Pope Benedict XIV
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Coat of Arms of Pope Benedict XIV |
Pope Benedict XIV (
Bologna,
March 31,
1675 –
May 3,
1758 in
Rome), born
Prospero Lorenzo Lambertini, was
Pope from 17 August
1740 to 3 May
1758.
He was born into a noble family of Bologna, which was at that time the second largest city in the
Papal States. He was elected Pope in 1740. The
conclave which elected him had lasted six months; he is alleged to have said to the
cardinals: "If you wish to elect a saint, choose
Gotti; a statesman,
Aldrovandi; an honest man, elect me." His Papacy began in a time of great difficulties, chiefly caused by the disputes between
Catholic nations and the
Papacy about governmental demands to nominate
bishops rather than leaving the appointment to the Church. He managed to overcome most of these problems — the
Holy See's disputes with the
Kingdom of Naples,
Sardinia,
Spain,
Venice, and
Austria were settled.
He had a very active papacy, reforming the education of priests, the
calendar of feasts of the Church, and many papal institutions. Perhaps the most important act of Benedict XIV's pontificate was the promulgation of his famous laws about
missions in the two
bulls,
Ex quo singulari and
Omnium solicitudinum. In these bulls he ruled on the custom of accommodating Christian words and usages to express non-Christian ideas and practices of the native cultures, which had been extensively done by the
Jesuits in their
Indian and
Chinese missions. An example of this is the statues of ancestors - there had long been uncertainty whether honor paid to ones ancestors was unacceptable '
ancestor worship,' or if it was something more like the Catholic
veneration of the saints. This question was especially pressing in the case of an ancestor known not to have been a Christian. The choice of a Chinese translation for the
name of God had also been debated since the early
1600s. Benedict XIV denounced these practices in these two bills. The consequence of this was that many of these converts left the Church.
Benedict XIV was also responsible, along with
Cardinal Passionei, for beginning the catalogue of the
Vatican Library and in
1757, he entrusted the relics of
St. Donatus of Libya, a beheaded corpse, to the
Third Order Franciscans, in the village of
Vila do Conde,
Portugal.
*
Chinese Rites controversy*
Suppression of the Jesuits*
Pope Benedict XIV at the
Catholic Encyclopedia.
*
Pope Benedict XIV Portrait at the
Vatican Museum.
