Fifth Council of the Lateran

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2009)

Part of a series on the Catholic Ecumenical Councils
Antiquity
Nicaea I • Constantinople I Ephesus  • Chalcedon Constantinople II Constantinople III • Nicaea II Constantinople IV
Middle Ages
Lateran I  • Lateran II Lateran III  • Lateran IV Lyon I  • Lyon II  • Vienne
Councilarism
Constance  • Basel • Lateran V
Modern
Trent • Vatican I • Vatican II
Catholicism Portal

When elected pope, Julius II (1443-1513) promised under oath that he would soon convoke a general council. However, as time progressed the promise was not fulfilled. Consequently, certain dissatisfied cardinals, urged by Emperor Maximilian and Louis XII of France, convoked a council at Pisa and fixed September 1, 1511, for its opening, but it was delayed until October 1. The four cardinals who met at Pisa came with proxies from three others. Several bishops and abbots were also present, as well as ambassadors from the King of France. In the last session of the Pope Julius II was suspended, and the council participants withdrew to Lyon.

Julius II was quick to oppose this conciliabulum and convoked another council by a papal bull of July 18, 1511, which was to meet on 19 April 1512, in the Basilica di San Giovanni in Laterano (the Fifth Council of the Lateran). The bull was not only a canonical document but polemical in content. Julius refuted the allegation by the cardinals for their Pisa "conciliabulum". He declared that his promise before his election as pope was sincere; that since he became pope he had always sought to call a council; that to prepare the council he had endeavoured to bring an end to quarrels between ruler; that subsequent wars had made calling the council inopportune. Julius then reproached the participants at Pisa for their lack of respect by calling a council without the pope who was supposed to lead. He also said that the three months of preparation for Pisa was not enough. Finally, he declared that no one should attach any significance to the statements made at Pisa.

The French victory of Ravenna (11 April 1512) hindered the opening of the council called by Julius and it finally met on May 3 at St. John Lateran Basilica in Rome. Participants included fifteen cardinals, the Latin patriarchs of Alexandria and Antioch, ten archbishops, fifty-six bishops, some abbots and generals of religious orders, the ambassadors of King Ferdinand, and those of Venice and of Florence. After Julius' death, his successor Pope Leo X continued the council, and the last session was held on 16 March, 1517. During the Fifth Council of the Lateran the ambassdor of the Holy Roman Emperor announced that Ferdinand has rejected the decisions made by those at Pisa and a similar announcement was made by the ambassador of the French King Louis XII.

Several decrees were published, including:

• The sanctioning of pawn shops under strict ecclesiastical supervision, for the purpose of aiding the poor;
• One concerning the freedom of the Church and the dignity of bishops.
• One requiring that before a book could be printed, the local bishop had to give permission.
• One condemning the French Pragmatic Sanction which sought to prevent the papacy from extending its power.
• The council promulgated a decree advocating war against the Turks in order to reclaim the Holy Land to be funded by the levying of taxes three years.

Little was done to put the work of the council into practice. Whether or not the Protestant Reformation could have been avoided if the reforms had been implemented is a matter of debate. Martin Luther's promulgation of the 95 theses occurred just seven months after the close of the Council.

[edit] External links

• Fifth Lateran Council

This article incorporates text from the entry Fifth Lateran Council (1512-17) in the public-domain Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913.