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ON THE CONSTITUTION
quires that, spontaneously, without any kind of previous conference, all the electors of one accord should simultaneously proclaim the same individual, may be dismissed without further comment as an altogether ideal conception,— in spite of ecclesiastical writers giving a list of Popes created by this process.[1] Of much greater practical importance are the conditions regulating the second form, which we have seen was invented by
- ↑ Gregory VII., Clement VII., Paul III., Julius III., Marcellus II., Paul IV., Pius IV., Pius V., figure on this list, which confounds acclamation, such as might follow discussion, with the little short of miraculously spontaneous unanimity exacted by canonical prescriptions, for an election by inspiration. The following will show, for instance, what kind of inspiration was at work in the case of Clement VII.:—'At last Cardinal Colonna was won over by the united efforts of the Duke of Sessa and of the Cardinal di Medicis. After having arranged his tactics with some of his friends, he suddenly rose on the night of the 18th of November, and exclaimed in a loud voice, "All who wish to have Julius for Pope, and to preserve the unity of the Christian Republic intact, follow me!" The Cardinals, surprised by this appeal, discontinued their disputes, and, after a short deliberation, the Cardinal di Medicis was elected Pope "by the inspiration of God." That God had inspired his election,' the author of the protocol of the proceedings in the Conclave observed, 'was clear, as neither the Emperor nor the King of France had been able to influence even such Cardinals as had their bishoprics in their States.'—Bergenroth, Calendar of Neg. between England and Spain, Introduction.
