papacy , office of the pope, head of the Roman Catholic Church. He is pope by reason of being bishop of Rome and thus, according to Roman Catholic belief, successor in the see of Rome (the Holy See) to its first bishop, St. Peter . The pope therefore claims to be the shepherd of all Christians and representative (vicar or vicegerent) of Christ. The claim of Petrine supremacy and (by virtue of Peter's connection to Rome) Roman supremacy, is based on Matthew 16:18-19. Papal supremacy is not acknowledged outside the Roman Catholic Church. The church further holds that God will not permit the pope to make an error in a solemn official declaration concerning a matter of faith or morality (see infallibility ).

The pope has also traditionally been regarded as patriarch of the West, with the great majority, although not all, of the Christians recognizing his authority as pope also under his authority as patriarch . This question of areas of authority is practical only with regard to some of the Eastern-rite patriarchs in communion with the pope who may, for example, appoint bishops without papal confirmation. In 2006 Pope Benedict XVI dropped patriach of the West from among his official titles in an ecumenical gesture toward the Orthodox Eastern churches; the title had been assumed by Pope Theodore I in 642. The pope generally lives in Rome, of which a portion (Vatican City) is politically independent and under his rule; the pope is thus head of a state and owes no political allegiance (see Vatican City ; cardinal ; papal election ).

For a chronological list of popes and antipopes see the table entitled Popes of the Roman Catholic Church . For the ecclesiastical framework, the teaching, the history, and the geographical distribution of the church, see Roman Catholic Church . See also Christianity .

In the Early Church

There is no unequivocal evidence about the status of the pope in the earliest days of the church. That he was accorded special honor as the successor of St. Peter is acknowledged, but whereas Roman Catholic historians hold that the peculiar position of the Holy See was recognized and accorded authority, non-Catholic historians in general contend that the bishop of Rome was accorded honor over the other bishops, not authority. As missionaries sent directly from the city founded new churches throughout the West, more and more reverence was given to the pope. The Roman church was being enriched with gifts by converts, and it supported struggling young churches everywhere and supplied funds for charitable foundations all over Italy.

As the political power of the city of Rome declined, the pope inherited some of the Roman emperor's position as symbol and defender of civilization. The combination of assurance and intrepidity in dealing with barbarian attacks and rulers of emerging states in this period (300-700) was a mark of the great popes—saints Julius I , Innocent I , Leo I , Gregory I , and Martin I . The papacy gained prestige in the West and was powerful in doctrinal disputes, especially in the struggles over Arianism , Monophysitism , and Monotheletism .

In the Middle Ages

A fateful event for the papacy was the donation of lands made to the pope by the Frankish king Pepin the Short in 756. The papacy had already been given lands (since the 4th cent.), but it was the Donation of Pepin that came to be considered the real as well as the symbolic founding of the Papal States . The pope thus became a powerful lay prince as well as an ecclesiastical ruler. This intermingling of powers was a determining condition in the struggle between church and state that was a main theme in the history of the West in the Middle Ages . Strong lay princes attempted to direct the church just as the pope tried to establish secular as well as spiritual supremacy over the rulers.

A central point at issue in the 11th and 12th cent. was investiture , but the conflict was far wider and deeper. Although all in the West affirmed that Christendom was under the pope in Rome, that affirmation had little bearing on the question of papal supremacy in secular affairs. By crowning (800) Charlemagne , Leo III at once sponsored the empire and sanctioned the creation of a state which, as the Roman Empire (see Holy Roman Empire ), was to be the chief antagonist of the papacy for centuries.

The papacy reached a high point of corruption in the 10th cent., when the Holy See was cynically bought and sold. Under Leo IX reform began, but bitter feeling between East and West brought the break with patriarch of Constantinople (1054); late in the 11th cent. sweeping reforms were carried out by the forceful Gregory VII . From that time forward the relative power of the papacy in quarrels with the emperor and with the kings of England, France, Naples, and Spain depended largely on the successes of individual popes and individual rulers. Pope Alexander III was pitted against Roman Emperor Frederick I and against King Henry II of England, and Pope Innocent III , despite opposition by Emperor Otto IV and Emperor Frederick II , made himself virtual arbiter of the West.

Innocent's reign (1198-1216) marked the zenith of papal secular power. As a religious leader Innocent worked to reform clerical morals and combat heresy. He ordered (1208) a crusade against the heretical Albigenses in S France that ended disastrously and cast a shadow over his pontificate. A century later Boniface VIII , an able canon lawyer, proved himself no match for the ruthless king of France, Philip IV .

