Pope Gregory XVI (Latin:Gregorius PP. XVI;Italian:Gregorio XVI; bornBartolomeo Alberto Cappellari; 18 September 1765 – 1 June 1846) was head of theCatholic Church and ruler of thePapal States from 2 February 1831 to his death in June 1846.[1] He had adopted the nameMauro upon entering thereligious order of theCamaldolese. He is the most recent pope to take the pontifical name "Gregory", the last to govern the Papal States for the whole duration of his pontificate, and the most recent not to have been a bishop when elected.
Reactionary in tendency, Gregory XVI opposed democratic and modernising reforms in the Papal States and throughoutEurope, seeing them as fronts forliberalism andlaicism. Against these trends, he sought to strengthen the religious and political authority of the papacy, a position known asultramontanism. In the encyclicalMirari vos, he pronounced it "false and absurd, or rather mad, that we must secure and guarantee to each one liberty of conscience". He encouraged missionary activity abroad andcondemned the slave trade, which at the time of his pontificate was increasingly suppressed.
Bartolomeo Alberto Cappellari was born atBelluno in theRepublic of Venice, on 18 September 1765, as the last of five children, to a localItalian lower noble family, notable since the 16th century, aggregated to the local Nobility Council in 1670 and traditionally linked to liberal professions but not to the consecrated life. He was baptized at the parish of Bolzano Bellunese by his uncle Antonio Capellari. His parents were from a small village named Pesariis, inFriuli. His father, Giovanni Battista Capellari, was a notary. His mother, Giulia Cesa was a daughter of a notary. At the age of eighteen, Bartolomeo Cappellari joined the order of theCamaldolese[2] (part of theBenedictine monastic family) and entered theMonastery of San Michele inMurano, nearVenice. He was ordained a priest in 1787.[3] As a Camaldolesemonk, Cappellari rapidly gained distinction for histheological and linguistic skills, and was assigned to teach philosophy and theology at San Michele in 1787, at the age of 22.
In 1790, at the age of 25, he was appointedcensor librorum for his Order, as well as for theHoly Office at Venice.[3] He went to Rome in 1795 and in 1799 published a polemic against the ItalianJansenists titledII Trionfo della Santa Sede ("The Triumph of the Holy See"),[4][5] which passed through various editions in Italy and was translated into several European languages. In 1800, he became a member of the Academy of the Catholic Religion, founded byPope Pius VII (1800–1823), to which he contributed memoirs on theological and philosophical questions. In 1805, at the age of 40, he was appointed abbot of theMonastery of San Gregorio on Rome'sCaelian Hill.[6]
When the army of the French EmperorNapoleon took Rome and arrested and deported Pius VII to France in 1809, Cappellari fled toMurano, where he taught in theMonastery of St. Michele of his Order, where he had first become a monk. From there he and a group of monks moved their little college toPadua in 1814. After Napoleon's final defeat, theCongress of Vienna re-established the sovereignty of thePapal States over central Italy and Cappellari was called back to Rome to assume the post ofvicar general of the Camaldolese Order. He was then appointed as Counsellor to theInquisition, and later promoted to be Consultor (29 February 1820) and then, on 1 October 1826,Prefect of the Congregation ofPropaganda Fide ("Propagation of the Faith"),[6] which dealt with all missionary work outside of theSpanish Empire, including missions to the non-Catholic states in Europe.[7] Twice he was offered a bishopric and twice he refused.[3]
"The Grand Gala Berlin" is a luxury carriage constructed in Rome during the first half of the nineteenth century. It is the work of two pontiffs:Leo XII, who called for it to be produced in 1824–1826, and Gregory XVI, who requested some important modifications.
