Page:On papal conclaves (IA a549801700cartuoft).djvu/148

 132 The principle dictating this provision is to be found in the feeling (very natural in times of bitter feuds) that, unless this particular privilege of Cardinals were set beyond the reach of confiscation, a Pope of strong partisan views would have only to impose from his plenary authority ecclesiastical penalties to disable Cardinals of a faction opposed to his own from having any weight in the choice of his successors. Nor were such apprehensions without their warrant in facts. Like all the organic laws concerning the mode of Papal elections, this provision was due to no abstract theory, but was simply the outcome of a want that had been practically encountered. On the 10th May 1207, Boniface blinded by furious passion against the house of Colonna, excommunicated and degraded from their rank the Cardinals James and Peter Colonna, declaring them stripped of every privilege appertaining to their dignity. The extraordinary severity of a sentence, manifestly imposed by the bitter hatred of family feuds, because not justified at the moment of promulgation by adequate canonical delinquencies on the part of these prelates, produced a profound sensation. It was evidently