A Defense of the Papal Position
Will Durant says he has left the hard task for last: a non-Catholic writer must now try to understand, and judge impartially, how the popes reacted to the challenge of the Reformation.
At first the reaction was mixed with a painful astonishment. The popes of the Reformation, with perhaps one exception, were all men of good character, as far as politicians can be: not self-denying and pure, but generally sober, humane and intelligent, and sincerely convinced that the Church, besides its brilliant record of service, was still an organization wholly necessary to the moral health and mental peace of Europe. It is true that some church leaders had gone astray and badly abused their power; but did not the same excesses and misdeeds, and far worse, exist in secular institutions and governments? If one hesitates to overthrow a state because of the greed of its rulers or the thefts of its officials, how could one not hesitate over destroying a Church that for a thousand years, by spreading religion, learning, literature, philosophy and art, had nursed the civilization of Europe in its lap? If certain dogmas that had preserved social order and strengthened morals were heavy on the intellectual digestion of a historian or philosopher, what was the Church's fault? And were the doctrines the Protestants proposed so much more rational and credible that they could guarantee Europe's improvement in every respect? In any case, religious doctrine rested not on the logic of a minority but on the needs of the majority of society.
These doctrines formed a mold of belief that kept ordinary people safe from temptation and harmful natural instincts, and obliged them to live with the restraint and discipline that society and civilization require. Break that mold, and the need for another to replace it appears at once, one that perhaps could not be established before centuries of moral and spiritual confusion. For had the reformers themselves not agreed with the Church that moral law without the support of religious faith cannot reform society? As for the intellectual classes, were they freer and happier under Protestant princes than under Catholic popes? Had art not flourished under the Church's guidance, and did that same art not wither under the hostility of Protestant reformers, who wanted to deprive the people of the images that were the source of their zest and hope in life? What convincing reasons were there, merely to nourish minds, to break Christianity into bits and make of it countless sects, each pulling the others down out of hatred and each, alone, powerless against human instincts?
We cannot know for certain whether these were the thoughts and feelings of the popes of the Reformation, since the active leaders of human society rarely publish their philosophical principles. But we may imagine that Leo X (1513–1521) had such thoughts when he found the foundation of papal rule shaking beneath his feet.
Leo X
Like many of us, he was a man guilty of sins and absorbed in negligence that led to ruin, yet one who could be forgiven. He was ordinarily gentle in manner and kept half the poets of Rome at his generous table; yet he did not rest until the heretics of Brescia were put to death, and he always insisted that divisive ideas could be driven from human minds by the blaze of fire. As far as one could expect of a Medici who had become pope, he treated Martin Luther with tolerance and patience.
Imagine, if the times had been reversed, how Pope Martin Luther would have removed the rebel Leo from the face of the earth! Luther's mistake was to take the Reformation for a foolish quarrel among inexperienced monks. Yet in 1517, early in Leo's reign, Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola gave a remarkable speech before the pope and the cardinals in which he "described in the most striking terms the penetration of corruption into the Church" and predicted that "if Leo ... refuses to cure those wounds, it is to be feared that God will turn away from every peaceful remedy and cut off and destroy the diseased members of the Church's body at once with sword and fire." Despite this timely warning, Leo plunged into a policy of setting the European states against one another in order to balance their powers and so keep the Papal States safe from the greed of rivals. As a Catholic historian says, "he never thought, despite that urgent need ..., of undertaking basic reforms; and as a result the papal court remained money-loving and worldly."
Adrian VI
The best proof that reform had to begin with a hard blow from outside is that Pope Adrian VI (1522–1523) failed with his own method of peaceful reform. He fairly admitted the Church's excesses and began reform from above, and was mocked and held in contempt by the people of Rome, who read his reforms as an interruption of the flow of gold from lands beyond the Alps to Rome. After about two years of struggle against this foolish vanity he died of grief, despair and helplessness.
Clement VII
The gathered storm broke on the head of Clement VII (1523–1534). In mind and character he was among the best of the popes: humane, generous and a defender of the persecuted Jews. Clement took no part in the sexual indulgences and financial thefts of those around him, and throughout his turbulent life he nourished the art and literature of Italy with wise guidance and protection. Perhaps he was too learned to be a successful ruler. His mind was clear enough to understand the causes of any crisis, but his wide learning weakened his will, and his doubt about his decisions removed European states from Rome's authority one after another.
Still, we cannot withhold sympathy from a man with such good intentions. Clement VII saw the sack of Rome with his own eyes and was taken prisoner by a rabble and a powerful empire. He was compelled to give up a prudent treaty with Henry VIII and was left with the miserable choice of losing either Henry VIII and England or Charles V and Germany. When he protested France's alliance with the Ottoman Turks, the "Most Christian King" answered that if he went on opposing it, France would break relations with the papacy. Never had a pope drunk the cup of rule to the last bitter drop.
