The Bull “Cum ex apostolatus officio” by Pope Paul IV. Historical notes

Fr Francesco Ricossa

The theme announced in the title is not new to observant readers of Sodalitium: I refer current and past readers to the article in Issue 36 (December 1993 – January 1994, pp. 33-47) entitled: “L’eresia ai vertici della Chiesa” (M. Firpo)… nel XVI secolo; l’incredibile storia del Cardinal Morone [Heresy at the summit of the Church (M. Firpo)…in the 16th century; the incredible story of Cardinal Morone]. The same author, Massimo Firpo, together with Germano Maifreda, has now published through Einaudi a monumental biography (1122 pages) on Cardinal Giovanni Morone entitled L’eretico che salvò la Chiesa. Il cardinale Giovanni Morone e le origini della Controriforma [The Heretic that saved the Church. Cardinal Giovanni Morone and the origins of the Counter Reformation]. The “Heretic” Morone, as he adhered to the “school of the English Cardinal” (Reginald Pole) and thus to the “alumbrade” doctrines of Juan de Valdes; “who saved the Church”, since Pius IV named him papal legate to the Council of Trent, the same Cardinal Morone who brought to fruition the great Council that gave rise to the Counter Reformation. In these notes I will limit myself to saying something – again, at least for my readers, I hope – about the famous bull of Pope Paul IV Carafa “Cum ex apostolatus officio” about which so much is talked about these days, in which the themes of “heresy at the summit of the Church”, the “heretical Pope”, and the “Vacant See” have returned to burning relevance just as in the days of the Protestant crisis.
As everyone knows, Gianpietro Carafa, the Pope under the name Paul IV, had Cardinal Giovanni Morone arrested, accusing him of heresy; on May 31, 1557 the Milanese prelate was then imprisoned in Castel Sant’Angelo. Fra’ Michele Ghislieri, the “Supreme Inquisitor” (the first and last to bear this title in the history of the Roman Inquisition), known as Cardinale Alessandrino, future Pope under the name of Pius V, had a large part in the proceeding. The trial encountered many obstacles that slowed it down (the war between the Church and Spain, for example) so that, in 1559, the aging Pope Paul IV feared he would not be able to complete it before his death. He knew that if this happened, Cardinal Morone would be released from prison to participate in the Conclave, with an active and passive voice: he could vote, but above all he could be voted for and even elected to the Supreme Pontificate. Such a prospect terrified Pope Carafa and his trusted collaborator Cardinal Ghislieri.

“A heretic cannot be Pope”

