The Council
of Constance (1414-1418) is a problem for the belief that what Pius IX defined
dogmatically in 1870 as it shows that many of the Council fathers held to
the logical priority of councils over the papacy. Furthermore, the naïve claim
that one will not have doctrinal confusion if one accepts the infallibility of
the Catholic councils and papacy are blown out of the water by the fact that
this ecumenical council issued a decree that would be later condemned! On this,
see
Roberto de
Mattei (Catholic), Haec
Sancta (1415): A conciliar document condemned by the Church
"Orthodoxidation"
(Eastern Orthodox), Haec
Sancta: The Forgotten Hypocrisy
The
following excerpts are from the journal of Cardinal Guillaume Fillastre who was present
at the council. In terms of biographical information:
Guillaume Fillastre
was licenctiatus in legibus at the
University of Paris in 1382. Seven years later, he was appointed official or
judge of the Archbishop of Reims, and, in 1392, was made dean of that
cathedral. In this capacity, he attended the Gallican Council of Paris in 1406,
where he showed himself to be a strong defender of Benedict XIII, the Avignon
pope. He subsequently joined the movement for church unity and was elevated to
the grade of cardinal priest of St. Mark by John XXIII in 1411. At the
beginning of the Council of Constance, he vigorously opposed John and expressed
a point of view very close to that of the French nation. After John’s
deposition, he aided his greater compatriot Cardinal Pierre D’Ailly to combat
the reform proposals and policies of the German and English nations and King
Sigismund. After the council, Martin V despatched Fillastre as one of two
envoys to the court of France. Two years later, in 1420, he was granted the
administration of the archdiocese of Aix and the bishopric of St. Pont-de-Tomières.
He remained active in the Roman Curia until his death in 1428. (John Hine Mundy and Kennerly M.
Woody, eds., The Council of Constance:
The Unification of the Church [trans. Louise Ropes Loomis; New York:
Columbia University Press, 1961], 200)
Note the following excerpts which clearly show Fillastre et al.,
believed that a council took priority over the papacy, including the making of
cardinals and other papal pejoratives:
The tenor of the
memorandum of the lord Cardinal of Cambrai was as follows: “Some conclusions,
for the proof and defence of which certain prelates and doctors offer themselves
to the general Council and beg the Council, now sufficiently assembled, to
deliberate on them.
“The sacred Council
of Pisa has bound the lord Pope and thus the lords cardinals to strive in the
present Council by every reasonable way and method for the perfect and complete
union and peace of the Church and its due reformation in head and members. To
this they are bound not only by the said Council of Pisa but also by the laws
of nature and of God . . .” (p. 207)
“Further, for the
good of the union of no new cardinals shall be created. And to prevent any
fraudulent and deceitful claim that there was a creation of cardinals some time
since, the sacred Council declares that no persons shall be considered
cardinals who were not publicly reputed and revered as such at the time of the
departure of the lord Pope from the city of Constance.” (p. 228)
[Session X.] On Tuesday, May 14, the Council held a session to deal
with the Pope, and again it summoned him and his followers, supporters, and
entertainers. Two cardinals, the junior deacons, Conti and Florence, went with
four bishops from the four nations to the doors to call them. Afterwards, the
commissioners to examine witnesses were ordered to report the testimony of the
witnesses. The Cardinal of St. Mark, who had been selected by the others as
their spokesman, then rose and reported that ten witnesses had been examined,
several bishops, some abbots, a few doctors, and others. He had their testimony
with him and offered to read it. But since it was too long, he reported the
substance, amounting to proof of the notorious fact that lord Pope John XXIII
had administered the papacy disgracefully, dishonorably, and scandalously,
particularly as regarded the making of provisions for churches, monasteries,
priories, dignities, and other benefices and grants of favor, expectancies,
prerogatives, dispensations, and the like. All such functions he had exercised,
as he did mot things, in sordid ways in return for money in vast quantities,
appointing to each benefice whoever offered him most, whether by explicit
bargain or in indefinite sums, before the provision was granted. He still had
his gang of go-betweens and assistants, merchants and money-changers, who
wielded more influence in these affairs than cardinals and men of honor. Many
of them were his own familiars. Almost every thing he owned was for sale.
These were notorious
facts. In addition, it was generally understood that he had alienated much of
the patrimony of the Roman Church, such as the fortress of Radicofani to the
Sienese; likewise property belonging to the cardinals’ titular churches and
other churches of the city of Rome, as well as outside churches, monasteries,
and ecclesiastical institutions. All this property, it was widely said, was for
sale in his hands. The speaker cited by name several instances as to which the
Council might decide whether the Pope’s action had been lawful. At the end of
his speech, the other commissioners, his colleagues, rose and confirmed his
report.
Then immediately,
without further debate, the Patriarch of Antioch mounted the pulpit and read
the sentence, four bishops from the four nations standing beside him . . . [For
his notorious crimes of misconduct and misgovernment John is suspended from both
spiritual and temporal administration in the Roman and the Universal Church.
All the faithful are forbidden to obey him.] (pp. 243-44, ellipses in original—while
John XXIII would later be deemed one of the two anti-popes at the council, such
is irrelevant, as it shows that the council believed such to be the case for a
true pope regardless of the occupant of the papal chair; further, note how the
council is willing to remove the power of a bishop of Rome for notorious
immorality, not simply notorious theological error.)
The evils in the Roman
Curia, the cardinal said, had not been initiated or carried on by cardinals,
who were almost all of recent creation. On the contrary, they had done much to
check them. In order to bring about a reform they had compelled Pope John XXIII
to come here to the general Council, where a reform might be accomplished. (p.
402)