Christ's Faithful People
Christ's Faithful People
1277 - 1280 AD
One day a great Roman nobleman, a warm admirer of St. Francis, presented his little boy to the saint and offered him for the friars. The gentle saint replied that the boy would never enter the Friars Minor but would become a protector of the order and Lord of the World. Prophetic words indeed, for that little boy was to become Pope Nicholas III. Giovanni Orsini was born in Rome around 1216 of that famous "bear" family whose fighting and achievements filled the chronicles of medieval Rome. Young Giovanni entered the service of the Church and rose rapidly until in 1244 he was made cardinal. He was a fine-looking man of good talents and excellent character. His reputation for justice and tact must have been great, for King Louis IX expressly asked for him to deal with the arrangement of peace between France and England. He became protector of the Franciscan order, even as the saint of Assisi had prophesied, and he served as arch-priest of St. Peter's.
After John XXI's tragic death, the value of the old election regulations of Gregory X became apparent. The cardinals, relieved of pressure, spent months instead of days picking a new pope. Finally, after the people of Viterbo, out of patience with the hesitating cardinals, once more locked them up, the conclave on November 25, 1277, voted unanimously for Cardinal Giovanni Gaetani Orsini. He took the name Nicholas III.
Nicholas proved to be an excellent ruler. He firmly defended the rights of the papal kingdom, and his efforts were rewarded when Rudolf of Hapsburg finally fulfilled his promise to leave the Romagna to the Pope. Nicholas also, though not hostile to Charles of Anjou, was determined to put limits to that prince's power. He asked him to resign as Senator of Rome and was seeking to moderate Anjou's eastern ambitions when he died. He defended the rights of the Church in Hungary and Castile. He took great pains to promote peace and collected money for a crusade. He had been inquisitor general, and as pope he showed a lively interest in the repression of heresy.
His zeal was really apostolic. He had a friendly feeling for the Jews and urged preachers to try to win over the children of Israel. He sent Franciscan missionaries to Hungary to preach to the Cumans, an Asiatic people who had fled from the grim Tartar menace. In 1278 Pope Nicholas sent five Franciscans to preach to the Tartars themselves. They were to preach first in Persia and then go on to China. No limited horizons for Pope Nicholas!
In the history of the Franciscan order Nicholas III looms large. His bull "Exiit qui seminat" is one of the great charters of the friars. In it the Pope strove to end disputes over the kind of poverty to be practiced by the friars, and he forbade anyone to attack the rule of St. Francis.
That Dante placed this great pope in hell is scarcely a tribute to the Florentine's judgment. The only defect that seemed blameworthy in Nicholas was the way he distributed honors and favors among his relatives. Otherwise his character was noble. His achievements were many, and there was great promise of more, but it was not to be. Nicholas' career was cut off by apoplexy in 1280 at Soriano near Viterbo.