On 21 March 1825, Cappellari was createdcardinalin pectore (published 13 March 1826) by PopeLeo XII,[8] and shortly afterwards he was asked to negotiate aconcordat to safeguard the rights of Catholics in theUnited Kingdom of the Netherlands, a diplomatic task which he completed successfully. He also negotiated a peace on behalf ofArmenian Catholics with theOttoman Empire. He publicly condemned thePolish revolutionaries, who he thought were seeking to undermine Russian TsarNicholas I's efforts to support theCatholic royalist cause in France by forcing him to divert his troops to suppress the uprising in Poland.[9]
Cappellari had never travelled outside Italy and was most familiar with Venice and Rome. He spoke Italian and Latin fluently, but no other European languages, and did not understand European politics.[10] However, he was proficient inArmenian, andHaruti'iwn Awgerian (Pascal Aucher)'s 1827 Venice edition of works attributed toSeverian of Gabala and translated into Armenian was dedicated to him.
On 2 February 1831, after a fifty-day conclave, Cappellari was unexpectedly chosen to succeedPope Pius VIII (1829–30). His election was influenced by the fact that the cardinal considered the mostpapabile,Giacomo Giustiniani, wasvetoed by KingFerdinand VII of Spain.[3] There then arose a deadlock between the other two major candidates,Emmanuele de Gregorio andBartolomeo Pacca. What finally drove the cardinals to make a decision was a message from the government ofParma notifying them that revolt was about to break out in the northern Papal States.[10] To resolve the impasse, the cardinals turned to Cappellari, but it took eighty-three ballots for the canonically required two-thirds majority to be reached.[11]
The choice of Gregory XVI as hisregnal name was influenced by the fact that he had beenabbot of the Monastery of San Gregorio on theCoelian Hill for more than twenty years, and in honour ofGregory XV, the founder of the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith.[3] The Monastery of San Gregorio was the same abbey from whichPope Gregory I had dispatched missionaries to England in 596.
Pope Gregory XVI leading aEucharistic procession. Painting by Ferdinando Cavalleri (1840)
Therevolution of 1830, which overthrew theHouse of Bourbon, had just inflicted a severe blow on the Catholic royalist party in France. Almost the first act of the new French government was to seizeAncona, thus throwingItaly, and particularly thePapal States, into a state of confusion and political upheaval. Gregory issued a proclamation on 9 February 1831, one week after his election, expressing good will towards his subjects.[12] In the course of the struggle that ensued, the Pope found it necessary more than once to call inAustrian troops to fight the red-shirted republicans engaged in a guerrilla campaign.[13] The conservative administration of the Papal States postponed their promised reforms after a series of bombings and assassination attempts. The replacement ofTommaso Bernetti byLuigi Lambruschini asCardinal Secretary of State in 1836 did nothing to appease the situation.
In the northern territories, the leaders of the revolt were middle-class gentry opposed to the general inefficiency of the government.[10]
Pope Gregory XVI visiting the Church of San Benedetto atSubiaco, Lazio. Painting by Jean-François Montessuy (1843)
Gregory XVI and Cardinal Lambruschini opposed basic technological innovations such as gas lighting and railways,[13] believing that they would promote commerce and increase the power of thebourgeoisie, leading to demands for liberal reforms which would undermine themonarchical power of the Pope over central Italy. Gregory XVI in fact banned railways in the Papal States, calling themchemins d'enfer ("road tohell", a play on the French for railroad,chemin de fer, literally "iron road").[14]
Theinsurrections at Viterbo in 1836, in various parts of the Legations in 1840, atRavenna in 1843 and atRimini in 1845, were followed by wholesale executions and draconian sentences of hard labour andexile, but they did not bring the unrest within the Papal States under the control of the authorities. Gregory XVI made great expenditures for defensive, architectural and engineering works, having a monument to Pope Leo XII built by Giuseppe Fabris in 1837.[13] He also lavished patronage on such scholars asAngelo Mai,Giuseppe Mezzofanti, andGaetano Moroni. This largesse, however, significantly weakened the finances of the Papal States.
