Immediately after the German invasion and the Paris Commune there existed already at Paris a Catholic “Circle” of working-men, distinct, if not in appearance, yet in reality, from the associations of young apprentices called by this name, or under the more appropriate one of Patronages. It was, in fact, a working-men’s association—a little Christian republic; self-governing, by means of a council chosen from among its own number, the members of which council were considered as irremovable. On its festivals the whole association assembled in the chapel belonging to the circle; there its elected functionaries were received into office at the foot of the altar, there they made frequent communions, and thence, in accordance with the customs of the ancient confraternities of craftsmen, they bore in procession the banners of their patron saints. There were formed earnest men, accustomed to hear the language of duty, and ready to make the sacrifices it demands, as those of their number who died in the war had testified, as well as the many more who did not cease to incur, with patience and steadfastness, the persecutions of their scoffing companions in the ateliers.

This association was the work of a religious of the Institute of St. Vincent de Paul—M. Maignen, Director of the Circle of Montparnasse. The subscriptions of the circle, however, which had previously sufficed for its support, were unequal to the burden incurred by its installation, and the external subscriptions which had hitherto aided it had become few in number and small in amount.

M. Maignen then resolved to assemble in council, on the evening of Christmas day, a group of capitalists, among whom were three deputies, three well-known writers, and three military officers, scarcely known to each other except by name; but they were all good and earnest Catholics, and had, moreover, suffered and fought for their country. After uniting in prayer they resolved to seek, in the definitions of the church in regard to her relations to civil society, the germ of the sole social force capable of saving France from the consequences of her errors; and this force, they decided, should be constituted in the form of Catholic Circles for Working-men, similar to the one in which they were met together.

They began, in the first place, by addressing to the Holy Father the expression of their resolution, to which he granted his benediction. In the next they sent, by thousands of copies, an energetic appeal to all “men of good-will.” “The revolution,” they said, “has descended from the brains of (so-called) philosophers into the minds of the people. Are we to leave our misguided working-men to perdition—a perdition in which they will also involve their country—or, by drawing a supernatural strength from the heart of Jesus—himself a working-man—shall we not oppose the associations of men who love darkness rather than light by the Catholic Association, and meet the lessons of materialism by those of the Gospel, and a cold cosmopolitanism by the love of our country?”

Then the little group of men who signed the engagement further united themselves by a religious bond—the daily recital of a prayer, and an annual communion for the intentions of the work, the duties of which the members distributed among themselves according to their respective facilities.

Each section set to work under the direction of a chief: the first for the general promulgation of the work, the second for its foundations, the third for the creation of resources, and the fourth for the popular diffusion of its teaching. The sections worked independently of each other, but met in committee when there was any need for arranging or deciding as to any general plan of action. For the purpose of directing and controlling the action of the fourth section the committee also appointed a council under the name of Jésus-Ouvrier. Thus the work was constituted in its first committee—that is to say, the first association of the directing class—on the principle of its first “circle,” the Catholic declaration and the division of responsibilities, and, lastly, as a sign and pledge of the union of the active members of the work, the religious bond.

The association thus organized bore marvellous fruit, and in a few months the committee found itself able to relieve the Cercle Montparnasse by creating two similar ones in the quarters (of evil notoriety) of Belleville and Montmartre, which were chosen with the intention of a public expiation, and to furnish each of the circles with a council of its quarter.

This was the golden age of the work, which was, as it were, crowned by the high testimony it received at the Congress of Directors of the Catholic Working-men’s Associations assembled at Poitiers under the auspices of Mgr. Pie. It obtained also an exceptional éclat from the remarkable eloquence of one of its initiators at the Cercle Montparnasse—the intrepid Count Albert de Mun—as well as from the fact of there being several other military officers among them. The work appeared to be marked with a providential character, having at its outset the stamp of trial, followed by that of rapid expansion, and possessing another in the saintly character of its first founder; for, although God may be pleased to employ unworthy instruments to promote his merciful designs, it will always be found that, in the first instance, they have been deposited, as in a chalice, in a holy and devoted soul.

The impetus was given. The large towns of France answered the appeal by requesting the initiators to form, within them, committees like the Directing Committee at Paris. The principles of the constitution never varied; i.e., Catholic affirmation by the acceptance of the religious bond, and the general bases of the work, division of labor among the members of the local association, and periodic communication with the secretariate general.

This in a short time was carried out at Lyons, Bordeaux, Marseilles, Lille, and many other places of importance, numerous smaller towns, and even villages, asking for the same institution. And everywhere it bore fruit, the formation of a committee being in every instance followed by the opening of a circle.