Pope Clement V in 1309 deserted Rome for Avignon and the domination of France. During the so-called Babylonian captivity (1309-78) all the popes were French, all lived at Avignon, and all were under the control of the French kings. The Avignonese papacy represented the culmination of the administrative structure of the church, which reached into almost all corners of Europe.

Pope Gregory XI —acting partly on the advice of St. Catherine of Siena and St. Bridget of Sweden —moved the papacy back to Rome. But the church was immediately plunged into the disorder of the Great Schism (1378-1417). There were two or even three rival popes at a time (in later determination of true succession, those claimants ruled out of the succession are called antipopes). The schism ended in the Council of Constance (see Constance, Council of ). Since then, apart from the abortive revolt at the Council of Basel (see Basel, Council of ), there has been no schism in the papacy.

Subsequently, the pope had little real power outside Italy, and no 15th-century pope was prepared to attempt serious reform, which would have required challenging the vested interests of bishops, cardinals, and princes. Indeed, in the 15th cent. the papal court made Rome a brilliant Renaissance capital, enriched by some of the finest art of the West. The Renaissance popes, however, were little distinguished from other princes in the extravagance and immorality of their courts.

In the Reformation

Papal corruption during the Renaissance provided the background for the Protestant Reformation and alienated many followers of the established church. Martin Luther and his colleagues entered upon a basic theological revolution, reacting in part to the state of the papacy. They denounced the whole accepted view of God's relation to humanity and began a movement that split the Western Church.

Although reformation within the church began in the 1520s, papal involvement did not begin until the election (1534) of Paul III (see Counter Reformation ). The Council of Trent (1545-47, 1551-52, 1562-63; see Trent, Council of ) undertook to lay out the new definitions and regulations that reconstructed the church, including the papacy. The other major work of the 16th-century popes was the new development of foreign missions, which, as in ancient times, enhanced papal prestige. Of the several orders concerned with reform and missions, the Jesuits (see Jesus, Society of ) were the best known. The 16th cent. also saw the stabilization of the Papal States as they would remain until the 19th cent.

In the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries

After the Counter Reformation, the papacy continued to be plagued by another problem, one that reform had (of necessity) left untouched. This was the position in the church of the rulers of largely Roman Catholic states. Once one of these Catholic princes, whether devout or notoriously immoral, was sure of his power, he determined to include the church within it (e.g., insisting on the deciding voice in selecting the clergy). The kings of Spain even conducted their own Inquisition . It was accepted that Catholic rulers should hold a veto in papal elections.

By the 18th cent. every Catholic prince was at odds with the papacy. Spain had the longest record of this sort, lasting into the 20th cent. In France the triumphant Bourbons developed Gallicanism as a theory to justify their ecclesiastical pretensions; Louis XIV was its chief proponent, but the revolutionists of 1790 used it (in the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, banned by Pius VI ), and so did Napoleon I as soon as he had signed the Concordat of 1801 . Most extreme, and least enduring, were the schemes of Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II .

In the 18th cent. the papacy seemed doomed; its weakness became a spectacle when Clement XIV was forced into suppressing the Jesuits, the only group in the church consistently loyal to the pope. Early in the 19th cent., when Pius VII tried to protect the sanctity of the Holy See, Napoleon had him ignominiously imprisoned. After the fall of Napoleon, with the increasing decline of the old absolutist states, the papacy imperceptibly gained. Papal opposition to the reunification of Italy deepened the suspicious dislike of most liberals for the papacy.

The loss (1870) of the Papal States proved in the end a blessing for the papacy, although it took 60 years to solve the Roman Question—the problem of assuring the pope nonnational status in a nationally organized world (see Lateran Treaty ). The First Vatican Council enunciated the doctrine of papal infallibility in 1870. In the modern world, the popes no longer faced trouble with Catholic princes but did engage in struggles with secular states over anticlerical or specifically anti-Catholic legislation (e.g., Otto von Bismarck 's Kulturkampf in Germany and the anticlericalism in France, Portugal, and Mexico) or overt attacks on all religion.

In the Twentieth Century

The popes at the end of the 19th cent. turned more toward pure spiritual and moral leadership in a tangled world. The growth of Catholicism in areas outside Europe tended to make the pope more and more the single unifying force in the church and therefore fundamentally an international figure. A singular succession of dynamic popes strengthened this effect; Leo XIII , Pius X , Benedict XV , Pius XI , Pius XII , John XXIII , Paul VI , and John Paul II all strove to reorient the church in the modern world, to combat secularism, and to extend Roman Catholic morality in social relations. The social encyclical of Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum (1891), was echoed in the encyclical of Pius XI, Quadragesimo Anno (1931); reinforced and restated by John XXIII in Mater et Magistra (1961); reaffirmed once again by Paul VI in Populorum Progressio (1967); and restated several times by John Paul II in Laborem Exercens (1981), Sollicitudo Rei Socialis (1987), and Centessimus Annus (1991, the 100th anniversary of Leo's encyclical). The recommendations made in these encyclicals are international in scope, and the international prestige of the papacy has been increased by its steady advocacy of peace and its aid to the oppressed and destitute of the world.

