Course XXV - Teaching 7: Innocent III

Enlightened by fights for the investitures so much resisted by Gregory VII, Innocent III established the whole power of the Roman pontificate on juridical absolutism.
In 1198 the chair of Saint Peter was occupied by a man of a noble family from Signa, in the prime of life, who with the name of Innocent III had to fight with insuperable courage all enemies of justice and the Church, and had to give the world the most perfect model of a sovereign Pontiff, of the true king Priest Initiate, the prototype of the Vicar of Jesus Christ.
He was of gracious and kind manners. Endowed with uncommon appearance and physical qualities, they said his face was perfect and his figure exquisite. Confident and extremely tender in his affections, generous as none in his foundations and alms, great and deep jurist as the unappealable judge of Christendom should be, eloquent and fluent orator, ascetic and wise writer, zealous protector of sciences and religious studies, severe guardian to maintain laws of the Church and its discipline, also he had all those qualities that could illuminate his memory if he had dared rule the Church on calm and easy times or if his government could be devoted to the care of spiritual things. But he had another mission in reserve.
Before he ascended the priestly throne, he understood and also made understand through his writings, the object and destiny of the Roman pontificate. This should not attend only the salvation of souls, but also it should deal with the good government of the Christian society. But fully self-confident, as soon as he was chosen, he addressed to all priests of the Catholic orb urging and asking especial prayers to get from God His enlightenment and encouragement. God heard these general prayers giving him all necessary help to continue and to carry out Gregory VII’s great work, the Spiritual Sovereignty of Rome.
But at the same time that he defended this primacy, the constitution of Europe conferred him in those days the glorious function of watching with zeal over every concern of the peoples, protecting all their rights and demanding the observance of all their duties.
During the eighteen years of his pontificate he remained on the level of so high and wide mission. Threatened and attacked without respite by his close subjects, that is, the turbulent Romans, this was not an obstacle to encompass the whole Church and the Christian world with imperturbable calm, and permanent and thorough diligence, and he observed all as a father and as a judge.
From Iceland to Sicily, from Portugal to Armenia, any broken ecclesiastic law was immediately amended and restored; there was no offense against a weak person without correction, or any attacked guarantee without protection. In his view, the whole Christendom was a majestic unity, only one kingdom without inner frontiers or different races, of which he had to be fearless defender outside and inexorable and incorruptible judge inside.
By encouraging again the cooled off eagerness of the Crusades, he defended them against external enemies. Thence his enthusiasm for those combats for the Cross, glorious fights that inflamed the heart of Roman pontiffs, from Gregory VII to Pious II who died as a crusade.
Popes were then a focus from which the holy eagerness of Christian nations was irradiated. His eyes were ceaselessly fixed on those dangers that threatened Europe, and while Innocent would strive to send every year an army against the triumphant Saracens in the East, in the North he would propagate faith among the enslaved peoples and Sarmats, and in the West he would preach union and concord to the kings of Spain, by exhorting them for a decisive effort against the Moores, and foretelling their miraculous victories against the Crescent Moon.
With no other weapons than force of persuasion and authority of a great character, he reduced to a Catholic unity the most distant kingdoms, such as Armenia and Bulgaria, which after they defeated Latin armies, did not hesitate to submit when they listened to Innocent’s voice.
His tireless and fiery zeal for the truth did not deprive him of being highly tolerant with persons. Against exaction of princes and blind rage of the peoples, he protected the Jewish, being a living testimony of the Christian truth, also by imitating in this all his predecessors, with no exception. For peace and salvation of souls he corresponded with Muslim princes. While he would fight with tireless constancy and rare perspicacity thousand heresies sprouting everywhere and threatening with throwing down the foundations of the social and moral order of the entire Universe, ceaselessly he would inculcate principles of moderation and mercy in victorious, irritated Christians, and even in the very Bishops.