At the same time the Council of Jésus-Ouvrier, and, following its example, the committees of the large towns, opened public conferences in popular quarters, where the people were addressed in frank and energetic language, inspired by the intimate union of religious and social faith, and the doctrines of liberalism boldly denounced, which substitute for the precepts “Love one another” and “Bear ye one another’s burdens” that of “To each according to his work”—a maxim good enough in itself, but which the employer translates into “Each one for himself,” and the employed into “My turn next for enjoyment.” These declarations, repeated simultaneously in all parts of France, gave the work a remarkable unity of spirit, which was amply manifested at the first general assembly of its members, held in the spring of 1873.

Difficulties, however, arose in proportion to the progress made. Few adherents were obtained from among the manufacturing chiefs, on whom depends the whole economy of the working-classes; while the committees, formed of men little accustomed to study the laws of labor, did not well observe its divisions, and thus dwindled away. That of Paris, to which had been allotted the most complete autonomy, and which was more especially devoted to the general propagation of the work, gave way beneath its accumulated burden.

“We then” (to quote the words of one of the members in his address to the Congress at Rheims)—“We then turned our eyes with confidence to her who is the help of Christians, our ever Blessed Lady, resolving to go all together and invoke her aid in one of the sanctuaries of France where she has most anciently manifested her power, and where formerly the kingdom was dedicated to her by a solemn vow—Notre Dame de Liesse. The funds of the Paris committee were already exhausted and the year only half over. We collected ten thousand francs, and unhesitatingly devoted them to defray the expenses of this distant pilgrimage.

“The committees of the north were invited to join it at the head of the circles they had formed, and on the 17th of August, 1873, twenty-five hundred pilgrims arrived from their respective towns to form one procession to Notre Dame de Liesse. Half of the number, in spite of the fatigues of the way, there received Holy Communion, and we returned with renewed strength and confidence to our posts.”

We will not here give a detailed account of the toils and progress of the year which succeeded the pilgrimage. A brief of the Holy Father confirmed the constitution of the work by the grant of duly specified indulgences attached to it; it also received the canonical protection of a cardinal of the church.

These favors brought a timely encouragement to the promoters of the work; for with its progress its trials also increased. Among the most painful were those of seeing it misunderstood by many persons who might have been expected to prove its warmest advocates. Some of these lost sight of its social character, and preferred to seek the good of a few individual souls instead of helping forward a Christian restoration of society; while others, again, mistook the part to be taken in the committees by the upper classes. “Of what use,” they asked, “is a committee, unless to provide resources for an ecclesiastical director?”

This is a question which has been frequently asked. But it must be borne in mind that if the circle establishes among its members social fraternity, the director could not himself alone represent its paternity. To do this would be to deter other Christians of the upper classes from the unmistakable command they have received to exercise this social paternity which they have from God in the very advantages of their social condition.

For why are riches and honors bestowed upon the few—why the benefits of education, of leisure, of cultivation of the mind—unless it be that they are to be consecrated to the moral guidance and material assistance of the classes who are deprived of such advantages? In regard to this social paternity, as in regard to that which creates the family, the priest must be the consecrator: but, in his turn, the father who would abandon to the priest the charges and responsibilities of the dignity which, by divine right, is his own, would only disappear from among his fellow-men to be confounded before the Eternal Father—he and the two complaisant accomplices of his culpable abdication.

After establishing social fraternity by the circles, and social paternity by the committees, it remained to restore the social family—that is, to associate Christian families in the benefits of the work, after having associated in it the heads of families of various conditions.

The family is, in fact, the first association by natural right, and therefore every constitution which embraces it and does not take it for its foundation is vitiated and sterile. The founders of the work knew this, and were, moreover, not allowed to forget it by the daily reproaches they received—“You are destroying the family; you are destroying the parish!”—and what not. But how to reach the family so as to be of service to it instead of injurious was not for some time made clear. The Circle of Montparnasse, the prototype of the rest, had avoided rather than faced the difficulty by disposing of its active functions in favor only of its unmarried members. But this was plainly not the solution.

The solution had, however, been discovered, at no great distance from Rheims, in the great manufacturing region which has for the motive power of its machines the waters of the Suippe, for its boundary the extensive woods which form an oasis of verdure in the burning plains of Champagne, and for its population factory-men, who wander, at the bidding of the industrial fluctuations of the time, to and from the looms of the north, of Rheims, or of St. Quentin—a population exceptionally indigent, since the struggle between capital and wages, inaugurated by liberalism, has become the normal condition of the producer and the consumer.

In the hamlet of Val-des-Bois, in the centre of this district, an industrial family settled about half a century ago, and brought with it the example of every Christian virtue. Kind towards their workmen, generous even beyond their gains, Messieurs Harmel assembled around their vast establishment all the religious and philanthropic institutions by means of which it has hitherto been attempted to re-establish harmony in the world of labor.

As is but too frequently the case, they failed in this attempt completely. But they were not daunted, nor did they rest satisfied with their past endeavors; for, if they loved the working-men, they loved their Lord still more, and desired as earnestly as ever that he should reign in the hearts of those in their employ.