Politically, the role of the papacy has been more controversial. Pius XII was criticized by some for not condemning more strongly the Nazi regime in Germany (especially in its persecution of the Jews); these critics suggest that he was far more implacably hostile to Communism. The encouragement of greater lay participation in the church itself (e.g., approval of the liturgical movement), fostering of the varied contributions of the parts of the church, desire to unite all Christians, encouragement of the "progressive" renewal within the church itself—all these came to the fore when Pope John XXIII convened the Second Vatican Council . The efforts of the council, under the close direction of John XXIII and Paul VI, to renew the spiritual and organizational life of the church had the paradoxical effect of increasing challenges to papal authority.

The council's stress on the collegiality of bishops and pope in the rule of the universal church led to the establishment of national conferences of bishops, a step that tended to disrupt the direct exercise of papal authority over individual bishops and increase the autonomy of local churches. Following the council there arose discussions among Catholic theologians of the limits of papal jurisdiction and infallibility. Paul VI attempted to uphold the primacy of the papal teaching office in his reassertion, in the encyclical Humanae Vitae (1968), of the traditional doctrine prohibiting artificial birth control; his attempt was met with subtle evasion by some of the national conferences of bishops and by open defiance by some priests and theologians.

John Paul I was pope for 34 days in 1978 before his death. The nearly three decade pontificate of his successor, John Paul II (r.1978-2005), was marked by an increased papal presence in the international sphere through extensive travel outside Rome. He also broadened international representation in the College of Cardinals and in the Roman Curia. Although John Paul II worked to implement the mandates of the Second Vatican Council, he firmly and successfully reasserted the primacy and authority of the pope and the Vatican while also convening an unprecedented number of consistories to advise him. The first non-Italian pope since Adrian VI (1522-23), John Paul II was also the first Polish and Slavic pope. He was succeeded in 2005 by Benedict XVI , a German who had worked closely with John Paul in the Curia.

Bibliography

For general works dealing with the papacy, see bibliography under Roman Catholic Church. See also J. B. Bury, A History of the Papacy in the Nineteenth Century (1930, repr. 1964); Geoffrey Barraclough, The Medieval Papacy (1968); Peter Nichols, The Politics of the Vatican (1968); Walter Ullmann, The Growth of Papal Government in the Middle Ages (3d ed. 1970); Ludwig von Hertling, Communio: Church and Papacy in Early Christianity (tr. 1972); J. N. D. Kelly, Oxford Dictionary of Popes (1986); B. Schimmelpfennig, The Papacy (tr. by James Sievert, 1992); E. Duffy, Saints & Sinners (1997); R. P. McBrien, Lives of the Popes (1997); P. G. Maxwell-Stuart, Chronicle of the Popes (1997).

papacy. The popes, as bishops of Rome, enjoyed a primacy in the western church. Its purpose was to ensure unity of faith. In 431 Pope Celestine (422–32) sent Palladius as bishop to the Christian Irish. Patrick does not appear to have been dispatched by the papacy. Over time the isolated Irish church developed distinctive practices, retaining, for instance, an older method of calculating the date of Easter. In the ensuing paschal controversy, Nativists (Hibernenses) clung to the old ways while Romanizers (Romani), encouraged by Pope Honorius I (625–38), who received an Irish embassy in 630–1, opted for the Roman practice. The Irish conformed to Rome after the Synod of Whitby (664). How deep this conformity was is difficult to say, but according to recent research an early 8th‐century brehon law text unambiguously endorsed Roman primacy.

There is little evidence of Roman‐Irish contact until the 11th century when the papacy embarked on a reform drive to strengthen its jurisdictional claims. In Ireland this culminated in the Synod of Kells (1152), presided over by Cardinal Paparo, which confirmed a European‐style diocesan system. In 1155 Hadrian IV's letter Laudabiliter, probably issued at the behest of Canterbury, placed Ireland under the lordship of Henry II, ostensibly in the hope of furthering reform. The incompleteness of the Anglo‐Norman conquest produced differences of organization and culture within the Irish church, and complicated papal relations with Ireland. The papacy continued to uphold the English title to the island; John XXII, for instance, rejected the argument of the 1317 Remonstrance that the failure of the English to honour the terms of Laudabiliter justified the Irish in transferring their allegiance to Edward Bruce. But the same pope urged Edward II and Edward III to treat Irish grievances seriously.

