period of self- protection and recovered authority. Wonderful as it seems, even the characters of Alexander VI., Julius II., and Leo X. did not prevent an advance of the papal power over the limits which it occupied in the previous period. None of these individuals asserted their Infallibility. Their interests were elsewhere. Pope Hadrian VI. was successor to Leo X. As Professor of Theology at Louvain, he published the following observations on Infallibility:—
"If by the Roman Church is understood its head, that is the Pope, it is certain that it can err, even in those matters which concern the Faith, by publishing heresy in its decisions and decrees. For many Roman Pontiffs have been heretics. Of recent times it is reported that Pope John XXII. publicly taught, declared, and commanded to be believed by all, that purified souls do not have the clear vision of God before the Final Judgment."
Bossuet calls the readers attention to Pope Hadrian's view of the Papacy.[1] How clearly he taught, and held as indisputable, that the Pope could be a heretic not only in his private capacity, but in his official decisions and decrees! How emphatically he rejects what his predecessor "publicly taught, declared, and commanded to be believed by all!" Whether any explanation of the teaching of Pope John XXII. can be attempted is not to the point. In any case the fact remains that Hadrian VI. held these ideas of Papal Fallibility. And if he wrote this as a theologian, before his elevation to the Papacy, there is no trace that he ever retracted his doctrine, as he must have done had he come to think it erroneous. On the contrary, he published it after becoming Pope (1522).
- ↑ Works, i. p. 37.