Not many years ago it occurred to one of them to introduce among the population of their factories—which did not count a single practising Christian—the principle of the Catholic Association. He determined to ask four men to join together to form the nucleus of a circle, and three young girls to be received as Enfants de Marie and wear the badge. In proportion as the associations developed themselves he multiplied them according to the sex, age, and condition of each individual; and this with such success that at the present time the twelve hundred souls who people Val-des-Bois are united in a marvellous aggregation of pious confraternities, among whose members are made, in the course of a year, more than ten thousand communions, in the intention of making reparation to our Lord for the outrages he receives in the modern factory.

Then, also, as earthly goods are often increased abundantly to those who seek first the kingdom of God, the principle of Catholic Association applied to the families of the Factory of the Sacred Heart (l’Usine du Sacrè-Cœur)—for it bears this name—has realized there innumerable economical benefits, a fact which will not surprise those who know the power of this principle. Assistance of every kind, clothing, food, and fuel at very reasonable prices, schools free of expense to the parents, and occasional holidays for recreation, have brought with them, together with economy, the comfort also and prosperity of the families. All these institutions, economic, charitable, and religious, are governed by those personally interested. The circle, which brings together the fathers of families, is, as it were, the centre of this machinery; and the master, who is its motive power, associates with himself not only all the members of his own family and the chaplain of the factory, but also his principal employés, to fulfil the paternal function of a protecting and directing committee, and so to secure to the association the chances of continuance as well as the fruits of example. To this end delegates are annually appointed, who, under the presidency of the master, are the guardians of the corporation.

We will give the result of all these well-considered combinations in M. Harmel’s own words:^[113]

“By the persevering endeavors of many years we have attained the end at which we aimed. Families are reconstituted, peace and love have taken the place of quarrels and disorder around the domestic hearth; the mother rejoices at the change wrought in her husband and children; the father finds in a new life the courage and happiness of labor; his home is delightful to him from the respect of his children, the ready cheerfulness of his wife, and the love of all. Economy has put an end to debts and created savings; the anniversary festivals of the family bring back that affectionate gayety and warmth which give repose amid the fatigues of life, and inspire fresh ardor to go bravely on the way. When we are in the midst of these good and honest faces transformed by Christian influences, we read there confidence and love, and thank the good God who has made the large family of Val-des-Bois.” Such are the experiences there obtained, as if to complete those of the Cercle Montparnasse.

Alone among the many excellent men who, after the war and Commune, arose to attempt some means of healing the internal wounds of France, the members of the Œuvre Ouvrière took a solemn engagement, the terms of which were marked out with precision. Each member affixes his signature to an individual and public act of devoted adhesion to the doctrines defined by the Syllabus of the Errors of Modern Society. Preserved, therefore, from the liberalism which in reality puts oppression into the hands of the strongest, and the socialism which demands it for the masses, they will pursue more efficaciously than either of these the vindication of the popular interests, such as the due observance of the Sunday and the protection of the family and home, and, guided by grace and supported by prayer, will find Christian solutions for all the social questions of labor.

The work of the Catholic circles has set on foot a periodical for the study and discussion of these questions—namely, the review which borrows its title from one of the principles of the work: L’Association Catholique. It is open to all questions, but not to all doctrines, for a work which, at the head of its statutes, invokes the definitions of the Catholic Church cannot admit the errors which she has condemned. It numbers among its contributors some of the best social economists and solid Christian writers of the time, and thus provides weapons of proof to the polemics of the Catholic press, besides furthering the great social effort made by the association, which now reckons three hundred circles in all parts of France.

In conclusion, we would mention that it must be borne in mind that the important part in this good work is not the exclusive institution of circles, this being only the first and one of the different forms under which the principle is brought to act. That principle is the direction and protection of the working-classes by the higher and more educated, and the association of the interests of both, as opposed to the lamentable antagonism of the same different classes which is, in our times, the great difficulty of social government and the source of increasing disorder and conflict. These associations are intended to react, by every possible means, against the erroneous social theories so numerous and so impotent for good, and to bring into practice the only true and effectual social law—namely, conformity to the social duties of Catholics. Our religion has remedies for all evils; its practice is supreme political and social wisdom, and in the alarming state of society among the working-classes there cannot be, nor ever will be, found any other course to be adopted than to return to the rules of Christian life. It is evident, then, how wide a field is opened by such a desire breaking forth in the hearts and minds of fervent Christians such as M. de Mun and his friends, and it would be impossible to show in few words all that it has produced and is producing by the grace of God; and although this work of charity has originated in France, and at present exists only in France, it may, it is to be hoped, give rise to similar laudable efforts in all countries, where also, among their associations of Catholic circles for the working-classes, shall, as in this country, be raised the labarum of Constantine and its sacred motto: “In hoc signo vinces.”