Paul IV explained as follows, to the Venetian Ambassador Navagero, the reasons for the sensational arrest of Cardinal Morone: “We had seen in past conclaves some danger that had passed, and we wanted to ensure in our lifetime that the devil could not someday have one of his own in this seat, which would be to make everyone resolve to follow their sad life: a heretic cannot be pope” (p. 491).
The old pontiff was referring to earlier conclaves, the ones that took place in November 1549 and February 1550, upon the death of Pope Paul III. On the morning of December 5, at the end of the balloting, only a single vote separated Cardinal Reginald Pole, called the English Cardinal, from being elected Pope: “it would therefore have been enough for just one cardinal to change his ballot to give his so-called accesso, as permitted by the procedure” and thus elevate Pole to the papacy. “It was then that Carafa finally decided to throw the entire weight of his authority into the balance and ‘declared openly that Pole was under suspicion of heresy’, transforming the gossip that had circulated, especially after his retirement from Trent on the eve of the approval of the decree on justification, into formal accusations.” “The silence became absolute” and in vain the Pole partisans then invited any one of the voters to give his accesso: the candidacy had already come to an end as Pole had already written his acceptance speech, and the papal robes had already been brought to him (pp. 315-316). Carafa then had succeeded in his aim, again thanks to the institution of the Holy Office, which he strongly supported, with the bull Licet ab initio of July 21, 1542. After another sixty ballots, on February 7, 1550 Cardinal Del Monte was elected, who took the name of Julius III: a Pope who was Pole’s friend, and anything but a friend of the Holy Office, but who, in any case, was not the one most feared by Cardinal Carafa. There were two conclaves that took place in 1555 after the death of Julius III: the first elected Marcellus II Cervini and the second Paul IV Carafa: it was the triumph of the Holy Office against the current of the “spirituals” to which Pole and Morone belonged, among others. But even in these two sessions of the conclave, there was a risk of having a “Lutheran” Pope. In the first, Alvarez de Toledo and Carafa blocked Cardinal Bertano’s way, directly accusing him of being Lutheran (p. 461); in the second, Cardinal Morone was close to being elected (Pole did not participate, remaining in the English legation) but since he was considered by many to be a “heretic or suspect”, the octogenarian Gianpietro Carafa, the Theatine Cardinal, was elected, taking the name Paul IV. “Without any doubt, it was he who was the first authentic pope of the Counter Reformation” (p. 474). The plan of the “terrible old man who would not allow anyone to get away with anything”, as the King of France, Henry II said of him, was this: “heresy must be prosecuted with all rigor and harshness like the plague of the body, because it is the plague of the soul” (p. 477). The founder of the Theatines along with Saint Cajetan made no illusions about his predecessors either: “by attributing the survival of the apostolic see to a miracle, despite the fact that his predecessors had done everything (one might say) to ruin it’” (p. 487). Just as he did not trust his predecessor Julius III, so he also did not trust his successor, knowing precisely how both Pole and Morone “at the risk of this most holy See, desired to obtain this most holy dignity” (p. 491). Morone’s imprisonment and his trial for heresy had exactly this purpose: to prevent the election of a ‘spiritual’ to the papacy. “Defeated on the political level after the conclaves of 1549 and 1555, his opponents could and should now also be condemned on a theological level” (p. 492). But, as we have seen, in February 1559 Paul IV despaired of being able to complete the trial against Morone… The danger of his election to the papacy loomed once again!

The bull Cum ex apostolatus officio (1559)

We ask the reader to allow us a long quotation to describe the context in which the famous bull was promulgated: “fearing that he was nearing death, as proof of the fact that Paul IV intended to bind his successors to his inquisitorial policy, in the consistory of December 16, 1558 he made Cardinal Alessandrino (the future Pius V, e.d.) swear a solemn oath, having assumed the new position of Summus et perpetuus Inquisitor (entrusted to him ‘particularly on account of Morone’, Carnesecchi immediately thought), and he published the severe bull ‘Cum secundum Apostolorum’ against secret agreements made prior to the conclaves, in which no mention was made of the cardinals under investigation, only because he intended to issue a specific provision against them. In early February 1559, in fact, the consistory discussed at length a decree against those guilty of heresy, which was destined to materialize in the bull ‘Cum ex apostolatus officio’, released on the 15th, in which a possible election of anyone who distanced himself from orthodoxy was declared null and void, and cardinals suspected of any doctrinal deviation were to be deprived of an active and passive voice in the conclave” (pp. 527-528). Therefore, not only did it declare null in advance any election of a heretic, but also – it was clearly a rule of ecclesiastical law – that of a prelate suspected of a doctrinal deviation, as was the case with Morone, who was still on trial for heresy without having yet been convicted (1).
The bull, therefore, was like a suit especially made for Morone to prevent him not only from entering the conclave, but also from being elected, in case the Pope died prior to his being convicted. “Everyone understood that it was a ruling aimed at striking at Morone first and foremost, also because the Pontiff himself gave ‘a long speech to the school of those who had sinister opinions, naming Contareni, England and Fano’ ”, meaning Cardinal Gasparo Contareni, Reginald Pole and Pietro Bertano “and saying he knows about those who are left” (among them Morone) “as Bernardino Pia wrote to Cesare Gonzaga on the same day. On the 8th of March he reported to him of another consistory in which Paul IV had given a new, interminable speech on the ‘sincerity’ that the Cardinals must maintain in electing the Pope, without respect for any dependence, and to guard themselves against heretics; and, saying this, he turned toward Sant’Angelo (Ranuccio Farnese) and Santa Fiore (Guido Ascanio Sforza) and said: ‘There were those who had in mind, with what fury and madness we do not know, to give their vote to heretics’. By which, it seems, he wanted to indicate those who had wanted to give England the ballot in ‘50 and Morone in ‘55. Whether proof of his strength, or an outburst of his anger, the unprecedented Bull of February 1559, was clearly meant to transform any future conclave into a jeu de massacre, and thereby entrusting the selection of the pontiff to the Holy Office; Pope Carafa was clearly tying the hands of whoever was about to take his place on the throne of Peter, preventing him from disavowing the Holy Office’s religious and political choices. From this point of view, it is legitimate to see the decree as being a consequence of the fear of not being able to conclude the trial against the Milanese Cardinal as he would have liked, and who in this way was trying to strike extra-juridically, if nothing else, by blocking his path to the tiara” (p. 528). Meanwhile on April 6, Carnesecchi, the Apostolic Protonotary and former secretary to Clement VII, was condemned in absentia. A race against time then began to reach a conviction against Morone as well: “It is clear to His Most Reverend Lordship (Morone) – Pia wrote to Cardinal Gonzaga on July 28, 1559 – that if the Pope dies before his case was expedited, he could enter conclaves, and His Holiness himself and the judge cardinals know this, and for this reason the Pope urges its expedition…” (p. 535). When on August 18, the news arrived that Paul IV had entered into his death throes, the Florentine Ambassador Ricasoli wrote to the Duke that “Morone will come out as soon as His Holiness’ eyes are closed” (p. 538). Two days after the Pope’s death on August 18, after 27 months of incarceration, Morone was released from prison, formally still under investigation.

