Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 6.djvu/879

 GREGORY

793

GREGORY

clearer perception than lie), it cannot appear strange own position in Rome. For this purpose he made a

that even his intrepid spirit was for the moment over- journey into Southern Italy, a few iiioiitlis after his

whelmed. Kor at the time of Gregory's elevation to election, and concluded treaties with Laiidnlfo of

the papacy the Christian world was in a deploral)le Benevento, Richard of Capua, and (iisolfu of Salerno,

condition. Durinj; the desolating era of (r.-iusilion- by which tlicsc princes engaged thcniscl\cs to defend

thatterribleperiodofwarfareaiici rapine, viiilcTici', :uid ilu^ ]i('isiin nf llic pupc :iii(l Ihe jjniperly of the Holy

corruption in liigli phices, which I'nUowcd iiiuiiciii:ilcly upon the dissolution of the t'ailovingian Empire, a period when society in Evirope and all existing institu- tions seemed doomed to utter destruction and ruin — the Church had not been able to escape from the

c princes

rsnn or 11,,. p,,,M.

d nc\cr- 111 in\ csl aiiyipiie with a church benefice withiiul tlic p:ip;d .sanction. The Norman leader, Robert (luiscard, however, maintained a suspicious attitude towards the pope, and at the Lenten Synod (1075) tlregory solemnly excommunicated him for his

general debasement. The tenth century, the saddest sacrilegious invasion of the territory of the Holy See

perhaps, in Christian annals, is characterized by the (Capua and Benevento). During the year 1074 the

vivid remark of Baronius that Christ was as if asleep in pope's mind was also greatly occupied by the project

the vessel of the Church. At the time of liCo IX's of an expedition to the East for the deliverance of the

election in 1049, according to the testimony of St. Oriental Christians from the oppression of the Seljuk

Bruno, Bishop of Segni, "the whole world lay in Turks. To promote the cause of a crusade, and to

wickedness, holiness had dis appeared, justice had perished and truth had been buried; Simon Magus lording it over the Church, whose bishops and priests were given to luxury and fornication'' (Vita S. Leonis PP. IX in Watterich, Pont. Roman. Vitse, I, 96). St. Peter Damian, the fiercest censor of his age, unrolls a frightful picture of the decay of clerical morality in the lurid pages of his " Liber Gomor- rhianus" (Book of Gomorrha). Though allowance must no doubt be made for the writer's exaggerated and rhetorical style — a style common to all moral censors — yet the evi- dence derived from other sources justifies us in believing that the corruption was wide- spread. In writing to his ven- erated friend. Abbot Hugh of Cluny (Jan., 1075), Gregory himself laments the unhappy state of the Church in the fol- lowing terms: "The Eastern Church has fallen away from the Faith and is now assailed on every side by infidels. Wherever I turn my eyes — to the west, to the north, or to

K iX-R^M A^rtM Cii' 'fl1\rbllj)li"Sum>Lic'>TAT<J;

Emperoh Henry IV Kneeling before Cuuntes;

Matilda at Canossa

" Rex rogat AbbalemI Mathildim supplicat .atque.'

From a MS. "Life of Matilda" (1114) by Donizo,

a monk of Canossa, Vatican Library, Rome

effect, if possible, a reunion be- tween the Eastern and the Western Church — hopes of which had been held out by the Emperor Michael VIII in Ids letter to Gregory in 1073 — the pontiff sent the Patriarch of Venice to Constantinople as his envoy. He wrote to the ( hristian princes, urging them to rally the hosts of Western ('liristentlom for the defence of the Christian East; and in March, 1074, addressed a cir- cular letter to all the faithful, exhorting them to come to the rescue of their Eastern breth- ren. But the project met with much indifference and even op- position ; and as Gregory him- self soon became involved in complications elsewhere, which demanded all his energies, he was prevented from giving ef- fect to his intentions, and the expedition came to naught. With the youthful monarch of Germany Gregory's relations in the beginning of his pontifi- cate were of a pacific nature. Henry, who was at the time hard pressed by the Saxons, had written to the pope (Sept., 1073) in a tone of humble

the south — I find everywhere bishops who have ob- deference, acknowledging his past misconduct, and

tained their office in an irregular way, whose lives and expressing regret for his numerous misdeeds — his

conversation are strangely at variance with their sacred invasion of the property of the Church, his simoniacal

calling; who go through their duties not for the love of promotions of unworthy persons, his negligence in

Christ but from motives of worldly gain. There are no punishing offenders ; he promised amendment for the

longer princes who set God's honour before their own future, professed submission to the Roman See in

selfish ends, or who allow justice to stand in the way of language more gentle and lowly than had ever been

their ambition .... And those among whom I live — Romans, Lombards, and Normans — are, as I have often told them, worse than Jews or Pagans" (Greg. VII, Registr., 1. II, ep. xlix)

used by any of his predecessors to the pontiffs of Rome, and expressed the hope that the royal power and the sacerdotal, bound together by the necessity of mutual assistance, might henceforth remain indis-

But whatever the personal feelings and anxieties of solubly united. But the passionate and headstrong

Gregory may have been in taking up the burden of the king did not long abide by these sentiments,

papacy at a time when scandals and abuses were With admirable discernment, Gregory began his

everywhere pressing into view, the fearless pontiff great work of purifying the Church by a reformation

felt not a moment's hesitation as to the performance of the clergy. At his First Lenten Synod (March,

of his duty in carrying out the work of reform already 1074) he enacted the following decrees:

begun by his predecessors. Once securely established (1) That clerics who had obtained any grade or

on the Apostolic throne, Gregory made every effort to office of sacred orders by payment should cease to

stamp out of the Church the two consuming evils of minister in the Church. (2) That no one who had

the age, simony and clerical incontinency, and, with purchased any church should retain it, and that no

characteristic energy and vigour, laboured unceas- one for the future should be permitted to buy or sell

ingly for the assertion of those lofty principles with ecclesiastical rights. (3) That all who were guilty of

■which he firmly believed the welfare of Christ's Church incontinence should cease to exercise their sacred

and the regeneration of society itself to be inseparably ministry. (4) That the people should reject the

bound up. His first care, naturally, was to secure his ministrations of clerics who failed to obey these in-