The loss of papal revenue during the popes' exile in Avignon (1305–78) and the loss of authority during the Great Schism affected Ireland. Hungry for revenues, papal bureaucrats granted dispensations for the ordination of sons of priests, and native Irish clergy in particular, among whom the hereditary system persisted, became accomplished ‘Rome‐runners’. By the early 16th century reform was in the air. In 1536 the Irish parliament declared Henry VIII supreme head of the church. The papal response was indecisive. Ecclesiastical penalties, such as Pius V's Regnans in excelsis (1570), and support for Counter‐Reformation crusaders like James FitzMaurice FitzGerald, were accompanied by internal reform initiatives. The Council of Trent (1545–63) elaborated reform programmes which slowly affected Ireland. The reformed papacy targeted episcopal appointments, establishing a special congregation for that purpose by 1572. It nominated bishops to Irish sees even where temporalities were alienated and the new bishops' faculties often extended beyond inherited ecclesiastical boundaries. In the absence of an established Catholic church, Irish affairs were channelled through the Nunciature in Brussels (see Nunziatura di Fiandra) to Propaganda in Rome. By the 1590s an Irish Counter‐Reformation religious community had been established, committed to the papacy.

The papacy was anxious lest Irish Catholics' efforts to find a political accommodation with the Protestant state might dilute its authority. These fears were realized during the complex political struggles of the 1640s, when Old English Gallicans were ready to compromise on papal authority, but the Old Irish, encouraged by the papal nuncio Rinuccini, pushed for an established Catholic church. Old English Gallicanism surfaced again in the Remonstrances of 1661 and 1666, but the Revolution of 1688 hardened attitudes. For the Irish Protestant state, continued loyalty to pope and Stuarts (see Jacobitism) made Catholics ineligible for basic civil rights. Throughout the era of the penal laws, the papacy remained active in Irish church affairs through episcopal appointments and the regulation of disputes between regular and secular clergy. Clement XIII's refusal to recognize the Stuart succession in 1766, ending the Stuart right to episcopal nomination, opened new possibilities for Irish relations with Rome.

As Catholics regained civil status the question of papal loyalty was again politically topical. In 1772 parliament approved an oath of loyalty for Catholics but its anti‐papal phraseology divided bishops and laity. Reform came anyway but the French Revolution and the insurrection of 1798 changed everything. The papacy swung in behind established authorities and during the veto controversy was more anxious than the Irish bishops to appease London. It was the genius of 19th‐century Irish Catholicism to blend domestic political liberalism with staunch ultramontanism. The papacy never intervened directly in Irish affairs but was the focus of ecclesiastical politicking as episcopal factions lobbied Rome on questions of church‐state co‐operation, notably in education. The Syllabus of Errors (1864) condemned the separation of church and state. Yet even Cardinal Cullen realized that separation with voluntary co‐operation was in fact the relationship that best served the interests of the Irish church. While most Irish bishops accepted the definition of papal infallibility (1870), they saw its limits when applied to political matters. When Leo XIII declared the Plan of Campaign unlawful in 1888, Archbishop William Walsh of Dublin made his objections known to Rome.

After independence, elements of social Catholicism found their way into legislation but their effect was minimal. The Eucharistic Congress (1932) probably marks the high point of Irish ultramontanism. A new phase of modernization in Irish society coincided with Vatican II. Apparent doctrinal confusion and pastoral indecisiveness followed, giving way to a period of consolidation under John Paul II, who visited Ireland in 1979. He paid special attention to episcopal appointments and doctrinal renewal.

Bibliography

Keogh, Dermot , Ireland and the Vatican: The Politics and Diplomacy of Church‐State Relations, 1922–1962 (1995)

Thomas O'Connor

Papacy

Since the time of the early Roman Empire, when the Christian faith was banned, the bishops of Rome exercised a wide-ranging authority over Christian believers, based on the establishment of the Roman church by the apostle Peter. After the fall of the western empire in the fifth century, the city of Constantinople became the seat of power of the eastern Roman (Byzantine) emperors, and the Christian bishops of that city challenged the authority of Rome. The popes of Rome sent missionaries to northern Europe to convert pagans to the new faith, a process that took five centuries through the early Middle Ages. In the meantime, the Eastern and Western Christian churches contended for centuries over doctrine and their respective authority in Europe, with a Great Schism occurring between the two in 1054. In the meantime, the popes of Rome were fighting the emperors of the Holy Roman Empire for control of Italy, with the popes wielding the power of excommunication over the emperors, who had large, multinational armies and allied Italian cities and states on their side.