The Bull Cum ex apostolatus immediately dismissed

Morone’s release from prison and his entrance into the conclave, despite the Bull by Paul IV, was favored by a “popular” revolt that broke out on the very morning of August 18th, even before the Pope had died. Not only were Carafa’s palaces attacked, the insignia of the Neapolitan family destroyed, the statue of the Pontiff defaced and then thrown into the Tiber (there was risk of doing the same thing to his dead body) but, what was even more serious, the Ripetta prison, the prison of the Inquisition, and the convent of the Dominicans at Minerva were attacked; the prisoners were freed, the friars were beaten, and most significantly the inquisitorial archives and the acts of the investigations were burned. “The macabre celebration lasted three days” (p. 541). It is difficult to believe that the revolt was spontaneous and not maneuvered, especially since not only did the more or less hidden Italian heretics rejoice, but the authorities themselves firstly allowed the seditious acts, and then once Pius IV was elected as the new Pope, they took steps to give full amnesty to the guilty (Bull of may 15, 1560, p. 577).
Under those conditions, in the period of Sede vacante, the Cardinals had to decide whether or not to admit Cardinal Morone, who had just been liberated from prison, into the Conclave: after all he was still formally on trial for heresy! On the 18th and 21st of August, Cardinal Morone presented two legal opinions, prepared earlier, to reaffirm his right to participate in the election of the successor to Paul IV. In an early meeting of the Cardinals on the 19th, no result was reached. In the second meeting, on the 22nd of August, they came to a decision, even if somewhat contested and legally very questionable (2). Among the 25 Cardinals present in Rome, it was decided that Morone would be free to enter into the Conclave, with 13 assenting votes, and 12 dissenting, a narrow victory largely due to the support “of the Spanish Court, Emperor Ferdinand I, of Cosimo de’ Medici, Ercole Gonzaga and Guido Ascanio Sforza” (these latter two were Cardinals). “And in addition, Morone’s narrow freedom implied the clear disavowal of the bull Cum ex apostolatus officio” (p. 542). On September 5, Morone entered the Conclave, which, even before any sentence of acquittal, sanctioned his “innocence from every stain of heresy, since it was unthinkable that Paul IV’s successor could have been elected by the vote of a heretic” (p. 345).

