industrious swarming up the ladder of ecclesiastical routine, are the three safest means of reaching the Pope's throne.
In canon law there are no limitations restricting the selection of a Pope within the body of Cardinals. It is true that since Urban VI., in 1378, no one below this rank has mounted the chair of St. Peter, but still it is worthy of note that this now established practice exists in virtue of no higher sanction than custom, and that there is nothing in canon law to render invalid the choice even of a layman for the Papacy.[1] John XIX. and Adrian V. were certainly laymen, and the latter furnishes the conclusive precedent establishing that a Pope acquires all the plenitude of his supreme authority by the simple act of election, for Adrian V. died without taking
- ↑ There is indeed a decree by Stephen III., 769, against the election to the Papacy of anyone not an ordained Cardinal, but this decree, which was levelled against the anti-Pope Constantine, who happened to be a layman, has never been invoked on occasions when the choice of the Sacred College fell on an individual not of their body, nor is there any other pontifical utterance on record in the same sense. Moroni himself admits that John XIX. was a layman when elected, but preserves an ambiguous language in regard to the case of Adrian V.
