19 April 1512 A.D. Fifth Council of Lateran (1512-1517)—18th Roman Council; Consilabulum of Pisa; Thomas Cajetan (Papalists, Dominican General) v. Jacques Almain (Conciliarists, Un. of Paris)
19 April
1512 A.D. Fifth
Council of Lateran (1512-1517)—18th Roman Council; Consilabulum of Pisa; Thomas Cajetan (Papalists, Dominican General)
v. Jacques Almain (Conciliarists, Un. of Paris)
Leclercq,
Henri. “Fifth Lateran Council
(1512-1517).” Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 9. 1913. http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Catholic_Encyclopedia_(1913)/Fifth_Lateran_Council_(1512-17). Accessed 25 Oct 2014.
When elected pope, Julius II promised under oath that he
would soon convoke a general council. Time passed, however, and this promise
was not fulfilled. Consequently, certain dissatisfied cardinals, urged, also,
by Emperor Maximilian and Louis XII, convoked a council at Pisa and fixed 1
September, 1511, for its opening This event was delayed until 1 October. Four
cardinals then met at Pisa provided with proxies from three absent cardinals.
Several bishops and abbots were also there, as well as ambassadors from the
King of France. Seven or eight sessions were held, in the last of which Pope
Julius II was suspended, whereupon the prelates withdrew to Lyons. The pope
hastened to oppose to this conciliabulum a more numerously attended
council, which he convoked, by the Bull of 18 July, 1511, to assemble 19 April,
1512, in the church of St. John Lateran. The Bull was at once a canonical and a
polemical document. In it the pope refuted in detail the reasons alleged by the
cardinals for their Pisa conciliabulum. He declared that his conduct
before his elevation to the pontificate was a pledge of his sincere desire for
the celebration of the council; that since his elevation he had always sought
opportunities for assembling it; that for this reason he had sought to
reestablish peace among Christian princes; that the wars which had arisen
against his will had no other object than the reestablishment of pontifical authority
in the States of the Church. He then reproached the rebel cardinals with the
irregularity of their onduct and the unseemliness of convoking the Universal
Church independently of its head. He pointed out to them that the three months
accorded by them for the assembly of all bishops at Pisa was too short, and
that said city presented none of the advantages requisite for an assembly of
such importance. Finally, he declared that no one should attach any
significance to the act of the cardinals. The Bull was signed by twenty-one
cardinals. The French victory of Ravenna (11 April, 1512) hindered the opening
of the council before 3 May, on which day the fathers met in the Lateran
Basilica. There were present fifteen cardinals, the Latin Patriarchs of Alexandria
and Antioch, ten archbishops, fifty-six bishops, some abbots and gererals of
religious orders, the ambassadors of Kings Ferdinand, and those of Venice and
of Florence. Convoked by Julius II, the assembly survived him, was continued by
Leo X, and held its twelfth, and last, session on 16 March, 1417. In the third
session Matthew Lang, who had represented Maximilian at the Council of Tours,
read an act by which that emperor repudiated all that had been done at Tours
and at Pisa. In the fourth session the advocate of the council demanded the
revocation of the Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges. In the eighth (17 December,
1513), an act of King Louis XII was read, disavowing the Council of Pisa and
adhering to the Lateran Council. In the next session (5 March, 1514) the pope
published four decrees:- the first of these sanctions the institution of ontes pietatis, or pawn shops, under strict ecclesiastical supervision, for the purpose of aiding the necessitous poor on the most favourable terms;
- the second relates to ecclesiastical liberty and the episcopal dignity, and condemns certain abusive exemptions;
- the third forbids, under pain of excommunication, the printing of books without the permission of the ordinary of the diocese;
- the fourth orders a peremptory citation against the French in regard to the Pragmatic Sanction. The latter was solemnly revoked and condemned, and the concordat with Francis I approved, in the eleventh session (19 December, 1516).
- Finally, the council promulgated a decree prescribing war against the Turks and ordered the levying of tithes of all the benefices in Christendom for three years.
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