The point was that by identifying his life with religion and justice, these were all to him. His fiery love for justice inflamed his soul in such a way that he neither paid attention to the rank of persons, nor obstacles nor setbacks; since the right figured in a contest, he did not take account at all of setbacks or luck., being sweet and merciful with the weak and defeated, and unyielding with the haughty and powerful, everywhere and always protector of the oppressed and weak, and of equity against any victorious but unjust force. So he defended with noble rage the holiness of the conjugal bond as the key to the social vault and of the Christian life. An outraged wife never appealed to his powerful mediation in vain. An admired world saw him fighting for fifteen years his enemy and allied Philip August by defending the rights of the unfortunate Ingerburge that came from Denmark, became derision and object of contempt by this prince, and alone and in prison, was abandoned by all in a strange land, except by the pontiff who at the end was able to reintegrate her to the throne of her husband among the applause of the people that felt happy seeing in the world a justice equal for all. He also emerged triumphant in defending the queen Mary of Aragon when she became a burden for her libertine husband; and also the queen Adelaide of Bohemia whom her husband wanted to repudiate in order to get a more advantageous union, already condemned by a Council.
The same spirit of justice encouraged him to watch with paternal care until the most distant countries over rights and legitimate titles of heirs of crowns and over the luck of more than one royal orphan. He knew how preserve in their right and patrimony the princes of Norway, Poland and Armenia (1199); the infants of Portugal, the young king Ladislaus of Hungary and even the sons of enemies of the Church such as Jaime of Aragon, whose father would die in the ranks of heretics and that after being a prisoner of the Catholic army, was liberated by Innocent’s order; Frederic II, the only heir of the imperial race of Hohenstaufen, the most fearful rival for the Holy See, but after being put under Innocent’s guardianship during his minority of age, is educated, instructed and protected by Innocent, and sustained in his patrimony with affection and zeal, now not with the affection and zeal of a guardian but with the affection and zeal of a father.
Is it admirable that in a time when all thrones were based on faith and justice was in such a way personified on the See of Peter, kings would try to join to it by stronger links? Should it be strange that the courageous Pedro of Aragon did not find for the emerging independence of his crown better guarantee than by traversing the seas to put his crown at the feet of Innocent and to receive it from his hand like a vassal? And that John of England, persecuted by the just indignation of a people, also proclaims himself vassal of that Church which he so cruelly had vexed, being certain he would find in it refuge and forgiveness, which men would deny? And that in addition to the above mentioned kingdoms, would those of Navarra, Portugal, Scotland, Hungary and Denmark be honored for belonging in certain way to the Holy See through a link of entirely special protection?
Nobody ignored that in Innocent’s view the right of the kings in regard to the Church was as sacred as those of the Church in regard to kings. And what he attributed to equity went united with a high and provident politics by imitating his illustrious predecessors.
So, being against the incorporation of the empire by heritage to the house of Suabia, and sustaining free elections in Germany, he saved this noble country from a monarchic centralization that, by altering its nature, would choke every germ of prodigious intellectual fecundity of which it precisely boasts.
So, by restoring and defending with tireless constancy the temporal authority of the Holy See he assured the independence of Italy and in no lesser degree that of the Church. With his example and precepts he shapes a whole generation of pontiffs equally fond of this independence, and of and his worthy assistants, such as Stephen Langton in England, Henry of Gnesen in Poland, Rodrigo of Toledo in Spain, and Foulquet of Toulouse in middle of heretics; or worthy of dying martyrs for this holy cause, such as Saint Pedro Parenticio and Pierre de Castelnau (both killed by heretics; the former in Oviedo, 1199, and the latter in Languedoc, 1209).
His glorious life ends with the famous Council of Letran (1215-1216) convoked and presided by him. His greatest spiritual work was to introduce to the Christian orb the two grand institutions or religious orders of Saint Dominique and Saint Francis, which should infuse a new life and that Innocent III had the glory of seeing the two coming into being under his Pontificate.