The Pontificate of Pius IV

The Conclave of 1559 lasted a long time: from September until Christmas, and it ended with the election of Gian Angelo de’ Medici, a Milanese like Morone who esteemed the latter as “an angel of paradise”. Whoever the Pope is, it is always Christ who governs the Church through Peter; therefore, that there be no failure in the doctrinal continuity sealed by the Council of Trent, which Pius IV himself had brought to completion by appointing as his legate…Cardinal Morone (hence the authors of Morone’s biography define him as the “Heretic who saved the Church”). This, from the point of view of the Divine assistance of Christ to the successor of Peter, by which Christ “is with Peter” in his teaching, sanctifying and governing. However, this does not exclude – from a human point of view and in practical government choices – that one pontificate might be opposed to another. And so it was between Julius III and Paul IV; Paul IV and Pius IV; and then Pius IV and Pius V. On January 10, 1560 Egidio Foscarari, the successor to Morone as Bishop of Modena, and who, like him, had been investigated for heresy, was acquitted. On March 6, 1560, with the Bull Inter cœteras pastoralis curæ Pius IV ruled that not only was Morone “innocent and most innocent” but that he had suffered harassment that had been “reckless, unfair, illegal and unjust” (p. 565), forcing Ghislieri and Puteo to sign the text (p. 566) promulgated in the subsequent consistory of March 13. Nor did the absolutions end there: on March 7 Mario Galeota and the Bishop of Messina Giovan Francesco Verdura were acquitted; so also on May 27 was the Bishop of Cava dei Tirreni, Giovanni Tommaso Sanfelice, and on June 4, 1561 Pietro Carnesecchi as well, he who had been condemned by Paul IV, and will be condemned once again by Pius V (p. 569). Ghislieri, the Supreme Inquisitor Cardinal of Rome, was removed and sent to the small and distant diocese of Mondovì, hoping he would stay there forever (p. 571). What was clear to all was “his willingness to change course with respect to the political and religious direction of his predecessor” (p. 570) trying “to retake control over the Holy Office” (p. 571), albeit with difficulty (Ghislieri was able to prevent the nomination to Cardinal of the patriarch of Aquileia, desired by both the Pope and Morone, p. 572, just as he was also able to prevent the project of the use of the chalice, and the marriage of priests in Germany, p. 575). However, the pope was inflexible regarding Paul IV’s nephews (who had already fallen out of favor with their uncle at the end of his pontificate) including Cardinal Carlo, who was arrested in June 1550 and put to death the following year (pp. 577-582), and Cardinal Alfonso who was imprisoned. Even Cardinal Rebiba, a creature of Paul IV, was imprisoned for a year. If under Pius IV, Paul IV’s family ended tragically, the complete opposite happened to Cardinal Morone, who was appointed legate to the Council of Trent (1560), presiding over it to its conclusion, or to Archbishop Seripando of Salerno, who was made a Cardinal (1561) even though he first had to retract his errors regarding justification…

An unexpected election: the Conclave of 1565-1566

Pius IV died on December 9, 1565, the Conclave began on December 20, ending on January 7 with the unexpected election of Cardinal Alessandrino, Michele Ghislieri (who took the name Pius V). Unexpected, since half the Cardinals were creatures of Pius IV and the old “imperial party” still supported its own candidate, Cardinal Morone, who had conceded communion under both species to Germany, and promised to concede the marriage of priests. Pius IV’s nephew, Saint Charles Borromeo, even promised to have Morone elected pope “by adoration” (without even balloting). But unlike in the past, the Imperial Party loyal to the Habsburgs (and therefore also to “spirituals” such as Pole and Morone) had split due to a division in their hereditary dominions: the Habsburgs always sought an agreement with the Protestants of Germany, while Spain’s policy, under the reign of Philip II, was the reverse, and although appearing to place the name of Morone among its candidates, instead it focused on Alessandrino, someone very faithful to Paul IV, it’s true, but towards whom there were no longer reasons for the hostility that there had been towards the old anti-Spanish pontiff Carafa. The Carafian Cardinals, including Ghislieri, did not hesitate to remember the trial for heresy to which Morone had been subjected, bringing with them to the conclave the documents of the trial which demonstrated the guilt of the Milanese prelate, who was acquitted “by grace but not by justice” only by virtue of the bull by Pius IV. On the 23rd of December, Morone thus lacked 5 votes out of the 34 necessary, and on January 7, Saint Charles himself cast his votes on the future Saint Pius V, who was thus elected as Paul IV reborn (pp. 672-678).