The earliest manner of electing the popes was by the votes of the Roman clergy cast in the presence of the faithful, who assisted as witnesses to the godliness of the subject proposed, and to testify that besides his personal merits he was an acceptable person on account, perhaps, of his birth, his nationality, his appearance, or of some other adventitious circumstance which enhanced his popularity with the great body of the people, and would cause him, also, to be looked upon with less disfavor by them who are without.^[114] Although these elections belonged to the clergy and laity of the Roman Church—or we should say, rather, to the higher clergy and the representatives of the laity—the relative rights or parts of each class of electors were not apparently determined by express enactment, but upon grounds of common sense and equity; such, for instance, as that Episcopus deligatur, plebe præsente, quæ singulorum vitam plenissime norit, et uniuscujusque actum de ejus conversatione prospexit,^[115] or that Nullus invitis detur episcopus.^[116] Bellarmine,^[117] Sixtus Senensis,^[118] Petrus de Marca,^[119] and Thomassin^[120] prove that the people’s part in such elections was more perfunctory than real, since testimony of a man’s good repute could be otherwise obtained, and that even an expression of preference was not always heeded; as we learn from the same Pope Celestine, who wrote to the bishops of Apulia and Calabria: Docendus est populus, non sequendus; nosque si nesciunt, eosquid liceat quidve non liceat, commonere non his consensum præbere debemus.^[121] The Roman people, then, did not and could not have, except by usurpation and abuse, a decisive voice in the election of the pope; for such an act is by God’s ordinance placed beyond the jurisdiction of the laity.

After the martyrdom of St. Fabian, in January, A.D. 250, the Holy See remained vacant for a year and a half, until in the month of June, 251, Cornelius was raised to that post of perilous dignity under a tyrant like Decius, who had declared that he would sooner see a new pretender to the empire than another bishop of Rome. This election, although made almost unanimously by all orders, gave rise to the first schism, because Novatian, who headed the rigorous party in the affair of the Lapsi, was consecrated bishop and set himself up as anti-pope. We have an invaluable testimony to the election of St. Cornelius from the pen of St. Cyprian: Factus est autem Cornelius episcopus de Dei et Christi ejus judicio, de clericorum pæne omnium testimonio, de plebis, quæ tunc adfuit, suffragio et de sacerdotum antiquorum et bonorum virorum collegio, cum nemo ante se factus esset, cum Fabiani locus id est cum locus Petri et gradus cathedræ sacerdotalis vacaret.^[122] From this passage of the great Bishop of Carthage we can obtain, says Baronius,^[123] a tolerably good idea of a papal election in the early ages. Prayers were first offered up to God to obtain his assistance in making a choice; the desire of the faithful, or rather of their representatives, and such testimony to the worth of the subjects proposed as they were prepared to give was heard; the wish of the Roman clergy, and their willing assent to the proceedings, were inquired into and sought; and after maturely weighing the for and against, the bishops of the vicinity, with any others in communion with the Holy See who happened to be in Rome at the time, went into executive session and gave the decisive votes—in commitiis suffragia ferebant. With regard to those among the laity who took part in these elections, we must observe that in the beginning, as long as the majority of Christians was composed of persons who had embraced the faith from pure and unworldly motives, whose aim was to behold the church prosperous and glorious, and whose charity, being yet warm, sought not their own end but that which is another’s,^[124] the whole body of Christians who had reached mature years and belonged to that sex which alone had a voice in the church^[125] gave their testimony and assent in favor of that one whom it was proposed to elect;^[126] but the evils of anything like a popular election in a great city were so manifest^[127] that attempts were soon made to leave the choice of such on the part both of clergy and laity—but earlier in the case of the latter order—to a select body or committee, a general suffrage being gradually superseded by the votes of approval given by the rich only and the high in station.

We find, perhaps, a germ of this even in the earliest times.^[128] The Council of Laodicea (A.D. 365) clearly desired that the choice should be made by some definitely-organized body, and not by a mere mass-meeting; St. Leo and the Roman council of A.D. 442, and again the former in Epist. lxxxix.cvi., expressly mention the “Honorati,” the magnates at such elections.^[129] The influence of the principal personages in a city was not to be ignored through the clamor of those who too often formed only a mob.^[130] A letter of Pope Cornelius to Fabius, Bishop of Antioch, has fortunately been preserved by Eusebius,^[131] which gives us the exact number of the Roman clergy of every grade, and a clue^[132] to what may have been the Christian population of Rome, in the middle of the third century. According to these precious statistics, there were then belonging to the Roman clergy 46 priests, 7 deacons, 7 subdeacons, 42 acolytes, 52 exorcists, readers, and ostiarii. Fifteen hundred widows and orphans were provided for by the church, whose children composed an immense population in the capital of the empire. Hence we may rest assured that deliberations for the election of the Roman pontiff could not have been open to all of either clergy or laity, but must necessarily, in the interests of good order, and by reason of the small size of places of public meetings then possessed by the Christians, have been confined to a select number.