Other important encyclicals issued by Pope Gregory XVI wereSollicitudo ecclesiarum, which stated that in the event of a change of government, the church would negotiate with the new government for placement of bishops and vacant dioceses (issued 1831);[15]Mirari Vos, on liberalism and religious indifferentism (issued on 15 August 1832);Quo graviora, on the Pragmatic Constitution in theRhineland (issued on 4 October 1833);Singulari Nos, on the ideas ofHugues Félicité Robert de Lamennais (issued on 25 June 1834), andCommissum divinitus (17 May 1835) on church and state.[16]
In supremo apostolatus, an apostolic letter orpapal bull, was issued by Pope Gregory XVI regarding the institution ofslavery. Issued on 3 December 1839, as a result of a broad consultation among theCollege of Cardinals, the bull resoundingly denounced both the slave trade and the continuance of the institution of slavery.[17][18][19][20]
The pope created 75 cardinals in 24 consistories, in which the pope elevated 35 cardinals "in pectore", including his future successor Giovanni Maria Mastai-Ferretti, who would becomePope Pius IX. The pope also created six additional cardinalsin pectore, though the pope died before these names could be revealed, therefore cancelling their appointments to the cardinalate.
In 1836, the pope wanted to nominate Charles Joseph Benoît Mercy d'Argenteau to the College of Cardinals, but the archbishop refused the nomination because he did not wish to leave his family and home for a possible position in the Roman Curia. Gregory XVI nominated fourin pectore cardinals on 21 April 1845 and one on 24 November 1845; Gregory XVI also named anotherin pectore cardinal in the 12 July 1841 consistory, never revealing his name. According to Philippe Boutry, Alerame Maria Pallavicini (theMaster of the Sacred Palace) was thein pectore cardinal announced on 24 November 1845; however, Pope Pius IX refused to publish his name upon his ascension to the papacy less than a year later.[21]
On 20 May 1846, he felt himself failing in health. A few days later, he was taken ill with facialerysipelas. At first, the attack was not thought to be very serious, but on 31 May, his strength suddenly failed, and it was seen that the end was near.[3]
Nielsen, Fredrik Kristian (1906)."Chapter XVI: Gregory XVI".The History of the Papacy in the Nineteenth Century: Leo XII to Pius IX. Vol. II. London: J. Murray. pp. 51–101.
Koenig, Duane. “BACKDROP TO REVOLUTION—THE REIGN OF POPE GREGORY XVI.” Quarterly Journal of the Florida Academy of Sciences 9, no. 2 (1946): 131–43.http://www.jstor.org/stable/24313351.
Korten, Christopher. “DEFINING MOMENTS: THE REASONS MAURO CAPPELLARI BECAME POPE GREGORY XVI.” Archivum Historiae Pontificiae 47 (2009): 17–39.http://www.jstor.org/stable/23565183.
Korten, Christopher. “Against the Grain: Pope Gregory XVI’s Optimism Toward Russia in His Censure of Polish Clerics in 1831.” The Catholic Historical Review 101, no. 2 (2015): 292–316.http://www.jstor.org/stable/43900025.
Korten, Christopher. “‘Il Trionfo?’ The Untold Story of Its Development and Pope Gregory XVI's Struggle to Attain Orthodoxy.” The Harvard Theological Review 109, no. 2 (2016): 278–301.http://www.jstor.org/stable/43948562.
Korten, Christopher. “Pope Gregory XVI’s Chocolate Enterprise: How Some Italian Clerics Survived Financially During the Napoleonic Era.” Church History 86, no. 1 (2017): 63–85.http://www.jstor.org/stable/26292211.
Quinn, John F. “‘Three Cheers for the Abolitionist Pope!’: American Reaction to Gregory XVI's Condemnation of the Slave Trade, 1840–1860.” The Catholic Historical Review 90, no. 1 (2004): 67–93.http://www.jstor.org/stable/25026521.
Reinerman, Alan J. “Metternich, Pope Gregory XVI, and Revolutionary Poland, 1831-1842.” The Catholic Historical Review 86, no. 4 (2000): 603–19.http://www.jstor.org/stable/25025819.
Stogre, Michael (1992)."Chapter Two".That the World May Believe: The Development of Papal Social Thought on Aboriginal Rights. Sherbrooke, Ontario CA: Médiaspaul. pp. 47–124.ISBN978-2-89039-549-7.
McBrien, Richard P. (2000).Lives of the Popes. HarperCollins.
Giacomo Martina: Gregorio XVI. In: Massimo Bray (ed.):Enciclopedia dei Papi. Volume 3: Innocenzo VIII, Giovanni Paolo II. Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, Rome 2000 (treccani.it)