The Bull Inter multiplices curas (December 21, 1566)

Between the Pontiff who closed the Council of Trent (Pius IV) and the one who applied it (Pius V) there was absolute doctrinal continuity. And it could not have been otherwise, since under one or the other Pius there was always Christ who sustained, taught and governed the Church. But in their contingent choices, in their political and religious direction, the reverse could not have been more clear, just as there were signs of contrast between the pontificate of Paul IV and that of Pius IV. Regarding Saint Pius V, the authors wrote: “for him, the pontificate of Pius IV were years of bitterness and marginalization against which he lost no occasion to express his profound hostility” (p. 679); nevertheless, he took the name Pius “as a sign of gratitude for the unforeseen support given in the Conclave by Borromeo”. Paul IV’s men were returned to the Curia, and in his honor a funerary monument was erected in Santa Maria sopra Minerva, the church of the Dominicans and of the Inquisition (pp. 680-681) at the expense of the Senate, guilty of the riots that occurred after the death of the Pope; his nephews Alfonso, Carlo and Giovanni Carafa were rehabilitated, nullifying the celebrated trials undertaken by Pius IV; in 1567 the governor of Rome, Alessandro Pallantieri, “who had been the fiscal procurator of that sensational judicial proceeding (under the discreet supervision of Morone)”, was arrested, and in 1571 was beheaded in the same place where Giovanni Carafa had been executed (p. 682). The faculty to absolve from heresy, which Pius IV had given to the Bishops (p. 688), was restored to the Inquisition. The death of Giulia Gonzaga (April 16, 1566) and the confiscation of her correspondence allowed for Carnesecchi’s new arrest in the month of June, his extradition, his new trial, and ultimately the old secretary to Clement VII and Morone’s friend was executed (October 1, 1567) (p. 689). The Ambassador of Venice remarked how it happened “on the same morning that ‘Carnesecchi, who had been absolved by Pope Pius IV, was executed, Cardinal Caraffa and the Duke of Paliano, who were made to die under the same Pope Pius, were restored, if not alive, at least to good fame” (p. 690). From 1566 to 1569, he had the palace of the Holy Office built, recalling the shameful attack on the Inquisition that took place after the death of Paul IV, with those responsible amnestied by Pius IV: similar acts were considered crimes of treason (Bull Si de protegendis) (p. 692). During the Carnesecchi trial, Morone was investigated, and did not attend the death sentence of his friend (p. 699). The investigations into Morone continued during the trial of the former secretary to Cardinal Gonzaga, Endimio Calandra (pp. 701-704), and the investigations into the Archbishop of Otranto, Pietro Antonio di Capua (pp. 704-706), that of Donato Rullo, Guido Giannetti da Fano, Mario Galeota, Nicola Franco (like Pallantieri, formerly a Morone collaborator, and like him, he ended badly). At that point, “in the winter of 1569-1570 the prospect of imprisoning Morone once again in Castel Sant’Angelo and reopening his trial was one step away from being realized” (p. 712). In the end, reasons of State, or the Church, which did not recommend formalizing a trial against one who had continuously presided over the Council of Trent in the name of the Pope, prevailed (see pp. 711-723).
The Morone trial was therefore never officially reopened, except in a second hand way: that of Carnesecchi. And it is in the same year of Carnesecchi’s arrest that Saint Pius V, with the Bull Inter multiplices curas, promulgated (December 21, 1566) “a series of provisions which disavowed all of Pius IV’s work regarding the Inquisition. On the basis of his long standing experience, in fact, the Pope declared that he was aware of some criminals who, by means of lying testimonies and falsified documents, had managed to obtain acquittal sentences from not only local inquisitors, but also ‘sub plumbo vel annulo piscatoris expeditas’ [under the leaden seal of the fisherman’s ring] and (as was the case with Morone) were approved in consistory by pontiffs who had imposed perpetual silence on the Holy Office and a prohibition on further investigations. Thus fictitious repentances came about so as to return to the heart of the Catholic Church, which allowed criminals to continue spreading their poison. Such imprudent acquittals are now annulled, and the power to reopen the trials is returned to the Supreme Tribunal of the Faith even if they concerned bishops, archbishops, patriarchs, primates, (…) cardinals, even later legates, counts, barons, marquises, dukes, kings and emperors, especially in case of new evidence, or doubts that the acquittals had been extracted in fraudulent ways. In fact, with this provision, Pius V cast a heavy shadow of illegitimacy – and in any case offered the legal means for their annulment – on the acquittals of Grimani, Di Capua, Sanfelice, Foscarari, Carnesecchi and above all Morone, who was further called into question by the reaffirmed validity of the Bull ‘Cum ex apostolatus officio’ by which Paul IV, on 15 February 1559, had decreed that any cardinal who had even the suspicion of heresy would be ineligible for the tiara.” Elena Bonora (see footnote) talks about the Bull ‘Cum ex apostolatus’ as being a “legislative measure characterized by the ambiguity of its interpretations and by the breadth and gravity of its implications” for which a precedent can be found in the Bull of Julius II “Cum tam divinis” of February 16, 1513 on the nullity of a simoniac election. But “who is responsible for taking on such a role”, that is to establish whether someone had been a heretic or is suspected of being a heretic? “A general council? The College of Cardinals?” (certainly not private persons!). These subjects being excluded, only the Tribunal of the Holy Office remained, as it was with the trial of Morone. The trial that took place by the Inquisition was precisely the legal criterion required to exclude him from active and passive voice in the conclave. And this is what the Bull of Saint Pius V actually reconfirmed, entrusting once again all questions of faith to the Inquisition.
Upon the death of Pius V, Morone participated for the last time in a Conclave, that of 1572, which elected Gregory XIII Boncompagni, but by then his star and his chances for election to the papacy had definitely waned. “In the end – concluded the authors – it can well be said that Paul IV managed to win his personal war with him and, if he did not have time to condemn him after more than two years of imprisonment and an almost ten-year trial, he at least achieved the goal of preventing his election to the tiara. The bull Cum ex apostolatus officio, in other words, had substantial effectiveness against Morone, against whom it had moreover been specifically promulgated. In the last years of his life, although ‘universally held to be a worthy man’, he remained for the most part a man under investigation for reasons of faith” (p. 782).

