Crises in the History of the Papacy: A study of twenty famous popes whose careers and whose influence were important in the development of the church and in the history of the worldMcCabe, Joseph
History
Crises in the History of the Papacy: A study of twenty famous popes whose careers and whose influence were important in the development of the church and in the history of the world
McCabe, Joseph
Catholic Church -- History; Papacy -- History
Meantime, the idea of reform by commissions was sustaining the
half-desperate hopes of the better cardinals at Rome. In February,
1537, the commission drew up so sound and true and large a scheme of
reform that the anti-reformers successfully pleaded that it would
injure the Church to publish it, and it remains "a scrap of paper" in
the Vatican Archives. After much discussion, Paul decided to begin
with the reform of the Dataria (an office of the Court which yielded
more than 50,000 ducats a year, nearly half the entire income, to the
Papal exchequer in connexion with the issue of graces, privileges,
dispensations, etc.), and a further long discussion ensued. The
discussion lasted some three years, without practical issue, and it
was not until the end of 1540 that a few obvious reforms could be
carried in some of the departments of the Curia. Characteristic is the
story of one of these reforms. Pressed by the sterner cardinals, who
wrote grave letters to each other on the Pope's conduct, to put an end
to the scandal of non-resident prelates (absentee landlords), Paul
summoned eighty of them, who were living in comfort at Rome, to return
to their dioceses. There was terrible alarm. But they successfully
pleaded that they could not live on the mere incomes of their sees,
and they remained in Rome. Paul had to be content with discharging a
few officials, directing the clergy to reform their lives and their
sermons, and encouraging the new religious congregations: among which
was a certain very small community, calling itself the "Company of
Jesus," which seemed to him, when it first appeared in Rome, eccentric
and of very doubtful value to the Church.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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