This power may be of two kinds, directive and coercive. In the first sense, it is a claim which no Catholic, consistently with his belief of the spiritual supremacy of the pontiff, can be supposed to deny, as it imports nothing more than that the pope, as supreme moral teacher, has power to instruct all members of his church, whether sub jects or sovereigns, in the moral duties of their several states.
If the power be regarded as coercive, it is necessary to distinguish the nature of the coercion which may be employed. That coercion may either consist in the threat or infliction of purely spiritual censures; or it may involve temporal consequences, such as suspension or deprivation of office, forfeiture of the allegiance of subjects, and even lia bility to the punishment of death. Considered in the former sense, the claim must be regarded as a natural consequence of the spiritual headship of the church, which is acknowledged by all Catholics; nor can it be denied that the power to compel sov ereigns, by purely spiritual censures, to the fulfillment of the moral duties which their state imposes, is a natural concomitant of the spiritual primacy.
But the papal claim to authority over the temporalities of kings has gone far beyond these limits. From the 10th c. downward, popes have claimed and have repeatedly exercised a power of coercing kings, and punishing them whenrefractory by suspension, by and by the transfer of file allegiance of their subjects to another sov ereign. This well-known claim has been a subject of controversy in the Roman Catholics church between the Galilean (q.v.) and Ultramontane (q.v.) schools; and in the Ultra montane school, two different theories have been devised for its explanation. The first and most extreme (which holds the power to be a direct one) supposes that this power was given directly by God to St. Peter and his successors, that the two powers are fore shown by the "two swords" mentioned in Luke xxii. 38, and that the temporal power is a privilege of the primacy by divine law, equally with the spiritual sovereignty itself. According to the second, or indirect theory, the temporal power is not directly of divine institution, but is an indirect though necessary consequence of the spiritual supremacy; and is only given as a means of completing, and, in a corrupt and disorganized state rendering more efficacious, the work which the spiritual supremacy is directly instituted to accomplish. It was in this latter form that the theory of the temporal power was defended by the great champion of Ultramontanism, cardinal Bellarmine, and the cele brated declaration of the Gallivan clergy (Declaratb Cleri Gallivan) in 1682 (see (Laraa cerz enema') was directed against it.
A third view of the temporal power, and one which has found many modern de fenders, was propounded by the celebrated Fenclon (q. v.). According to Fenelon's theory, which is generally described as the historical theory of the temporal power, the pope does not possess, whether by direct divine appointment, or in virtue of the necessities of his spiritual office, any temporal power whatsoever. But he possesses the plenitude of that spiritual power which is required for the government of the church, and he is empowered to enforce it by spiritual penalties, and especially by exconirnun4. cation or deprivation of membership of the church. Now, although excommunication and such other penalties, of their own nature, are purely spiritual, yet the religious senti ment of the medieval period, and the awe with which it regarded the authority of the church, invested these penalties with certain temporal effects. See EXCOMMUNICATION.
The penalty of forfeiture of certain civil rights was attached by the law of England, in the case of private persons, to the spiritual censure of excommunication (q. v.). The same penalty was applied by the laws of other countries to the sovereigns themselves; by the law of Spain in the sixth council of Toledo in 638; that of France, as confessed by Charles the Bald in 850; the law of England, under Edward the Confessor, and the so-called Saxon and Swabian codes of Germany. The last-named codes recognize in the pope, in certain specified cases, the right to excommunicate the emperor himself; and ordain that in case the emperor should remain for twelve months without being absolved from the excommunication, he shall be deposed. In the appeal Of the Saxon nobles to the pope against Henry IV., this law is expressly referred to. The contemporary his torians, Paul of Bernried, Lambert of Aschaffenburg, Nicholas Roselli, and others, de scribe it as the ground of the emperor's deposition; and even Henry himself, without denying the force of the law, sought his defense solely in a denial of the charge of heresy which was imputed to him. The same spirit of the age is exhibited in the form of oath taken at the coronation of the sovereign in many countries, especially (although not ex clusively) in those whose kings—as Roger of Sicily, Peter III. of Aragon, Guiscard of Naples, Godfrey of Jerusalem, and John of England—had made their kingdoms feuda tory to the see of Rome; by which the monarch swore to be the protector and defender of the sovereign pontiff and the holy Roman church in all their necessities and utilities, and to guard and maintain their possessions, honors, and rights.