Gregoire XVI

Successor of the Pope Black and white VIII, Bartolomeo Alberto (in Mauro religion) Cappellari is born with Belluno Italy the September 8th 1765. Elected official the February 2nd 1831 and crowned the 6 of the same month under the name of Gregoire XVI (in Latin Gregorius XVI , in Italian Gregorio XVI ), it had to defend the Papal States against the attacks of various revolutionary movements, and was at the origin of a revival of the Missions. Died on June 1st 1846.

Bartelomeo Alberto Cappelari was born with Belluno on September 18th, 1765. Resulting from a noble family, he is discovered a religious vocation at the 18 years age and thus enters, in 1783, with the monastery Camaldule of Saint Michel of Murano. He takes the name of Mauro Brother then in 1786 at the time when he pronounces his monastic vows. He receives the following year the major orders. Devoting itself to the study of philosophy and theology, it also deals with the instruction of the beginners.

Sent to Rome in 1795, it enters soon to the monastery Saint Gregoire and becomes abbot in 1805 about it. It is at that time that it publishes its work the Triumph of holy Église in which it supports the pontifical Infaillibilité and the sovereignty of the pope on the Papal States. He is also opposed to the efforts maconnic against the influence of the Church and believes to discover a plot to undermine papacy.

The exile of the pope Pie VII with Soaps, in 1808, stops its Roman stay. Brother It leaves Rome for Murano then, in 1813, for Padoue.

The triumphal return of the pope in Rome enables him to reinstate the monastery Saint Gregoire. He twice refuses the offer of a nomination to one évêché; however, on March 21st 1825, the new pope Leon XII the pupil with the dignity of cardinal and entrusts to him the load of Prefect of the Congregation of Holy Propaganda. For this reason, it successfully negotiates a legal settlement between the Belgian catholics and the king Guillaume I {{er}} in 1827.

The situation of the Church of Arménie also improves thanks to the signature of an similar agreement concluded between the the Holy See and the Ottoman Empire.

A preserving pontificate

In 1831, with the death of Black and white VIII and at the end of a 74 day old conclave, Bartoloméo Capellari is elected pope at the beginning of 1831. It takes the name of Gregoire XVI. He dies of a crisis of érésipèle, in Rome on June 1st 1846.

Theological conservatism

In 1831, Gregoire XVI receives in Rome the writers of the daily newspaper the Future, Félicité on Lamennais, Henri Lacordaire and Charles de Montalembert, the “pilgrims of freedom” but it must condemn, on August 15th, 1832, their theses of the liberal Catholicisme by the Encyclique Mirari your , in which it specifies that:

One intends to resound the academies and the universities of new and monstrous opinions; it is not any more in secrecy nor dully which they tackle the catholic faith; it is a horrible war and irreligious person whom they declare to him publicly and with overdraft. However as soon as the lessons and the examinations of the Masters pervert youth thus, the disasters of the religion take an immense increase, and most alarming immorality gains and extends. Also, once rejected the crowned bonds of the religion, which only preserve the kingdoms and maintain the force and the strength of the authority, one sees the law and order disappearing, the sick authority, and any legitimate power threatened of a revolution increasingly nearest. (…)

The goal of your efforts and the object of your continual vigilance, must thus be to keep the deposit of the faith in the middle of this vast conspiracy of impious men whom we see, with the sharpest pain, formed to dissipate it and lose it. That all remember it: the judgment on the healthy doctrines which one must nourish the people, the government and the administration of the whole Church belong to the Roman Pontiff, " to which was entrusted, by Jesus-Christ" Our-Lord; , like so clearly the Fathers of the council of Florence declared, " full powers to feed, govern and control the Church universelle" ” (…)

We quiver, worthy brothers, while considering of which monsters of doctrines, or rather of which wonders of errors we are overpowered; errors disseminated with far and on all sides by an immense multitude of books, booklets, and other writings, small it is true in volume, but enormous in perversity, from which the curse leaves which covers the face of the earth and makes run our tears. It is however, O pain! men carried by such excess of impudence, that they do not fear to support obstinately only the flood of errors which rises from there is rather abundantly compensated by the publication of some book printed to defend, in the middle of this cluster of iniquities, the truth and the religion. But it is a crime undoubtedly, and a crime rejected by any species of right, to make intention premeditated an unquestionable and very large evil, in the hope that perhaps it will result some good from it; and which judicious man will never dare to say that it is allowed to spread poisons, to sell them publicly, to hawk them, much more, to take them with greed, under pretext which there exists some remedy which sometimes tore off with died those which were useful about it?

A new text, Singulari our , critical two years later liberal ideas of Lamennais.

This opposition of principle to the modernism also illustrates in Germany with the publication of the apostolic letter Dum acerbissima on September 26th, 1835.

Political authoritarianism

As of his election, Gregoire XVI must face serious political problems. Its Secretary of State, the cardinal Bernetti, does not manage to choke the liberal insurrection which bursts in the States of the Church and is replaced by the cardinal Lambruschini, more authoritative. The temporal sovereignty of the pope on the areas which surround Rome is called besides into question by the revolutionary patriots. Sovereign pontiff then decides to ask for the Austrian assistance. After a violent repression, the order is restored soon at the beginning of the month of April 1831.

However the European powers decide on a reform of the administration of the States of the Church, which results in a simplification of the legal institutions.

Gregoire XVI refuses to democratize the election of the councils having authority on the government of the communes and the States; he is also opposed to the creation of a council of laic elected officials whose capacity would compete with that of the Sacré College placed directly under its authority. These decisive reforms will intervene only a few years later with the pontificate of its successor Pie IX.

The disorders begin again in Césène then with Bologna. A new intervention of the Austrians in Romagna is thus necessary. The following year, some French detachments also occupy the States of the Church until the final departure of the Austrians in 1838.

The independence of the Church

The development of the liberal movements in Europe resulting from the Congress of Vienna and the revolutions of 1830 force soon the Saint Sits to give an opinion. Gregoire XVI publishes in August 1831 the encyclical Sollicitudo ecclesiarum in which it reaffirms the independence of the Church and its refusal to involve in the dynastic businesses .

Under his pontificate, Gregoire XVI chooses to fight in the various European States in order to preserve the prerogatives of the Catholic church:

- with the Portugal where a legislation anticlerical is set up, the seat of nonciature in Lisbon is removed soon. As from 1841 however, the relations between the Saint Sits and the government of the queen Marie II of Bragance calm down under the popular pressure;

- in Spain, the regency of the queen Marie Christine is marked by the suppression of the religious orders in 1835 while twenty-two dioceses are left without bishop;

- in Germany, the problem of the mixed marriages is the cause of frequent clashes between the Catholic church and the governments. This is the cause of the arrest of the archbishop of Cologne by the Prussian authorities.

- in 1845, he protests without effect against the situation of the Catholic church in the Russian Empire.

The effort missionary

The difficult situation of the Catholic church in Europe should not however occult the important effort missionary carried out under the pontificate of Gregoire XVI.

The pope thus starts again the Propagation of the Faith starting from 1840.

Missionaries are then sent near the Indians of North America while new dioceses are created with the the United States. On the continent of Asia, the China and the India mobilize the attention of the congregations. In Oceania, the taking possession of the Polynesian archipelagoes by the European powers support the dash missionary. The African continent, in particular the Abyssinie, is also the object of the interest of sovereign pontiff.

Not very popular near its subjects, Gregoire XVI undertakes in August 1841 a voyage in the States of the Church. Its policy however generates riots in Romagna and Ombrie in 1843 then in the town of Rimini in September 1845.

See too

catholic Missions at XIXe and the XXe centuries

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