The ancient records of the Roman Church reaching back to the beginning of the early middle ages, which have been published by Mabillon and Galletti, show us its clergy divided into three distinct classes—viz., priests, dignitaries, and inferior ministers. The priests were the seven cardinal suburbican bishops and the twenty-eight cardinal-priests; the dignitaries were the archdeacon and the seven palatine judges (prothonotaries-apostolic); the inferior ministers were the subdeacons, acolytes, and notaries without office at court. The laity was likewise divided into three classes—viz., citizens, soldiers, and commoners; i.e., the nobility, the army, and the Third Estate.^[133]

After the death of Pope Zozimus, on the 26th of December, 418, a majority of the clergy and people elected the cardinal-priest Boniface to succeed him. A serious dispute immediately arose. Eulalius, the archdeacon, who, as such, had been practically the most important personage of the Holy See after the pontiff himself, and felt indignant at having been passed over in the election, held possession of the Lateran Palace, where he was chosen pope by a few of the clergy, to whose faction, however, all the deacons and three bishops belonged.^[134] The fear of future contests suggested to Pope Boniface I., who is described by Anastasius as unambitious, of mild character; and devoted to good works, to obtain from the Emperor Honorius, in the year 420, a rescript by which it was decreed that, in the contingency of a double election, neither rival should be pope, but that the clergy and people should proceed to another choice. The decree was almost textually inserted in the canon law.^[135] This difference between St. Boniface and Eulalius, or rather the latter’s schism, gave occasion to the first interference of the secular arm in the election of the Roman pontiffs. St. Hilary, who was elected in the year 461, convened a council of forty-eight bishops at Rome, and, among other provisions for filling worthily the Holy See, declared that no pope should ever appoint his own successor. Despite this recent enactment, Boniface II.—in whose favor, however, it must be said that he sought to preclude, as even a greater evil than a passing violation of the canons, the threatened interference of the Gothic king, who wanted to put a partisan on the papal throne—called a council at St. Peter’s in the year 531, and there designated the celebrated deacon Vigilius as his coadjutor with future succession. Subsequently, repenting his action, he called another council, and with his own hand burned the paper appointing him.^[136]

Although the actual naming of his successor by the pope has never been tolerated, there have been several, and some very opportune, cases in which a pope on the point of death has recommended a particular person, more or less efficaciously, to the body of electors as one well fitted to succeed to the vacant throne. This was done by St. Gregory VII., who proposed three candidates to the cardinals—namely, Desiderius, Cardinal-Abbot of Monte Casino; Otho, Cardinal-Bishop of Ostia; and Hugh, Archbishop of Lyons—and particularly recommended the election of the first as the only one of the three who was in Italy at the time. Desiderius became Pope Victor III. Other similar, but not always equally successful, recommendations were made by popes of that era. In order finally to put the strongest official check upon the election of his own successor by a pope, Pius IV., after exposing in consistory his age and infirmities, reminded the cardinals that he was well aware how under his predecessor, Paul IV., the question was mooted whether this could be done, and that some theologians and cardinals held to the affirmative,^[137] but that he would pronounce in the negative, and intended to issue a bull—as in fact he did, on the 22d of September, 1561^[138]—declaring that no pope could do so, even with the consent of the Sacred College. His immediate predecessor had reaffirmed in 1558 an ordinance increasing the penalties of its violation, which had originally been passed over a thousand years before by Pope Symmachus in a council of seventy-two bishops convened at Rome in the year 499, forbidding, under pain of excommunication and loss of all dignities, to treat of a successor during the lifetime of the reigning pontiff.^[139] From this we learn how some of the best and greatest popes have tried to frame such wise provisions as might assure an untainted election to the Papacy; yet they could not succeed in every case, because even the most stringent laws must be well executed to be effective, and must find docile subjects to obey them. The Romans do certainly appear to have been a stiff-necked people during many generations; and while we think it ungenerous continually to throw in their teeth the wretched opinion St. Bernard must have had of them, as we see by his treatise De Consideratione, addressed to Pope Eugene III., and hardly fair in the annalist Muratori to transfer so much of the blame for factious elections from the German emperors to the Roman populace, the least that even their best friend can honestly say is that they might have done better.^[140]

