The Age of Enlightenment

Clement XII., 1730-40.

Clement XII. was a Florentine of the Corsini family. Although he had become blind comparatively early in his reign, his mind continued to be active, and he was a great patron of art and learning. He had a great deal of useful building work done in Rome; churches were restored, the arch of Constantine was repaired, and the museum of the Capitol was enriched with busts and inscriptions and the Vatican with oriental manuscripts.

Clement was active in furthering missionary work, issued new rules for the English College in Rome, and set up two seminaries for the Greeks of Lower Italy and a special seminary intended to promote the union of the Western and the Eastern Church. He forbade Catholics to become members of the secret societies of the Freemasons. He showed much kindness to the English Pretender, James III., and his family. He also gave the emperor considerable subsidies to help him in his war against the Turks. Clement did not have much success in political affairs, for the principle of absolutism, which was warmly supported by the so called regalists, tended more and more to undermine the authority of the Holy See.

Benedict XIV., 1740-58.

The election of the new pope took six months, owing to the rivalry between the various powers. Finally Lambertini, archbishop of Bologna, was elected and took the name of Benedict XIV. He was a scholar of recog nized eminence and a man of excellent character, notable for his constant serenity of temper and kindness of heart, and for his Strict and conscientious way of life. He made it a principle that he should be pope first and ruler afterwards. He was the author of a number of books which show him as an excellent canonical scholar. He collected scholars round him and encouraged them to undertake important studies, and he corresponded with foreign writers, including some who were Protestants. He founded learned societies in Rome for the study of Roman and Christian antiqui ties, canonical law and Church history, and enriched museums and libraries, as well as the academy of his native city, Bologna. He interested himself in the neglected Coliseum, where he erected the Stations of the Cross. He issued important rules for the sacra ments of confession and marriage, as well as for the various Eastern rites. He re-issued the Roman Martyrology, and set up a number of new bishoprics in Europe and America. He forbade missionaries to take any part in trading. He was much troubled by the exhausted state of the finances of the Papal States, and tried to remedy the situation by introducing a system of econo mies in all branches of the administration and by encouraging commerce and agriculture. His efforts were however to a large extent rendered useless by the serious damage which the papal territories suffered as a result of the Austrian War of Succession.

In his relations with temporal Powers, the pope showed a peace able and tolerant disposition and endeavoured to effect a recon ciliation between the spirit of the 18th century and the ancient rights of the Church. He dealt with the Courts on moderate and conciliatory lines, and did not attempt to maintain unyieldingly all the mediaeval claims of the papacy. He concluded concordats with Spain, Portugal, Sardinia and Sicily which embodied very far-reaching concessions as regards the dependence of the clergy on the Crown. In various countries the number of religious fes

tivals was reduced, but the pope gave instructions that those which were retained should be celebrated all the more worthily. He also managed to maintain good relations with the German empire. He recognized the kingdom of Prussia, although the state of the Church in Silesia, which had come into the possession of Prussia, was deplorable. The pope also showed wise moderation in his encyclical to the French bishops (1756), in which it was stated that only open and notorious opponents of the Bull of were to be refused the sacraments. The reign of this pope, who won the respect even of those who were not Catholics, thus passed without serious disputes; but a storm was already brewing against one of the strongest pillars of the Catholic Church, the Order of Jesuits.

Clement XIII., 1758-69: The Expulsion of the Jesuits.— The reign of the Venetian Rezzonico, who took the title of Clement XIII., was an almost uninterrupted series of struggles for theXiii., was an almost uninterrupted series of struggles for the rights of the Church and for the defence of the Society of Jesus, which had earned the bitter hatred of anti-papal circles by its zeal for dogmatic belief and for the principle of authority, espe cially against Jansenism and Gallicanism. The Order of Jesuits, which possessed great political influence in the various Courts, also had many opponents in the Church itself. Most of the other Orders looked askance at this Order which had outstripped them all. Individual Jesuits had been subjected to papal censure for harmful doctrines put forward in their works on moral questions. They were also accused of abuse of the confessional, disobedience towards bishops, ambition, avarice, undue acquisitiveness, and other faults, although their accusers did not produce any indi vidual proofs of their allegations. The attack was led by Portugal, where the Jesuits, who had influence at Court, interfered with the attempt of the minister Pombal to introduce a system of unquali fied absolutism. Some were imprisoned without trial, others were deported to the Papal States as "a present for St. Peter." This state of affairs led to the breaking off of relations between Portugal and the Holy See. The French parlement declared that the rules of the Order were harmful and incompatible with the Gallican liberties ; and in 1762 it was decided to suppress the order in France. Spain and Sicily, irritated by the pope's repeated protests, also decided to expel the Jesuits. In Parma, which was ruled by the king of Spain's nephew, a number of laws were adopted which were incompatible with canonical law Clement, as pope and overlord, sent a monitorium to the Duke in 1768, whereupon the Jesuits were also expelled from Parma, and the Bourbon Courts peremptorily demanded that Clement should dissolve the Order. He refused to give way, though some of the Cardinals advised him and the secretary of State, Torrigiani, to bow to the storm. Clement, however, who was a man of saintly life and character, thought it better to let the Bourbon Powers occupy part of the papal State rather than to abandon the Jesuits, whom he believed to have been falsely accused.