That's So Second Millennium

St Paul I [brother: Stephen II] 757-767

Paul II [Pietro Barbo] 1464-1471

Paul III [Alessandro Farnese] 1534-1549

Paul IV [Giovanni Caraffa] 1555-1559

Paul V [Camillo Borghese] 1605-1621

St Paul VI [Giovanni Montini] 1963-1978

 

St. Paul I: brother to Pope Stephen II and succeeded him--the sort of thing that could happen in the premodern era. This was the era of Pepin the Frank, where the Frankish kingdom had just become the papacy's welcome bulwark against the conquests of the Lombards and the intrigues of the Byzantines, who also wished to take back control of as much of Italy as possible; at the end of the century this would lead to the crowning of Constantine as Western Emperor and the final decline of Byzantine influence, although the Lombard dukes would take longer to diminish in importance. Pope Paul I had a reputation for honor and personal sanctity which were still common in that era.

 

Paul II: elected in the fifteenth century recovery and Roman Renaissance period following the Avignon period and the schism and wild experimental councils that ended it. His uncle was Pope Eugene II and apparently he became a priest after his uncle's election. Paul II was a big spender on building projects (probably still needed at the time), carnivals and festivals, and was a supporter of the arts. However, he also found it necessary to reign in some of the more ardent Renaissance figures of his day and closed something called the Roman Academy for its excesses toward paganism and moral turpitude. He made efforts, building on the conciliar period at the beginning of the century, to bring Russia into communion with Rome and to combat the Turks who had just conquered Constantinople; these big ideas and initiatives were, sadly, not successful. The Ottomans continued expanding for centuries to come and Russia is still very much in schism with Rome.

 

Paul III: An aristocrat of the Farnese family, educated at Rome and Florence; knew Leo X from their youth in Florence. He was a cardinal from age 25 until his election as Pope at age 66, a period embracing the excesses of Popes Alexander and Julius/Julian and the beginning of Luther's disturbances. He was enormously influential between his intellect, education, wealth, time in the Sacred College, and diplomatic skill. Finally he was elected Pope in a time of turmoil, less than 20 years after Luther's 95 theses. By that point he was old and respected and past some questionable periods in his youth.

Apparently Paul saw immediately that a new general council was needed to address the outbreak of Protestantism, but his efforts to get one started were thwarted by Holy Roman Emperor Charles V's attempts to hammer out vague agreements that everyone could accept, and even more so by the power politics of the French under Francois I. He wanted the Holy Roman Empire divided and weakened, and did not care if heresy was the means to that end. In that light it is not surprising that he persecuted Protestants harshly within France itself. This became a recurring French policy and would culminate in the Thirty Years' War that devastated and practically ended the Holy Roman Empire as a united country. Pope Paul was not immune to concerns about the excessive power of the Holy Roman Emperors who had mistreated so many of his predecessors, Gregory VII in particular, but in this he may have been short-sighted; his family were traditional Guelphs who supported the Popes politically against the Emperors.

In any case Paul III did get the Council of Trent started and, like Pope John XXIII, did see its initial sessions. Against Charles V's desires, they immediately set to work on some of the key issues regarding original sin, justification, and the sacraments. Meanwhile Pope Paul had begun many reforms of the Curia and Church discipline on his own initiative that after his death were taken up by the Council. He supported many of the new religious orders springing up in this era. Many see Paul III as a Pope of towering importance for the history of the Church.

 

Paul IV: Born of a Neapolitan noble family, brought into the Church by his uncle Cardinal Ottavino, but very attracted by the discipline of religious life. He, too, knew Leo X and was sent on diplomatic missions in his pontificate. Cardinal Giovanni, later Paul IV, eventually became a member of the priestly order set up by St. Cajetan. Because Giovanni was Bishop of Chieti, Theate in Latin, and because he was first general of the order, they became known as Theatines--a remarkably indirect reason. Protestant brigands sacked Rome in 1527 and the Theatines suffered greatly and went away to Venice for a few years, but Paul III believed they were needed in Rome and brought them back. Paul III made the future Paul IV a cardinal and employed him in reforming the Curia and in the Inquisition in Italy, where he was very strict if not harsh. Paul IV was very old at his election as pope and quite surprised by it. Legend has it that he might have refused the election if another cardinal had not announced that Charles V would veto Cardinal Caraffa if elected; in outrage at this attempt at meddling, Caraffa accepted. The Habsburgs shut the pope out of the serious issues of the era, especially the attempts at a political settlement with Protestants and issues around the succession to the Empire and forced the pope to ally with France.

Unlike Paul III, Paul IV is not considered a successful pope. He promoted a very unworthy "cardinal-nephew" despite his own personal rigor; he was petty in awarding other family members with land taken from Spaniards due to his quarrels with the Habsburgs; he took probably very problematic measures encouraging harshness by Queen Mary in England and thwarting Cardinal Pole. He did take some actions toward re-establishing a Catholic hierarchy in the Netherlands and starting one in the Orient. He continued to encourage the Inquisition but at least had a reputation for being no respecter of persons in that regard, and he did disavow his problematic nephews after various failures.