The election of the pope, says Cardinal Borgia,^[141] was perfectly free during the first four centuries, being made by the clergy in presence of the people; but in process of time, as the papal dignity increased in wealth and splendor of temporal authority, it often became an object of human ambition, of which secular rulers were not slow to avail themselves, that by iniquitous bargains and preconcerted plans they might bind, if possible, the priesthood to the empire, and derive the immense advantage of the spiritual power administered by a subject or a dependant. The first instance of direct interference by the state in a papal election—for the decision in the case of Boniface and the anti-pope was an arbitration invited by the church—appears towards the close of the fifth century. Odoacer, a Gothic chief of the tribe of the Heruli, having deposed Romulus Augustulus, in whom the Western Empire came to an end, was proclaimed King of Italy, rejecting the imperial style of Cæsar and Augustus for a title which he expressly created for himself. It would seem—although even this is not beyond dispute—that Pope Simplicius had requested Odoacer, in whom the powers of the state were now vested, to stand ready, in the common interests of order and good government, to repress the civil commotions which he foresaw were likely to arise after his death on the election of a successor. However this may be, the king went beyond a merely repressive measure, and, pretending that Simplicius had commissioned him to do so, published an edict on the pope’s death in 483, forbidding the clergy and people of Rome to elect a successor without his intervention or that of his lieutenant, the prefect of the prætorium. When, therefore, the elective assembly met in St. Peter’s to fill the vacant see, Basil the patrician came forward and claimed in his master’s name, and by virtue of the dying wish and even command of Simplicius, the right of regulating its acts and of confirming the election it might make. This pretension was firmly repelled, and, disregarding the tyrant, Felix III. was elected on March 8, 483. Baronius is of opinion that Simplicius never addressed such a requisition to the king, but that the story of his having done so was fabricated a few years later by the party of Lawrence, the anti-pope. The document purporting to emanate from Simplicius was rejected by a Roman council in 502 without further investigating its genuineness, than by exposing that it lacked the pope’s signature, and was in any case opposed to the sacred canons and ipso facto null and void.^[142] On November 22, 498, St. Symmachus was elected pope, but a minority set up a certain Lawrence, and both were consecrated on the same day. Civil strife was imminent, and, although the most regular mode of action would have been to call a council of the provincial bishops, delay was too dangerous, and the prompt interference of Theodoric was asked and submitted to.

Although this monarch was an Arian, he had protected the Catholics on many occasions, and had for prime minister the celebrated Cassiodorus, whose virtues, justice, and wisdom were renowned throughout Italy. Such considerations as these must have led the Roman clergy to submit a purely ecclesiastical matter to the court of Ravenna. On the advice of his minister the king decided that the one who had been first elected and had received the greatest number of votes should be recognized as the legitimate pope. Both conditions were verified in Symmachus. His first pontifical act was to summon a council in the basilica of St. Peter on March 1, 499, to regulate more effectively the mode of future elections. Seventy-two bishops, sixty-seven priests, and five deacons composed the council. Three canons were drawn up relative to this matter. By the first it was ordained that if any clergyman be convicted of having given or promised his suffrage for the pontificate to any aspirant during the pope’s lifetime he shall be deposed from his office; by the second it was provided that if the pope die suddenly, and a unanimous election cannot be reached, the candidate receiving a majority of the votes shall be declared elected; by the third immunity from prosecution was promised to accomplices who should reveal the intrigues of their principals to obtain an unfair election.^[143]

Theodoric the Goth, having once been appealed to, now thought to take the initiative in the election of a successor to John I., whom he had left to die of starvation and neglect on his return from Constantinople, where he had spoken rather according to his conscience than in favor of the Arians, as the king expected. On his recommendation St. Felix IV. was elected pope on the 12th of July, 526. The Roman clergy and senate protested against this stretch of royal authority, although they had no objection to the nominee, who was simple, mild, and charitable. The affair was not adjusted until a compromise was effected under Athalaric, whereby the Roman clergy by their votes, and the Roman people by their assent, were to elect the Roman pontiff, who would then be confirmed by the king as a matter of course. The popes were elected in this way until the extinction of the Gothic kingdom of Italy in the person of Teias, who was defeated and killed by Narses, general of Justinian, in the year 553. The Greek emperor, having recovered his sway in Italy, continued the abuse, to which the Romans had submitted only through fear of the barbarians, and arrogated to himself and successors the right of confirming the election of the pope. Hence, as Baronius remarks, arose the prudent custom at Rome of electing to the Papacy those members of the clergy who had been Apocrisiarii—i.e., agents or nuncios of the Holy See at Constantinople, where it was presumed they had won the favor of the court and become versed in matters of state. Thus the right of confirmation was reduced in practice to a mere formality, although in principle ever so wrong. In this way were elected Vigilius in 550, St. Gregory I. in 590, Sabinian in 604, Boniface III. in 607, and others who were personally known to the Byzantine rulers.

