History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French Revolution — Volume 1MacCaffrey, James
Religion
History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French Revolution — Volume 1
MacCaffrey, James
Catholic Church -- History -- Modern period, 1500-
The situation in France was sufficiently delicate. Henry IV. was
beginning to recognise that notwithstanding his victories he could
never reign as a Calvinist over a united France. Clement VIII. was
very decidedly in favour of a solution that would put an end to the
war and would prevent France from degenerating into a Spanish
province. Hence as soon as the conversion of Henry IV. was proved to
be genuine the Pope acknowledged his title as king of France, and
exhorted French Catholics to receive him as their ruler. Such a course
of action was of necessity displeasing to Spain, but a few years later
the Pope had the happiness of putting an end to the struggle between
these two countries. During his term of office Clement VIII. founded
at Rome a national college for providing priests for the mission in
Scotland, issued a revised edition of the Vulgate (1598), of the
Breviary, the Missal, the Caerimonial and the Pontifical, and
instituted the /Congregatio de Auxilis/ to investigate the matters in
dispute between the Thomists and the Molinists. He presided personally
at many of its sessions though he never issued a definite sentence. It
was also during his reign that the infamous ex-monk Giordano Bruno was
condemned by the Inquisition, handed over to the secular power, and
burned at the stake (17th Feb. 1600). In his youth Giordano joined the
Dominicans, from which order he fled because definite charges of
heresy, the truth of which he could not deny, were brought against
him. Later on he was excommunicated by the Calvinists of Geneva and
the Lutherans of Germany, and refused permission to lecture by the
professors of Oxford when he visited that seat of learning. Many of
his writings are strongly anti-Christian, and some of them thoroughly
indecent. He was condemned to die solely on account of his denial of
the Divinity of Christ and other heretical views and not, as is said
by some, because he defended the Copernican system.[8]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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