ing to Conclave, met 'Coscia in the shut chariot of Cardinal Acquaviva, who had been to fetch him from prison in the Castle of St. Angelo, and was taking him to his cell.'[1]
The precedent furnished by this case has never been reversed, although sentences of degradation have since been launched against Cardinals. In a secret Consistory of the 13th February 1780, Pius VI. suspended and declared stripped of both active and passive voice in Papal elections, Cardinal Rohan, for having violated his duties by acknowledging the jurisdiction of the Parliament of Paris, a lay tribunal,[2] unless within six months he exculpated himself before the Holy See for this dereliction of his obligations. Far more sweeping and absolute was the condemnation pronounced by the same Pope, on the 26th September 1791, against Cardinal Lomenie de Brienne, for having sworn the civil constitution of the
- ↑ 'Coscia, Minister under Benedict XIII., meriting the gallows—condemned to imprisonment for life in St. Angelo, where, it is said, he throve wonderfully, because it cost him nothing, and he was hoarding money,' is the character given of this notorious Cardinal by the President.
- ↑ In the matter of the Diamond Necklace.