Avarice, or a love of money under some pretext or another, was a besetting sin of the Greeks, and from it arose a new and more degrading condition imposed on papal elections. The imperial sanction was given only on payment by the Holy See of a tax of 3,000 golden solidi, a sum equal to thirteen thousand dollars of our money.^[144] The Emperor Constantine Pogonatus, at the request of the papal legates to the Fourth General Council of Constantinople in 681, exempted the Holy See from the further payment of the tax. He was moved to do so by the sanctity of St. Agatho; but he still retained the assumed right of forbidding the pope’s consecration until his election had been confirmed. A few years later, however, he granted a constitution to Benedict II., his personal friend, and to whose guardianship he left his two sons, Justinian (II.) and Heraclius, in which he for ever abrogated this arbitrary law. The concession was ungratefully revoked by Justinian; and Conon, who was elected on October 21, 686, was obliged to ask the consent of the exarch of Ravenna, viceroy of the emperor, to his consecration. This necessity generally occasioned a delay of from six weeks to two months. The exarchs of Ravenna, having command of the troops and the key to the imperial treasury in the west, felt themselves in a position to abuse authority and try to set up creatures of their own in Rome. Often did the Roman clergy and many popes protest against their irregular acts. The choice of Pelagius II., in 578, was not submitted to the customary ratification, because the Lombards around Rome had cut off all communication with the outer world.

The historian Novaes says that although the Holy See resisted the interference of secular princes, yet the turbulent spirit of the Romans, often stirred up by unscrupulous ministers or by the sovereigns themselves, obliged the popes to have recourse to these same princes to maintain order at their consecration. Nothing, we think, better confirms the necessity of a temporal dominion whereby the popes can exclude the exercise of foreign influence in Rome, and themselves vindicate the character of good government for which they are responsible. Papal elections were of an absolutely peaceful nature only after Goths, Lombards, Greeks, and Germans ceased to support an armed force in Rome or its vicinity. Guarantees are deceitful; and a mere personal sovereignty of the pope without a territory attached would be insufficient to assure the independence of the Holy See.

A very remarkable law found its way into Gratian’s decree, under the name of Pope Stephen, by which it is ordained that the newly-elected pontiff shall be consecrated in presence of the imperial ambassadors.^[145] The learned are divided in their opinion about which pope passed this law. Baronius, Papebroch, Natalis Alexander, and others attribute it to Stephen IV., elected in 816; Pagi inclines to Stephen VI., alias VII.; Mansi to Deusdedit, elected in 615; while some think that it belongs to John IX., because it is found among the acts of a council held by him in 898. Novaes suggests that this council may only have given a more solemn sanction to an older law. When Eugene II. was elected on the 5th of June, 824, he concerted with Lothair, son of the Emperor Louis, who had named him King of Italy and his colleague in the empire, to put a stop to cabals and disorders among the Roman people. He issued a decree enjoining upon the Roman clergy to swear fealty to the Frankish emperors, but with this significant reservation: “saving the faith that I have pledged to the successor of St. Peter”—Salva fide quam repromisi Domino Apostolico^[146]—and not to consent to an uncanonical or factious election of a pope. The same pope also voluntarily offered to bind the Roman pontiffs to be consecrated in the presence of the so-called Rex Romanorum, if he were in the city, otherwise of his envoy.^[147] Pagi thinks that this was done to propitiate in advance these growing monarchs of the north, and distract them from the idea of continuing the policy of the Eastern emperors, who, as we have seen, would not allow the popes to proceed to consecration until their election had been confirmed. Eugene’s act seems to us to have been a subtle stroke of diplomacy. While it flattered, by conveying the impression that the presence of Cæsar (as he was pompously called) or of his legates gave splendor and magnificence to the ceremony of consecration, it disarmed the emperor by implying the right of the popes to be consecrated at their own convenience; for if his meaning had been that the presence of the king or of his ambassadors were a necessary condition to the legality of the act, he would have deliberately placed himself and successors in the same relation to these new rulers that his predecessors had been obliged, though under protest, to assume toward the emperors of the East—which is manifestly absurd.

Nevertheless, both the Frank and Saxon emperors frequently claimed the right to something more than a mere honorary part in papal elections, which led to long years of party strife and discord between church and state. Leo IV., in 847, confirmed the decree of Eugene, although, on account of the Saracens around Rome, he was consecrated without waiting for the imperial ambassadors; and the same was the case, but without any ostensible reason, with Stephen V., alias VI. This shows that the presence of the envoys was an honorary privilege, which conferred no authority to go back of or revise the election itself, as Hadrian III., Stephen’s immediate predecessor, expressly affirmed in a decree given by Martinus Polonus,^[148] Mabillon,^[149] and Pagi.^[150]

It is but fair to confess that this decree is not considered authentic by all; but what historical document has not been called in question by some hypercritic or other, especially in Germany? That it is not apocryphal is shown by the fact that one of Hadrian’s successors—John IX., elected in 898—annulled it in view of the peace ensured by the presence of the ambassadors, and restored the earlier ordinance of Eugene.

