Tuesday, March 19, AD 2024 6:47am

Cardinal Gibbons and the Stormy Conclave of 1903

 

 

 

James Cardinal Gibbons of the Archdiocese of Baltimore was the second American cardinal and an enormously important figure both within the history of the Church in America and the history of America in general.  His championing of the rights of labor in the nineteenth century helped direct America on a more peaceful path in the relationship between labor and capital than existed in many other nations.  Many posts could be written about this man and I intend to write them!  Today we will focus on the fact that he was the first American cardinal to participate in a papal conclave.

When Pope Leo XIII died in 1903 Cardinal Gibbons happened to be in Rome.  Without that fortuitous circumstance he would most likely have not been able to participate in the subsequent Conclave.  In 1914 with the death of Pope Pius X, Cardinal Gibbons boarded a rapid steamer to cross the Atlantic but arrived too late to participate in the Conclave.  Thus the Conclave of 1903 was the only one Cardinal Gibbons was fated to participate in, but it certainly was a dramatic one.

The first Conclave to occur within the glare of modern media, the proceedings leaked like a sieve to eager waiting journalists, so much so that after this Conclave Pope Pius decreed that participants were to take an oath of silence as to the proceedings of all future conclaves.

The front runner was Cardinal Mariano Rampolla, Leo XIII’s Secretary of State.  He would almost certainly have been chosen Pope by the Conclave but for the exercise of the Austrian veto by a Polish Cardinal at the behest of Austrian Emperor Franz Josef.  (Three Catholic powers had traditionally claimed a right of vetoes in conclaves:  the King of France, the King of Spain and the Holy Roman Emperor.  Contemporary Catholics who sigh for Catholic confessional states are often bone ignorant as to how much traditional Catholic confessional states interfered in the operation of the Church.)  Why the veto was used remains a mystery.  The Cardinals met the use of the veto with outrage, but its use stopped Rampolla as a viable candidate.  After the election of Pope Pius, he banned the use of vetoes in any future conclaves.

After five days and seven ballots, Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto, a man of humble birth who had risen to be Patriarch of Venice, was chosen Pope, and decided to reign as Pius.  Although the Holy Spirit chose a most convoluted path in the Conclave of 1903, the choice of Pope Pius X was a great one.  He would be a masterful Pope, immensely popular with the average Catholic.  Fond of children he had a wry sense of humor.  When Roman aristocrats complained that he had not made his sisters Papal countesses he responded that he had made them the sisters of a pope and he didn’t see how he could improve on that!  His piety, his wisdom and his leadership assured that he would become the first pope canonized since the seventeenth century, almost by popular acclaim, modernists, of course, excepted.  Cardinal Gibbons and the other participants in the Conclave could be proud of their work.

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Tom
Tom
Friday, March 8, AD 2013 7:54am

Looks like that bad ol’ Hapsburg veto turned out pretty well, after all.

Can’t imagine why anyone would not, on the level of principle, want the Catholic faith to inform every aspect of society, including its political life. That anyway is the clear teaching of Libertas, Immortale Dei, and other pertinent encyclicals.

Greg Mockeridge
Greg Mockeridge
Friday, March 8, AD 2013 7:59am

Don

You failed to mention the all important fact that Pope St. Pius X was also an avid cigar smoker.

Tom
Tom
Friday, March 8, AD 2013 7:59am

Ironically, too, it would be Pius and Leo who would in turn condemn the nascent Modernism and Americanism with which Gibbons was associated; it was to him, after all, that Testem Benevolentiae was addressed (admittedly, in his capacity as Archbishop of the Primary See in the US). It was just such a dismissiveness about the desirability of the public acknowledgement of the doctrine of the Social Kingship of Christ that spurred Leo to write.

Phillip
Phillip
Friday, March 8, AD 2013 8:09am

“Looks like that bad ol’ Hapsburg veto turned out pretty well, after all.”

God always works to the good. Sometimes in accord with the actions of men, sometimes in spite of them.

Greg Mockeridge
Greg Mockeridge
Friday, March 8, AD 2013 10:18am

We would do well to understand exactly what Pope Leo XIII actually meant when he condemned Americanism as this passage from the encyclical distinguishes:

“From the foregoing it is manifest, beloved son, that we are not able to give approval to those views which, in their collective sense, are called by some “Americanism.” But if by this name are to be understood certain endowments of mind which belong to the American people, just as other characteristics belong to various other nations, and if, moreover, by it is designated your political condition and the laws and customs by which you are governed, there is no reason to take exception to the name. But if this is to be so understood that the doctrines which have been adverted to above are not only indicated, but exalted, there can be no manner of doubt that our venerable brethren, the bishops of America, would be the first to repudiate and condemn it as being most injurious to themselves and to their country. For it would give rise to the suspicion that there are among you some who conceive and would have the Church in America to be different from what it is in the rest of the world.” (Testem Benevolentiae Nostrae)

From what I understand, at the time there was a movement within the American Church to apply American style democracy to Church government.

