A papal bull is a type of public decree, letters patent, or charter issued by a pope of the Roman Catholic Church. It is named after the leaden seal (bulla) that was traditionally appended to the end in order to authenticate it.
Pope Pius II, born Enea Silvio Bartolomeo Piccolomini was Pope from 19 August 1458 to his death in 1464. He was born at Corsignano in the Sienese territory of a noble but impoverished family. His longest and most enduring work is the story of his life, the Commentaries, which is the only autobiography ever written by a reigning pope.
The Crusades were a series of religious wars sanctioned by the Latin Church in the medieval period. The most commonly known Crusades are the campaigns in the Eastern Mediterranean aimed at recovering the Holy Land from Muslim rule, but the term "Crusades" is also applied to other church-sanctioned campaigns. These were fought for a variety of reasons including the suppression of paganism and heresy, the resolution of conflict among rival Roman Catholic groups, or for political and territorial advantage. At the time of the early Crusades the word did not exist, only becoming the leading descriptive term around 1760.
Pius granted a plenary indulgence to those who, for at least six months, took part in the crusade and to those who donated money towards it.[2] Pius declared:
In the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church, an indulgence is "a way to reduce the amount of punishment one has to undergo for sins". It may reduce the "temporal punishment for sin" after death, in the state or process of purification called Purgatory.
O stony-hearted and thankless Christians! who can hear of all these things, and yet not wish to die for Him Who died for you. Think of your hapless brethren groaning in captivity amongst the Turks, or living in daily dread of it. As you are men, let humanity prompt you to help those who have to endure every sort of humiliation. As you are Christians, obey the Gospel precept which bids you love your neighbour as yourself. Think of the miseries inflicted on the faithful by the Turks. Sons are torn from their fathers, children from their mother's arms, wives are dishonoured before the eyes of their husbands, youths are yoked to the plough like cattle.[2]
Pius continued:
Take pity on your brethren, or, in any case, take pity on yourselves; for the like fate is hanging over you, and if you will not assist those who live between you and the enemy, those who live further away will forsake you also when your turn comes. You Germans who will not help the Hungarians, how can you expect assistance from the French—and you Frenchmen how can you count upon the aid of the Spaniards if you do nothing for the Germans? With what measure you mete the same shall be measured to you again! The ruin of the Emperors of Constantinople and Trebizond, of the Kings of Bosnia and Rascia, and other princes who have been overpowered, one after another, proves how disastrous it is to stand still and do nothing. As soon as Mahomet has subdued the East, he will quickly master the West.[2]
Mehmed II, commonly known as Mehmed the Conqueror, was an Ottoman Sultan who ruled from August 1444 to September 1446, and then later from February 1451 to May 1481. In Mehmed II's first reign, he defeated the crusade led by John Hunyadi after the Hungarian incursions into his country broke the conditions of the truce Peace of Szeged. When Mehmed II ascended the throne again in 1451 he strengthened the Ottoman navy and made preparations to attack Constantinople.
Notes
↑ Kenneth Meyer Setton, The Papacy and the Levant, 1204-1571 (American Philosophical Society, 1976), p. 261.
1 2 3 Ludwig Pastor, The History of the Popes from the Close of the Middle Ages, Volume III (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner, & Co., 1894), p. 332.
Related Research Articles
Pope Urban II, born Odo of Châtillon or Otho de Lagery, was Pope from 12 March 1088 to his death in 1099.
Unitatis redintegratio is the Second Vatican Council's decree on ecumenism. It was passed by a vote of 2,137 to 11 of the bishops assembled, and was promulgated by Pope Paul VI on 21 November 1964. Its title is taken from the opening words of the Latin text. The opening of the document's English translation is: "The restoration of unity among all Christians is one of the principal concerns of the Second Vatican Council."
The Second Crusade (1147–1149) was the second major crusade launched from Europe. The Second Crusade was started in response to the fall of the County of Edessa in 1144 to the forces of Zengi. The county had been founded during the First Crusade (1096–1099) by King Baldwin of Boulogne in 1098. While it was the first Crusader state to be founded, it was also the first to fall.
Pope Pius XI, born Ambrogio Damiano Achille Ratti, was head of the Catholic Church from 6 February 1922 to his death in 1939. He was the first sovereign of Vatican City from its creation as an independent state on 11 February 1929. He took as his papal motto, "Pax Christi in Regno Christi," translated "The Peace of Christ in the Kingdom of Christ."
The Latin phrase extra Ecclesiam nulla salus means "outside the Church there is no salvation". The 1992 Catechism of the Catholic Church explained this as "all salvation comes from Christ the Head through the Church which is his Body."
The Council of Clermont was a mixed synod of ecclesiastics and laymen of the Catholic Church, called by Pope Urban II and held from 18 to 28 November 1095 at Clermont, Auvergne, at the time part of the Duchy of Aquitaine.
