網頁圖片
PDF
ePub 版

he was not able to create any cardinal from the 26th of March, 1804, to the 8th of March, 1816. The number of creations due to Pius IX. will no doubt be large; but it is hardly likely, though his reign has been so much longer, that he will reach the number of Pius VII.

It may be observed, however, that it has not been without some show of good reason that the later Popes have been desirous of leaving a well-filled College of Cardinals at their death. The smallness of the number of Cardinals in Conclave has frequently been the occasion of difficulty in coming to an election, and consequent long duration of the Conclave-a circumstance which has always been held to be, and may readily be believed to be, injurious to the Church. In old times, indeed, when the period during which the Holy See remained vacant was one of utter anarchy and lawlessness in Rome, it was a matter of the highest importance that the election should be made as quickly as possible. And even in more recent times, a prolonged Conclave was always the cause of disorders both in Rome and to a certain degree in the Church generally. It may also well be believed that scandalous elections and simoniacal bargainings and promises were much more likely to occur in a College composed of but a small number of individuals.

Having had occasion to speak of the creation of cardinals in petto, it may be as well to take this opportunity of explaining the meaning of that phrase, before proceeding to speak of those regulations, customs, and specialties which are essential to a sufficient under

standing of the nature of the august body to which the making of the Pope is entrusted.

Various causes occasionally arose to lead a Pontiff to deem it undesirable to name openly to the world the person whom it was his wish and purpose to create a cardinal. Sometimes the opposition, or at all events the discontent, of some one among the sovereigns of Europe, sometimes jealousies and ill-will among the members of the Sacred College themselves, and sometimes the consideration that the individual to be promoted might for a time be more serviceable to the Holy See in the less exalted dignity from which he was to be elevated to the purple, induced the Pontiff to keep his nomination secret. Martin V. (ob. 1431)

was the first who thus created cardinals in secret. And the usage as practised by him and sundry of his successors is to be distinguished from the subsequent plan of creating in petto to which it led. Pope Martin created in one batch fourteen cardinals, naming and publishing only ten, and confiding in secret Consistory to the members of the Sacred College, the names of the other four, who were thus secretly created but not published. The Pope further took the precaution of confirming his secret nomination in a subsequent Consistory, and not only strictly enjoined the cardinals to publish the creation of the persons in question and to consider them as cardinals in case he, the Pope, should die without having published them, but made them swear solemnly that they would do so. The case the Pope had looked forward to happened. Martin died without having published the names of the cardinals

thus secretly created. But the College, their promises and oaths notwithstanding, refused to recognise the persons in question as cardinals, or allow them to take any part in the election of the new Pope. In some similar cases, the succeeding Pope created afresh the secretly named cardinals of his predecessor out of regard for his memory. In more cases, those who remained unpublished when their patron died never obtained the purple. The cardinals themselves always set themselves strongly against these secret nominations.

But as time went on the absolutism of the Popes always went on increasing, and the power of the cardinals to resist it diminishing. And Paul III., the Farnese (ob. 1549), a very powerful and high-handed Pontiff, pushed the practice of secret nomination a step in advance. Up to that time the Popes had always named the cardinals whose promotion they were unwilling to publish in secret Consistory, taking the Sacred College into their confidence. Paul simply

declared that besides those named as cardinal there were one or two others, as the case might be, whose names he reserved in his own breast (in petto), to be named when he should think proper. And, further, it became the practice for a cardinal created in this fashion to take precedence in the College according to the date of his secret nomination, whereas previously the secretly named cardinals had taken rank according to the date of the publication of their dignity.

The form used at present in the practice of this secret nomination is as follows. The Pope in Consistory, after

naming those whom he publicly creates, adds, "Alios duos [or more or less] in pectore reservamus, arbitrio nostro quandocumque declarandos." The Popes, however, have never succeeded in obtaining with any degree of certainty the recognition of cardinals thus made if they should be surprised by death before the publication of them. Sometimes they have been allowed to take their places in the Sacred College. Sometimes their title to do so has been rejected. More frequently, perhaps, than either, the succeeding Pope has given them admission to the College by a nomination of his own. It is now, however, a recognised maxim of the Roman Curia that no Pope on succeeding to the see of St. Peter is in any wise bound to recognise any nominations left by his predecessor in this incomplete condition, even if he should find the document in which his predecessor had registered his act in this respect, or if the facts of the case should become known to him in any other manner.

Sometimes it has been the Papal practice to cause some entirely confidential person of those about them to make out a list of those intended to be comprised in a coming creation of cardinals. And the secret history of the Vatican has many anecdotes connected with this practice. Bonifacio Vannozzi, of Pistoia, well known in the history of the Roman Court as having served it as secretary for more than thirty years, had been employed by Gregory XIV. (ob. 1591) to draw up such a list of contemplated promotions. Having subsequently passed into the service of the Cardinal di Santa Cecilia, the Pope's nephew, the latter, anxious to know the names of those who were to be promoted, succeeded in wrenching

them from his secretary Vannozzi, whose own name was in the list. The Pope soon found out that his nephew knew all about the new creations, and, sending for Vannozzi, told him that he had misinformed the Cardinal di Santa Cecilia in one respect at least, and so saying handed him the list and bade him erase his own name!

On another occasion it is related* that Pope Alexander VIII. (ob. 1691) sent for his secretary Gianfranceso Albani, who afterwards became Pope as Clement XI., that he might prepare an allocution to be spoken by the Pope on the following day but one, when a Consistory was to be held for the creation of twelve new cardinals. As the secretary proceeded with his work, the Pope, walking up and down the room the while, told him with many injunctions of profound secrecy the names of the cardinals to be made, one by one as the secretary came to that passage in the allocution which concerned them; for in Papal allocutions upon these occasions it is the practice for the Pope to utter some words of eulogy and record of services rendered to the Church with reference to each of the new nominees. The Pope had thus gone through the first eleven on his list, and then stopping in his walk said, "Well! why don't you go on with your notice of the twelfth ?" "But who is the twelfth, your Holiness?" returned Albani. "What! don't you know how to write your own name ?" said the Pope. "Thereupon," says the Jesuit biographer, who was, when he wrote, Bishop of Sisteron, "Albani prostrated himself before the Pope and conjured him to

Lafiteau, Life of Clement XI., p. 27, 2 vols. 12mo, 1752.

« 上一頁繼續 »