And today…

The situation of that time presents striking analogies with those of today, that is, similarities and (even more) differences. Then, as today, many believed that there was no longer any hope for the Catholic Church, which instead was preparing for a true spiritual reform. Paul IV feared that the devil would place a “pontiff” infected with heresy in the See of Peter: what almost happened then has happened in our day. The Bull of Paul IV, already legally disregarded then, cannot legally be applied today, unfortunately, but it demonstrated that “a Pope cannot be a heretic” as much as a heretic (at least a not hidden one) cannot be the Pope. And finally, the vicissitudes of the various pontificates of the 16th century remind us that the Pope, the Vicar of Christ and successor to Peter, is one thing, the personalities of the individual men who hold this sublime dignity are quite another: absolute “concordism” leads to bad apologetics.

Completed May 23, 2020, the day of
the Exaltation to the Pontificate of Paul IV
Father Francesco Ricossa.

Footnotes

1) “If they deviated from the Catholic faith, or they had fallen into heresy, or they had incurred schism, or had provoked it, or they had been caught in a flagrant crime of heresy, either by confessing it, or this had resulted based on evidence” as translated by Elena Bonora, of the University of Parma, in Conflitti d’autorità tra vescovi, papato e Sant’Ufficio, footnote 43, available online.

2) Elena Bonora (op. cit.) speaks again on the issue: “the freeing of Morone that occurred during the sede vacante was a juridically controversial initiative according to the thinking of Pietro Belo, fiscal procurator of the Holy Office, who, in an unpublished anthology of responses dedicated to Gregory XIII in 1572 by his son Lorenzo, also an investigator for the Inquisition, addressed the question ‘‘an collegium cardinalium possit sede vacante excarcerare cardinalem per prædefunctum pontificem carceratum’ (…)” (footnote 52).