Greg Mockeridge
Greg Mockeridge
Friday, March 8, AD 2013 5:43pm

Okay, I wasn’t sure. But I do know that what Pope Leo condemned was not the American political system as many radical elements of the so-called “traditionalist” movement allege.

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Friday, March 8, AD 2013 7:44pm

[…] – Gco. Galeazzi The Men Who Could be Pope: Cardinal Peter Turkson – Mark Greaves, CH Cardinal Gibbons & the Stormy Conclave of 1903 – D. R. McClarey JD, TAC How the N. Y. Times Reports on Upcoming Conclave – Terry […]

Hank
Friday, March 8, AD 2013 11:48pm

Don

If I remember correctly, a popular American priest had written a book that was very poorly translated into French which is what was read in Rome.

Of course the Amercans were confused because they had read the book in English, and “Americanism” disapeared quickly because it only existed in a poor French translation.

Greg Mockeridge
Greg Mockeridge
Saturday, March 9, AD 2013 12:20am

Ironically, there is an SSPX priest (at least there was I don’t know if he is still in the Society) named Fr. Christopher Hunter who offers the most articulate Catholic defense of American principles.

Greg Mockeridge
Greg Mockeridge
Saturday, March 9, AD 2013 6:57am

Actually, Donald, amongst the SSPX anti-Americanism seems to be the prevailing view from what I have been able to gather.

Eamonn
Saturday, March 9, AD 2013 7:28am

I’m a bit puzzled by the reference to St Pius X’s sisters being given titles of nobility; I had thought that he refused to do this but that it was Pius XII later who did it for his sisters.

Stoifain O'Cealliagh
Sunday, March 10, AD 2013 6:19am

There is no “mystery” why Kaiser Franz used his veto over the election of Rampola. The emperor became aware of the fact that Cardinal Rampola was a freemason and therefore a danger to the church and the papacy. The catholic monarchies exercised the role of “protector ” of the church and it’s discipline since Charlemagne. Pius X ,after he was elected and advised ,had Rampola arrested and all his papers searched. after he was satisfied as to the truth of the allegations ,Rampola was exiled to Scicily ,where he couldn’t do anymore harm.
Austria was not so fortunate as the Allied powers saw to it’s dimemberment and the replacement of the catholic monarchy with “masonic republics”.
The Orthodox church fared worse,as the”impius sect” succeeded in electing Melitos as Patriarch of contantinople…he didn’t last very long but did untold harm.

supertradmum
Sunday, March 10, AD 2013 5:48pm

Americanism was and still is a real heresy. The impetus came from the hierarchy in America’s mostly East Coast dioceses. The most serious problem came from two sources of Americanism-one, the belief that the Church in America needed to tackle her own problems without intervention from Rome; and two, the acceptance of many of the modernist heresies condemned by Pope Pius IX. That at least one bishop was sent beyond the Mississippi for his recalcitrance and the historical fact that at least two bishops were asked to come to Rome for “clarifications” indicates the seriousness of this heresy.

There are many aspects of this real heresy and one which is the most serious was that Catholicism could be tolerant and accepting of many, if not most, aspects of American culture. This led directly to the undermining of Catholic teaching in colleges and universities set up for the purpose of teaching Catholic doctrine and passing on a Catholic identity, which now, has been almost lost in America.

The Americanist heresy encourages assimilation to the point of disobedience. And, it is still around today.

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Monday, March 11, AD 2013 6:58am

[…] Cardinal Gibbons and the Stormy Conclave of 1903 Donald R. McClarey, American Catholic […]

John Nolan
John Nolan
Monday, March 11, AD 2013 7:11am

Although Rampolla would have been Leo XIII’s preferred successor, Merry del Val, who was secretary to the conclave, later claimed that he was never in the running as the cardinals wanted the Church to take a more conservative direction after Leo’s long pontificate. After the veto was announced by Cardinal Puzyna, Archbishop of Cracow, Merry recalled that the cardinals were so outraged that support for Rampolla actually increased.

The most likely reason for the veto was pressure on the Emperor by the Ultramontane faction in Vienna. As Leo’s Secretary of State Rampolla had attempted rapprochement with the Third French Republic.

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Monday, March 11, AD 2013 7:24am

[…] Cardinal Gibbons and the Stormy Conclave of 1903 Donald R. McClarey, American Catholic […]

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