The medieval Papacy was torn by its own inner conflicts and rivalries, leading to the “Babylonian Captivity” in which the popes moved from Rome to a palace in the city of Avignon in southern France. The schism within the Papacy, which at times was claimed to be led by three different men, and the worldliness of the church inspired a movement for reform and defiance of the pope's authority. Under the leadership of Jan Hus, Martin Luther, Huldrych Zwingli, and John Calvin, the Protestant Reformation sought a return to the early simplicity and purity of the Christian faith, and an end to the worldly power and wealth claimed by the popes and their representatives. In Rome, the papal court became a leading center for the patronage of artists, sculptors, scholars, and architects, and the Papacy grew wealthy from the system of tithing and the selling of indulgences—the pardoning of sins.

A Counter-Reformation began in the late Renaissance after several meetings of the Council of Trent, which set down new doctrine to be enforced by the members of the church. Making alliances with Catholic rulers, such as the Emperor Charles V, the popes sought to return Protestant lands to Catholicism, with mixed results. The popes claimed civic as well as religious authority in several principalities of central Italy, known as the Papal States. During the sixteenth century, the Papacy conquered many important cities of Italy and imposed direct rule over them. The power of the Papacy over even Catholic rulers declined after the Renaissance, until the Papal States were finally dissolved in the nineteenth century and the Papacy became a purely religious institution.

See Also: Alexander VI; Julius II; Papal States; Reformation, Protestant

papacy The office of the pope (Bishop of Rome), derives its name from the Greek papas and Latin papa, which are familiar forms of ‘father’. In early times many bishops and even priests were called popes, but in the Western Church the word gradually became a title restricted to the Bishop of Rome; Pope Gregory VII in 1073 forbade its use for anyone except the Bishop of Rome. The traditional enumeration lists 265 holders of the office, excluding ANTIPOPES, beginning with St PETER and reaching to the present holder JOHN PAUL II. The basis of papal authority derives from St Peter's position of leadership among the 12 Apostles, given him by Jesus Christ, the early tradition that he came to Rome and was martyred there. The papal claim to extend its jurisdiction over all Christian Churches was a major cause of various Churches breaking with Rome, notably the ORTHODOX CHURCH definitively in 1054, and the Protestant Churches at the time of the REFORMATION in the 16th century.

Papacy. The office of the bishop of Rome as leader of the Roman Catholic Church. Claims to some form of leadership over the churches seem to be implicit in Roman documents from the end of the 1st cent. onwards, but were made more explicit in the century between popes Damasus and Leo. Acceptance of the papal fullness of authority (‘plenitudo potestatis’) over other churches has varied with the personal standing of the bishops of Rome and other historical circumstances, but is generally held to have been at its height during the pontificate of Innocent III. At Vatican I the bishops asserted the pope's ‘ordinary and immediate’ authority over all churches and members of churches, and his infallibility when defining matters of faith or morals to be held by the whole church.

Papacy. While the term strictly denotes the office of the Pope, i.e. the Bp. of Rome, it commonly refers to the system of centralized government in the Church exercised by him, along with the claim that by Divine appointment he has universal authority over Christendom. According to RC doctrine, St Peter was the first Bp. of Rome, and the Pope is not only his lineal successor in that office, but also inherits the unique commission given him by Christ (cf. especially Mt. 16: 18f. and Jn. 21: 17). The Papal primacy was never formally accepted by the E. Church and it was repudiated by Protestant communions. From 756 to 1870 the Papacy was also a territorial power ruling a large part of central Italy. See also ROMAN CATHOLICISM.

papacy Office, status, or authority of the pope as head of both the Roman Catholic Church and the Vatican City. The Pope is nominated Bishop of Rome and Christ's spiritual representative on Earth. He is elected by the College of Cardinals. There have been more than 265 holders of the office of pope from Saint Peter to John Paul II. Until the Reformation the papacy claimed authority over all Western Christendom. Today, papal authority extends only over the members of the Roman Catholic Church. See also papal infallibility

pa·pa·cy / ˈpāpəsē/ • n. (pl. -cies) (usu. the papacy) the office or authority of the pope. ∎  the tenure of office of a pope: during the papacy of Pope John.

papacy office of pope XIV; papal system XVI. — medL. pāpātia, f. pāpa POPE1; see -ACY.
So papal XIV. — (O)F. — medL.

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