 

Paul V: A relative of St. Catherine, his family was from Siena and had moved to Rome. In many ways he was a stiff canon lawyer and a bad negotiator. He got into a tremendously bitter dispute with Venice on grounds that to modern ears sound pretty bad: Venice refused to exempt clergy from civil courts. They did also forbid transfer of real property to clergy and required civil approval of new churches. Paul V put them under interdict, which they flagrantly ignored. The Jesuits, Theatines, and Capuchins left the city, and the other clergy apparently sided with the government. Much was written by learned men on either side, such as Baronius, Bellarmine, and the Venetian Paolo Sarpi--something of a quasi-Protestant and despiser of the politics of the Papal Curia. The French and Spanish governments helped broker a somewhat distasteful compromise--certainly distasteful to Paul V.

Yet Paul V was not always so intransigent. He tried to reach a rapprochement with James I in England, asking that Catholics in general not be persecuted after the Gunpowder Plot but commiserating with the monarch over the attempted assassination, but the pope was rebuffed. An interesting note: According to J. Jungmanns, The Mass of the Roman Rite, Paul V signed a decree in 1615 allowing the Mass to be celebrated in Chinese, out of respect for the antiquity and learning of ancient Chinese philosophy, recognizing it as a peer to Latin or Greek. This decree was never transmitted and acted upon, and Benedict XIV a few years later decided differently.

In administering Rome Paul V was more successful. Even though he promoted many members of his family, they in general served the administration well. He also got to celebrate many of the achievements of the sixteenth century: the new St. Peter's was finished, and he canonized or beatified saints like Charles Borromeo, Frances of Rome, Ignatius of Loyola, Francis Xavier, and Philip Neri. Sadly, his reign also saw the actual start of the Thirty Years' War.

 

Paul VI: Our first pope in living memory if we discount the preliminary discussion of the Piuses. Paul VI was a career Church diplomat, much like John XXIII and Pius XII. When John XXIII called the Second Vatican Council and then passed away a short time into its proceedings, Cardinal Montini was elected and took the long-disused name of Paul. He never publicly explained his choice in detail. It is widely believed that it was to hark back to the Apostle, far more than any kind of biretta-tip to a previous pope, although the legacy of Paul III and his reforms leading to the Council of Trent might be a distant secondary consideration. John XXIII had taken an even more disused name, the name of an Apostle, and Paul's legacy and its connection to Rome if anything makes it surprising that more Popes have not taken the name.

In any case, Paul's pontificate was inevitably linked to the Council. His tasks were to celebrate and spread its messages, begin the authoritative interpretation of its statements, and carry out its intentions. In the event Paul was pope long enough to complete most of the latter: the enormous revisions to the Mass and to the Breviary or Liturgy of the Hours. He also implemented changes to the structure of the Curia in Regimini ecclesiae universae, a stream of influence on the later 1983 revision of the Code of Canon Law under John Paul II. Perhaps the final major document of the postconciliar period, the new Catechism of the Catholic Church, was not completed until 1994 and bears more of the mark of John Paul.

Paul VI did not use the term "new evangelization" but made statements leading in that direction--for example, in the document Ecclesiam Suam on the Church's posture toward the modern world and in Evangelii Nuntiandi. He contributed to Catholic social teaching on the morality of economic development, especially in Populorum Progressio. In these ways he emphasized the positive developments begun during the Council. In other ways he took stands against the so-called "spirit of Vatican II" by emphasizing traditional doctrines. In Mysterium fidei he emphasized the continuing central role of the Blessed Sacrament in Catholic spirituality, and in Humanae Vitae he reiterated and put on a new, bolder, more consistently argued footing the traditions of Christian sexual morality, combating the unprecedented assault of the "Sexual Revolution" and paving the way for John Paul II to develop these ideas more fully in his pontificate.

 

Why Paul VII, and what would taking that name seem to imply for a 21st century pope?

• Using St. Paul as a reference point could never be inappropriate. In our contemporary situation the primary inference, an emphasis on the missionary calling of the Church, would again be foremost. Paul could also be used as a symbol of Romanness, but the political situation for that is hard to see reasserting itself any time soon.

• Obviously folk would assume a reference is being made back to Paul VI and to the Second Vatican Council. This, as even this short summary shows, would be an ambiguous reference. Is Paul VI the "liberal" Pope who fulfilled the Council's promise to rescue us from the Latin mumble Mass? Or is he the "conservative" Pope who was so out of touch as to condemn contraception?

• Paul III is a prominent enough figure that he, too, could serve as a reference point. In that case look out for a Third Vatican Council or (if Providence is truly gracious) a Fourth Council of Constantinople. The assessment of such a cardinal choosing to call out Paul III specifically (in addition to Paul the Apostle, Paul VI, and perhaps other great Pauls from Christian history) might be that the situation is parallel to the situation Paul III inherited in this way: The conciliar movement at the end of the Western Schism did not reach a stable resolution at Constance, Pisa, or Basle, but left smoldering embers that roared up as Protestantism and required the Council of Trent to address (unfortunately after enormous lasting damage was done). Similarly, the legacy of the Second Vatican Council is clearly unresolved. That is to say nothing of the millennium-old schism with the East, although this hypothetical Paul VII might or might not choose to embrace the goal of complete reunification of apostolic, sacramental Christianity--he might well decide that the Roman communion needs to heal its own wounds before launching itself more vigorously into that quest. In any case, a reference to Paul III might imply a belief in the need for another Council to settle the liturgical, administrative, and other problems still facing the Church.