conclave or by proxy. If he recover he is obliged in conscience to return, because it is a duty of his office, and not a mere personal privilege, to take part in papal elections. All cardinals, unless specially deprived by the pope before his death of the right of electing and of being elected, can vote and are eligible, even if under censures. ”

“ Far from deriving its authority from the Holy See, the Œcumenical Council, it is affirmed, depends immediately upon Christ, and the Pope is no less bound than all other Christians to render due obedience to its decisions. The right of appeal from the Pope to the future council—a claim obnoxious in the last degree to the advocates of papal supremacy—is distinctly asserted. The Pope is declared incapable of appointing to any high ecclesiastical dignities, save in a few specified cases; in all others recourse is to be had to election. ”

“ As the populace claimed and enjoyed the prerogative of confirming or rejecting the choice of the bishops, and as nobles, from selfish and ambitious motives, often interfered in the proceedings, the papal elections were always scenes of excitement, and sometimes of disorder. ”

“ But if after an election any disturbance of war or any malicious attempt of men shall prevail so that he who is elected cannot be enthroned according to custom in the papal chair, the pope elect shall nevertheless exercise the right of ruling the holy Roman church, and of disposing of all its revenues, as we know St. ”

“ There appears to be a decided tendency to believe that Catholics ascribe to the Holy See a certain degree of infallibility in regard to national policy and local elections. The Pope's own words do not inculcate a blind obedience as necessary to the salvation of the voter, though it is expressly declared a grave offence to favour the election of persons opposed to the Roman Catholic Church and whose opinions may tend to endanger its position. ”

“ A limited electoral body lends itself to more minute legislation than a larger body; the college for electing the pope, thus reduced so as to consist in practice of the cardinals only, was subjected as time went on to laws of increasing severity. Two points of great importance were established by Alexander III. at the Lateran Council of 1179. The constitution Licet de vitanda discordia makes all the cardinals equally electors, and no longer mentions the lower clergy or the people; it also requires a majority of two-thirds of the votes to decide an election. ”

“ Already the bishops and abbots had got possession of nearly half the realm of France, and in other countries they were equally well provided. Those great officers were the leaders of innumerable priests and monks, and owed their dignities to the popular will. The Pope himself—a sovereign prince when once placed in the [229] chair of St. Peter—was indebted for his exaltation to a plurality of votes of the clergy and people of Rome. Election was, in fact, the universal form of constituting the rule under which men were to live. ”

“ The reproach [792] that they receive their instructions from Rome is not borne out by the facts; and if there were an understanding with Rome of the kind which their adversaries affirm, this could only be the result of a similar understanding on the part of their constituents. Nothing could more strikingly prove that the Catholic party faithfully represent the great majority in their electoral districts than the repeated re-election of the same representatives or of men of similar views. ”

“ Now, any man or woman of ordinary "horse sense" can see that God Almighty has nothing whatever to do with filling the office of the Pope, and this infallibility rests altogether with the pulling power that the candidate for Pope exercises over the cardinals, as it is an indisputable fact that there is as much political chicanery in the election of a Pope as there is in the election of a justice of the peace at a township election. ”

“ Not only did the Roman Catholic people regularly take part in elections of priests, church councils, and synods, undoubtedly with the approval of the new pope Leo XIII., who had in February addressed a conciliatory letter to the members of the Federal Council, but also the extremest of the Jura now submitted without scruple to the new election required by the law, and won therein for the most part the majority of votes. ”

“ This threat was necessary, because when a candidate obtains so large a proportion of votes as to make his election seem certain at the next ballot, it is a very usual thing for the supporters of the beaten candidates to go over at once, in order to have the credit of voting for the new Pope. ”

“ 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. ”

“ This merit elected popes have usually been found to strive after with all their strength. Julius II., by a bull issued in 1505, declared that any pope elected by means of bargains or promises is elected simoniacally; that his election is null even if he have the vote of every cardinal; that he is a heresiarch and no pope; that such an election cannot become valid by enthronation, or by lapse of time, or by the obedience of the cardinals; that it is lawful for the cardinals, the clergy and the people of Rome to refuse obedience to a pope so elected. ”

“ The knell of a pope's death became the tocsin of war, and the election of his successor a bloody struggle for political interest. Rival aspirants appeared in the ecclesiastical arena; acrimonious contests ensued; adherents were bought; competitors insulted; votes extorted by threats; Rome polluted with blood; and the peace of Christendom endangered. To defeat a hostile or elect a friendly candidate, nobles and princes would appeal to the passions of the mob, and excite them to ungovernable fury. Emperors would interpose not only in the election, but in the administration of a pope. ”

“ That this method of choosing a supreme head of the universal Church was in its origin abusive—that the earliest popes were chosen by the suffrages of the entire body of the faithful, that by a process of encroachment this election was in the course of time arrogated to themselves by the Roman clergy, and was ultimately, by a further process of similar encroachment, monopolized by the "Sacred College" of cardinals,—all this is sufficiently well known. ”

“ There could be no more eloquent testimony to the real state of things and the estimate formed of the freedom of the Council, for it is dictated by the knowledge that a secret ballot would give a very considerable number of negative votes, at least 200, if the private expressions of opinion of the Bishops may be relied upon, while no one here ventures to hope for more than 110 or 115 non placets in a public voting. There are certainly some hundred, even of the Papal boarders, who would say Non placet, if their votes were sheltered by secrecy. ”

“ But there, again, the last general election has given a result in the opposite direction. The terror which the priests can turn to account in elections is threefold—dread of civil hurt or loss, for which contrivances are manifold; dread of personal violence, which of course supposes a strong Catholic party; and dread of eternal ruin, which the priest of God can inflict for voting against the interests of the Church. Even on Roman Catholics not brought up in the schools of priests, these influences are powerful. ”