Christ's Faithful People
Christ's Faithful People
1198 - 1216 AD
On the very day Celestine III was buried the cardinals elected a young intellectual named Lotario de' Conti. They did well, for Lotario became one of the greatest medieval popes, Innocent III. Lotario de' Conti was born at Anagni about 1160. His father Trasimund, count of Segni, was a powerful lord. Lotario was interested in things of the mind and in the full intellectual current of his day. He studied at Rome, Paris, and Bologna. A canon lawyer of distinction, he was created cardinal by his uncle, Clement III. But during the pontificate of Celestine III, Lotario retired from the papal court and wrote two spiritual treatises. It was with reluctance that he mounted the papal throne. He was consecrated on February 22, 1198.
Innocent III was in full accord with the Italian patriotism which sparked risings against the Germans left by the late Henry VI to lord it in Italy. The troubled state of the empire, with Otto of Nordheim and Philip of Swabia battling for the crown, gave Innocent a chance not only to reassert papal independence but even to extend papal influence. Here, however, Innocent was not particularly successful. Otto of Nordheim, whom he crowned as Otto IV, out-Hohenstaufened the Hohenstaufens in trampling on Church rights. And when Otto was finally defeated, Innocent's ward, Frederick II, was ready to take over, and he was to multiply griefs for the Church. Constance, the widow of Henry VI, had left her little orphaned son Frederick to the Pope's guardianship, and Innocent loyally preserved Sicily for his ward.
A great lover of justice and a first-rate judge, Innocent attracted many cases to the papal court. His influence was far-reaching. He became feudal overlord of Aragon and England when Pedro II and John handed over their respective realms as fiefs. John, badgered by rebellious barons, threatened by the French, and excommunicated by a shocked Pope, wriggled out of a bad situation by this shrewd move, which cost him little. Indeed, Innocent later declared the Magna Charta null and void because it was extorted from his vassal by violence!
Innocent acted to clear the Papal States of the Manichean heretics, but did not resort to the death penalty. When the Albigensians, as the Manicheans were called in France, murdered a papal legate, Innocent preached a crusade against them. He also started the Fourth Crusade. But flouted and tricked by the worldly Venetians, the Pope had the mortification of seeing the crusaders attack first the Catholic city of Zara, then the Christian city of Constantinople.
Innocent's real greatness lies in the spiritual sphere. In 1215 he held the famous Fourth Lateran Council. This, the twelfth ecumenical council, condemned the Albigensians and the vagaries of Abbot Joachim. It encouraged learning, took measures against abuses, and made the rule in force to this day that every Catholic must receive Holy Communion at Easter time. It also called for a crusade, and it was while trying to get this crusade going that Innocent III died at Perugia on July 16, 1216.
Innocent III is truly remarkable for the way he retained his keen spiritual sense in the hurly-burly of business. He helped the Armenians and Maronites to return to Catholic unity. He welcomed St. John of Matha and encouraged his order for the redemption of captives. St. Dominic found him sympathetic and won approval for the Friars Preachers. And when that Iyric poet of Christian spirituality, Francis of Assisi, came to Rome, he found, not a political-minded bureaucrat, but a priest who could understand the magnificent Franciscan folly of the Cross. If Innocent III did nothing more than enable Dominic and Francis to start their orders, he would deserve to be remembered as one who had done much for the Church and for the world.
