Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
Excerpt from Manual of Universal Church History, Vol. 3 of 4
During the pontificate of Boniface VIII., a tide in public opinion set in, which, extending over the whole face of society from prince to peasant, went on gathering strength through the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Its characteristic was no longer the high ideal and spiritual tendency which aim at securing the best interests of mankind, but a tendency at once egotistic, materialistic, and de grading. Princes and people no longer regarded it as their highest duty to serve the Church and the general interests of Christendom; those Who made sacrifices in a former age to secure the success of the Crusades, to found and endow charitable and religious institutions, and to build great monasteries and churches, found no imitators during these centuries. Princes professed to be engaged in patriotic projects for the honour and prosperity of their respective countries, and their subjects, following their example, were entirely given to the acquisition of wealth. The idea of a Holy Alliance between the Papacy and the Empire was but ill-understood, and was daily fading from men's minds.
These considerations, together with the many blemishes on the pontificate of Boniface VIII, will afford an explanation of the violent shock sustained in these centuries by the papal power, the effect of which was to weaken the political influence of the Holy and to thrust the Pope from the prominent position heretofore held by him in the councils of the Christian world. Such being now the condition of things, it became a matter of primary importance to determine precisely and to fix permanently the normal limits of papal power and authority, as guaranteed by the very nature of the Primacy. To solve the problem, two different and antagonistic methods were tried - one by the French gaolers of the Popes, and by the councils of Constance and Basle the other by Pope Pius II. And his adherents, Who, unable to read the signs of the times aright, attempted to regain the almost unlimited power of a bygone age.
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