Pope Innocent III on the Holy Roman Emperor

19 Saturday Dec 2015

Posted by Matthew Scarince in Christendom

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christendom, Church and State, History, Holy Roman Empire, Innocent III, Pope, Prince-Electors, Sacred Ages

Truly we owe justice to every person because of our obligation to exercise our apostolic office. Just as we do not want our justice to be usurped by others, we do not wish to take away the right of the princes.

We acknowledge as we are bound, that the right and authority to elect a king (later to be elevated to the Imperial throne) belongs to those princes to whom it is known to belong by right and ancient custom; especially as this right and authority came to them from the Apostolic See, which transferred the Empire from the Greeks to the Germans in the person of Charles the Great. But the princes should recognize, and assuredly do recognize, that the right and authority to examine the person so elected king (to be elevated to the Empire) belongs to us who anoint, consecrate and crown him.– Innocent III, Venerabilem

Pope and Emperor: Soul and Body

27 Friday Nov 2015

Posted by Matthew Scarince in Christendom

≈ 6 Comments

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christendom, Church and Empire, Church and State, Holy Roman Empire, Pope and Emperor

As God, in the midst of the celestial hierarchy, ruled blessed spirits in paradise, so the Pope, His Vicar, raised above priests, bishops, metropolitans, reigned over the souls of mortal men below. But as God is Lord of earth as well as of heaven, so must He (the Imperator cœlestis) be represented by a second earthly viceroy, the Emperor (Imperator terrenus), whose authority shall be of and for this present life. And as in this present world the soul cannot act save through the body, while yet the body is no more than an instrument and means for the soul’s manifestation, so must there be a rule and care of men’s bodies as well as of their souls, yet subordinated always to the well-being of that which is the purer and the more enduring.

-James Viscount Bryce, The Holy Roman Empire Theory of the Medieval Empire

One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church

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One, Holy, Catholic, and Roman Empire

Can Church and State Really Be Separate?

26 Saturday Sep 2015

Posted by Matthew Scarince in Christendom

≈ 2 Comments

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Church and State, Holy Catholic Church, Holy Roman Empire, Mess of Modern Politics, Separation of Church and State

“The Church ought to be separated from the State, and the State from the Church.” This fundamental principle of modernity was condemned by Pope Bl. Pius IX in his 1864 Syllabus of Errors as incompatible with Catholic teaching, yet today it is almost universally accepted. Is it really possible to separate politics even partially from religion, as secularists and others would have us believe?

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