Page:William John Sparrow-Simpson - Roman Catholic Opposition to Papal Infallibility (1909).djvu/76

 56 External pressure resulted in a hurried election and the production of Urban VI. The Cardinals declared him canonically elected and treated him for some months as actual Pope. Then, under pretext that they had acted under compulsion, partly, it is said, disgusted by the new Pope's brutality, many Cardinals fled from Rome, declared their election void, and appointed Robert of Geneva Pope, as Clement VII. Men have enquired, men still enquire, how should this double election be esteemed? Which was the genuine Pope? Was the election of Urban canonical? Was it the result of intimidation? If the latter, does the subsequent acknowledgment by the Cardinals cancel irregularities? Or was Clement the real Pope? This is one of the problems of history.

The historian Pastor sides with Urban VI. The pretext that he was elected under compulsion will not hold for a moment; for all the Cardinals took part in his coronation, and assisted afterwards in his ecclesiastical functions. They gave him homage as Pope and proclaimed him to the world. Catherine of Sienna told them plainly, "If what you say were as true as it is false, must you not have lied when you proclaimed him lawful Pope?" In any case Christendom was now divided into two obediences. This lasted for forty years. The most learned canonists differed on the question which of the two was the Vicar of Christ. Distinguished teachers and saintly people were found on either side, in equally good faith; and a Roman writer declares himself unable to characterise either with the title of Antipope. Nations were divided, so were cities and universities, into Urbanists and