His errors were disastrous. When he misjudged the character and military strength of Charles V and thereby invited him to conquer and sack Rome, he dealt such a blow to the prestige and influence of the papacy that northern Germany too turned boldly away from obedience to Rome. And when later he crowned with his own hands a man whose weakness against his enemies he had exposed, he lost the respect and admiration of the Catholic world. He submitted to Charles V because he lacked the material strength to resist, and also feared that the emperor might call a council of lay and ecclesiastical leaders, join with them to take both the religious and the civil reins into his own hands, and with that supremacy chain the Church and even depose the pope himself as a usurper of illegitimate birth. If Clement had had the courage his uncle Lorenzo de' Medici showed at Naples (1479), he could have acted first and convened a council that, under his liberal guidance, would reform the Church's morals and doctrines, and so preserved the unity of western Christendom.
Paul III
His successor at first seemed to have both intellectual and moral qualities. Alessandro Farnese was born into a wealthy, cultured family. He knew the classics through study under Julius Pomponius Laetus, and in the circles of the Medici in Florence he had become a complete humanist. He rose through favor at the papal court, was a cardinal at twenty-five (1493), and after showing a natural ability in political missions and excelling all his peers in the College of Cardinals, was elected pope unanimously in 1534 with the title Paul III. He was reputed the best-qualified man in Christendom for the highest office. He was held in such respect that the fact that he had four children before becoming a priest (1519) did little to damage it.
Yet in his character and rule there were many wavering and contradictory features, perhaps partly the product of his critical position in history; for Paul III stood like a trembling pillar between the Renaissance, which he loved, and the Reformation, which seemed to him either incomprehensible or unforgivable. With a frail body he withstood fifteen years of political and internal upheaval. His mind was filled with all the learning of the time, and from time to time he consulted astrologers to fix lucky and unlucky hours for traveling, for undertaking a task, or even for granting an audience. Though he had strong feelings that sometimes burst into violent anger, he was known for restraint and self-command. Cellini, who was once imprisoned on his orders, described him as "a man who believed in nothing, not even God," which seems exaggerated, since at least Paul believed in himself.
In the last years of his life the conduct of his children and descendants disheartened him. He was punished in the same matter in which he had sinned: in his rule he made favoring relatives, a hallmark of the Renaissance popes, his watchword. He gave the provinces of Piacenza and Parma to his son Pier Luigi, and Camerino to his grandson Ottavio; he gave the cardinal's red hat to grandnephews of fourteen and seventeen, and protected them despite their unworthy conduct, and in the end their ruin dragged him down too. Paul III had character without moral principle and a mind without wisdom.
Failed Attempts at Conciliation
Paul III correctly acknowledged the faults the reformers found in the Church's administration, and if reforming the Church had truly been the only obstacle to reconciling Catholics and Protestants, he might have succeeded in ending the Reformation. In 1535 he sent Pier Paolo Vergerio to the Protestant leaders to invite them to a general council, while stating that he would on no account allow any basic change in the established doctrines of Catholicism or in the power of the popes. Vergerio came back from Germany worse than empty-handed: his report said that Catholics there too had joined the Protestants and had come to doubt the pope's sincerity in proposing a general council, and that Archduke Ferdinand had complained that he could not find a priest free of adultery, drunkenness and ignorance to hear his confession. In 1536 the pope sent Peter van der Vorst to negotiate with the followers of Luther and arrange a council, but Peter was mocked by the Elector of Saxony and returned without success.
At last Paul made his utmost effort to bring about an understanding between the Church and its opponents: he appointed Cardinal Gasparo Contarini to attend the colloquy being held at Regensburg. As we have seen, Contarini had shown his unshakable sincerity over the years in the Catholic movement to reform the Church.
Contarini at Regensburg
We cannot easily withhold sympathy from the aging cardinal who, eager to win the crown of victory by establishing religious peace, forced his way through the snows of the Apennines and the Alps in February and March 1541 and reached Regensburg. There everyone was charmed by his humility, simplicity and good nature.
With saintly patience he acted as arbiter among the Catholic delegates Eck, Pflug and Gropper and the Protestant delegates Melanchthon, Bucer and Pistorius, and carried the talks forward with moderation. Agreement was reached on major questions such as original sin, free will, baptism, confirmation and holy orders. On 3 May of that year Contarini joyfully informed Cardinal Farnese: "Thanks be to almighty God; yesterday Catholic and Protestant theologians agreed on the belief about the salvation of man." But on the question of the Eucharist no favorable ground could be found. The Protestants could not accept that a priest could change bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ; the Catholics saw that if they gave up the doctrine of transubstantiation, it would be as if they had lost the heart and soul of the Mass and the rites of the Roman Catholic Church.
Contarini returned to Rome heartbroken and worn out, the target of reproaches from the followers of Cardinal Carafa, who in their intense zeal for the orthodox Church called him a Lutheran. Paul too did not know what to do about the articles Contarini had signed. In any case, he received Contarini with friendly welcome and gave him the post of papal legate at Bologna.