Christian socialism is a form of religious socialism based on the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. Many Christian socialists believe capitalism to be idolatrous and rooted in greed, which some Christian denominations consider a mortal sin. Christian socialists identify the cause of inequality to be the greed that they associate with capitalism.
The Seventh Crusade was a crusade led by Louis IX of France from 1248 to 1254. His troops were defeated by the Egyptian army led by the Ayyubid Sultan Turanshah supported by the Bahariyya Mamluks led by Faris ad-Din Aktai, Baibars al-Bunduqdari, Qutuz, Aybak and Qalawun and Louis was captured. Approximately 800,000 bezants were paid in ransom for his return.
The Brethren of the Common Life was a Roman Catholic pietist religious community founded in the Netherlands in the 14th century by Gerard Groote, formerly a successful and worldly educator who had had a religious experience and preached a life of simple devotion to Jesus Christ. Without taking up irrevocable vows, the Brethren banded together in communities, giving up their worldly goods to live chaste and strictly regulated lives in common houses, devoting every waking hour to attending divine service, reading and preaching of sermons, labouring productively, and taking meals in common that were accompanied by the reading aloud of Scripture: "judged from the ascetic discipline and intention of this life, it had few features which distinguished it from life in a monastery", observes Hans Baron.
The philosophy of Søren Kierkegaard has been a major influence in the development of 20th-century philosophy, especially existentialism and postmodernism. Kierkegaard was a 19th-century Danish philosopher who has been labeled by many as the "Father of Existentialism", although there are some in the field who express doubt in labeling him an existentialist to begin with. His philosophy also influenced the development of existential psychology.
The Deputy, a Christian tragedy, also published in English as The Representative , is a controversial 1963 play by Rolf Hochhuth which portrayed Pope Pius XII as having failed to take action or speak out against the Holocaust. It has been translated into more than twenty languages. The play's implicit censure of a venerable if controversial pope has led to numerous counterattacks, of which one of the latest is the 2007 allegation that Hochhuth was the dupe of a KGB disinformation campaign. The Encyclopædia Britannica assesses the play as "a drama that presented a critical, unhistorical picture of Pius XII" and Hochhuth's depiction of the pope having been indifferent to the Nazi genocide as "lacking credible substantiation"."
The Council of Mantua of 1459, or Congress of Mantua, was a religious meeting convoked by Pope Pius II, who had been elected to the Papacy in the previous year and was engaged in planning war against the Ottoman Turks, who had taken Constantinople in 1453. His call went out to the rulers of Europe, in an agonized plea to turn from internecine warfare to face Christendom's common enemy.
Mediator Dei, a papal encyclical, was issued by Pope Pius XII on 20 November 1947. It was the first encyclical devoted entirely to liturgy. The encyclical suggested new directions and active participation instead of a merely passive role for the faithful in the liturgy, in liturgical ceremonies and in the life of their parish. The encyclical also emphasized the importance of the Eucharist. Mediator Dei is one of the more important encyclicals of Pope Pius XII. The encyclical condemned certain excesses of liturgical reform and stressed the importance of the union of sacrifice and altar with communion, which greatly directed the reforms undertaken during and after Vatican II. It was written in part in response to the liturgical movement under way since early in the 20th century.
Meminisse iuvat is an encyclical of Pope Pius XII, asking for prayers of the persecuted Church in the East and criticizing harmful cultural developments in the West. He asks for a novena of prayer preceding the feast of the Assumption.
Orientales omnes Ecclesiae is an encyclical of Pope Pius XII to the faithful of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. It commemorates the three hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the Union of Brest.
Pope Pius XII and Poland includes Church relations from 1939–1958. Pius XII became Pope on the eve of the Second World War. The invasion of predominantly Catholic Poland by Nazi Germany in 1939 ignited the conflict and was followed soon after by a Soviet invasion of the Eastern half of Poland, in accordance with an agreement reached between the dictators Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler. The Catholic Church in Poland was about to face decades of repression, both at Nazi and Communist hands. The Nazi persecution of the Catholic Church in Poland was followed by a Stalinist repression which was particularly intense through the years 1946–1956. Pope Pius XII's policies consisted in attempts to avoid World War II, extensive diplomatic activity on behalf of Poland and encouragement to the persecuted clergy and faithful.
Saint Thérèse Couderc - born Marie-Victoire Couderc - was a French Roman Catholic professed religious and the co-founder of the Sisters of the Cenacle. Couderc underwent humiliations during her time as a nun for she was forced to resign from positions and was ridiculed and mocked due to false accusations made against her though this softened towards the end of her life. She was a spiritual writer having written on sacrifice and service to God for which she - after her death - left a series of spiritual writings.
The canonization process of Pope Pius XII dates to shortly after his death in 1958. He was declared a Servant of God in 1990 and Venerable in 2009. Father Peter Gumpel is currently the relator of Pius XII's cause for canonization.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