The text of the canon law, and especially the passage Canonico ritu et consuetudine, has been often appealed to by Cæsarists and Protestant historians, as though it demonstrated that a papal election not made according to its requirements was uncanonical and invalid. In the first place, Cardinal Garampi^[151] remarks that Eugene’s decree was a personal privilege Advocatiæ given to the princes of the Carlovingian line; and in the second place Thomassin observes upon John’s decree^[152] that the imperial ambassadors were not admitted to the election, but only to the subsequent consecration; that they were there to overawe the turbulent; and that in time their presence became a custom and was looked on as a part, so to speak, of the external rite of consecration. It had, besides, become so useful as a repressive measure against the enemies of the Holy See that it received the high sanction of being countenanced by the canon law itself. Pope Nicholas II., in the eleventh century, explained the text Quia Sancta in the same sense. It must be said, to the discredit of the Othos and the Henrys, that they too often slipped from the inch of privilege to the ell of (pretended) right, and went so far as to interfere in a direct and absolute sense at papal elections, intruding some less worthy subjects into the Papacy; but when once these occupied the seat of Peter they were to be recognized and respected on the same principle that the high-priests were in the irregular age of the Seleucidæ and the Romans when they sat upon the chair of Moses. Yet even the imperial influence, says Kenrick,^[153] was beneficially exercised in several instances, particularly those of Clement II. and St. Leo IX. Dr. Constantine Höfler has written a work^[154] replete with information about the German popes and the physical aspect, the morals, manners, and customs of the Romans in their time. Charles Hemans’ books (we cannot seriously call them works) on Ancient and Mediæval Christianity and Sacred Art in Italy, while they show considerable acquaintance with the best authorities on the subject, manifest a detestable animus against the Holy See, which shows their writer to be as great an adept in the “art of putting things” as the far more learned author of the eight-volume History of the City of Rome in the Middle Ages, Ferdinand Gregorovius. While the corruption of some popes and the depravity of the tenth century have been exaggerated by many historians, the condition of the Papacy at that time is certainly a warning against the interference of secular princes in the elections; for, as the great Baronius remarks (ad an. 900), Nihil penitus Ecclesiæ Romanæ contingere potest funestius, tetrius nihil atque lugubrius, quam si principes seculares in Romanorum Pontificum electiones manus immittant.^[155]

In the middle of the eleventh century a movement was begun to reform the method of conducting papal elections, which eventually limited them within the legitimate circle of ecclesiastical prerogatives, totally excluding the direct influence of the inferior clergy and the aristocratic and popular element of the laity. Pope Nicholas II., having assembled a synod of one hundred and thirteen bishops in the Lateran Palace in the month of April, 1059, passed a law to the following effect: On the death of the pope the cardinal-bishops shall first meet in council and with the utmost diligence treat of a successor; they shall next take joint action with the cardinal-priests, and finally consider the wishes of the rest of the clergy and of the Roman people. If a worthy subject can be found among the members of the Roman (higher) clergy itself, he is to be preferred, otherwise a foreigner shall be elected; so that, however, the honor and regard due to our beloved son Henry, now king, and soon, God grant, to be emperor, which we have seen proper to show to him and to his successors who may personally apply for it, be not diminished. If a proper election cannot take place in Rome, it may be held anywhere else.^[156] In the year 1061 another synod was held, in which it was distinctly stated that the mere fact of election in the foregoing manner placed the elect in possession of plenary apostolic authority; consequently, the emperor’s confirmation was excluded, in the sense that without it the election was invalid. From this period, although the struggle was not yet over, the Papacy was completely emancipated from any kind of subjection to the empire. Alexander II., successor to Nicholas, did not communicate his election to the court; and although St. Gregory VII., glorious Hildebrand, did do so, it was partly from prudence in view of the excitement in Germany occasioned by the setting up of the anti-pope Cadolaus in resentment for his predecessor’s neglect, and partly from his sense of honor, lest it should be thought (since he had taken a principal part in enacting the statute of Pope Nicholas) that he availed himself of an advantage which he had himself created—artfully, as suspicious-minded persons might think—in anticipation of one day ascending the papal chair. He was the last pope who ever informed the emperor of his election before proceeding to be consecrated and enthroned. The great Catholic powers still continue to exercise a measure of influence in these elections, but of a purely advisory character, except in the case of those few which enjoy the privilege of veto, or the esclusiva, as the Romans say. At the Third General Council of the Lateran, held in the year 1179 by Alexander III., a most important advance was made in the manner of holding the elections. The right of the cardinals to elect, without reference to the rest of the Roman clergy or of the people, was affirmed, and a majority of two-thirds of their votes required for a valid election. This law was readily approved by the bishops and members of the council, and incorporated in the canon law, where it is found among the decretals of Gregory IX.^[157]