Benedict XIV

Roman Catholic pope (1740-1758)

• Born: March 31, 1675
• Birthplace: Bologna, Papal States (now in Italy)
• Died: May 3, 1758
• Place of death: Rome, Papal States (now in Italy)

Benedict XIV is best known for his extensive scholarship and writing on a broad range of ecclesiastical, historical, and legal matters. As pope, he deftly directed Church affairs at a time when European powers and the Enlightenment directly threatened the central role that Catholicism had traditionally played in Western culture.

Early Life

The future Benedict XIV was born into the patrician family of Marcello Lambertini and Lucretia Lambertini of Bologna. He was christened Prospero Lorenzo. The young Lambertini’s early education came from tutors, and when he was thirteen years old he went to Rome to study at the Collegium Clementianum. There he developed strong interests in history, literature, and theology and directed his studies toward law and theology. He graduated from the University of Rome with doctoral degrees in both civil and canon law and in theology at the age of nineteen.

A hard-working rather than brilliant scholar, Lambertini went on to hold numerous offices in the Church hierarchy, beginning with assistantlawyer in the Curia. In 1701, Pope Clement XI appointed him consistorial advocate for two canonization procedures (that is, procedures for raising people to the status of sainthood), and in 1708 he was raised to the office of promoter of the faith, overseeing all canonization activities. As he would do so often, Lambertini used his experience as overseer of canonization to produce an important study of the process titled De servorum Dei beatificatione et beatorum canonizatione (1734-1738; on the beatification of the servants of God and the canonization of the beatified), which remains a significant manual.

In 1712, Lambertini became canon theologian at the Vatican and assessor of the Congregation of Rites; in 1718, he was made secretary of the Congregation of the Council. In 1725, he was appointed titular bishop of Theodosia, and two years later he became bishop of Ancona in Italy. On April 30, 1728, Pope Benedict XIII raised Lambertini to the cardinalate, and three years later he replaced the archbishop of Bologna, who had become Pope Clement XII. During his time in Rome, Lambertini became fast friends with many of the city’s intellectuals and developed deep interests in the city’s history and antiquities.

Life’s Work

Lambertini rapidly gained a reputation for his diligent pastoral work as archbishop of Bologna. He reformed clerical education and held a diocesan synod following the recommendation of the Council of Trent. He wanted his priests to be firmly grounded in Scripture and theology but also familiar with the scientific currents of the day. He fostered parish life and personally visited every parish in his diocese. After the death of Clement XII, the conclave for electing his successor opened on February 17, 1740. It was a difficult election, beset by factionalism among the fifty-four cardinals, that lasted more than six months and resulted in more than 250 votes before Lambertini was elected as a compromise candidate. He took the name Benedict in recognition of his patron, Benedict XIII.

Benedict XIV’s early papacy was dominated by the hostilities of the War of the Austrian Succession and continuing demands by Europe’s monarchs for greater control over the Church in their respective nations. Benedict’s reputation for secular as well as theological scholarship and his clear interests in the cultural currents of the day recommended him to Europe’s powerful as a person with whom they could do business. He proved to be a political realist and quickly reached concordats with the king of Portugal in 1740 and the rulers of Savoy and Naples in 1741; negotiations with Spain stretched over a dozen years.

In each of these agreements, Benedict permitted greater secular interference in Church affairs, from taxing the clergy to allowing laymen to sit on Church tribunals. With the French, Benedict had to sort out the problems caused by Clement XI’s condemnation of Jansenist teachings in the bull Unigenitus (1713). French authorities asked for direction in the form of a less-authoritative document called an encyclical rather than a bull, and they received Ex omnibus christiani orbis (1756), in which Benedict counseled withholding the sacraments only from the most publicly vociferous Jansenists. Though he was criticized by some for his concessions to secular authority, others have seen them as necessary to prevent the outright nationalization of the Catholic Church. Benedict enjoyed good relations with Frederick the Great, despite—or perhaps because of—the Protestant ruler’s seizure of Catholic Silesia in 1740.

As ruler of the Papal States, Benedict had to be careful to retain his realism, even as Habsburg and Bourbon troops marched across his neutral territory, violating its sovereignty. He provided for the needs of his people by building roads and granaries throughout the Papal States, fostering agriculture and commerce (which had sunk to new lows under his predecessors), and attacking usurious lending in the encyclical Vix pervenit (1745). He also sought to rationalize the financial administration of the Papal States without drastically altering the existing bureaucratic framework: Melioration rather than real reform seems to have been at the heart of his papacy.

As leader of the Roman Catholic Church, Benedict XIV faced numerous issues and challenges presented by the radical social changes throughout Europe. Regarding marriages of Catholics and Protestants, he ruled in the bull Magnae nobis admirationis (June 29, 1748) that such mixed couples could not be permitted full wedding ceremonies and that in order to be blessed at all, the couple must pledge to raise their children to be Catholics. In parts of Asia, Jesuit missionaries had been allowing a good deal of local culture to infuse Catholic rituals, a practice that drew much conservative criticism. In his bull Ex quo singulari (July 11, 1742), Benedict condemned such practices in China, and in Omnium sollectitudinum (September 12, 1744) he extended the condemnation to missionaries in Malabar.

At the end of his reign, Benedict came under pressure from the Portuguese first minister to investigate perceived abuses of the Jesuits in Portugal. His appointment of Cardinal Saldanha as chief inspector in 1758 set in motion the events that led to the suppression of the order by Pope Clement XIV in 1773. Benedict reached accords with several of the Eastern Orthodox churches, but old disagreements over the wording of creeds prevented fuller reunification.

Although Benedict was in tune with much of the new thinking of the Enlightenment, he supported the condemnation of Freemasonry by Clement XII in his own bull Providas Romanorum Pontificum (March 18, 1751), which called unsuccessfully for the suppression of the Masons by Catholic rulers. He also oversaw the placement of the works of Voltaire and The Spirit of the Laws by Montesquieu on the Index of Forbidden Books. Finally, he encouraged the practice of holding diocesan synods, which he as bishop had found so rewarding, through dissemination of his book De synodo dioecesana (1748; on diocesan synods), which he wrote while archbishop of Bologna. He signaled his concern for episcopal soundness early on by establishing a commission to aid in the choosing of bishops. On the other hand, he discouraged the proliferation of religious holidays in European countries and the use of secular music in Catholic services.

Benedict found many outlets for his secular interests in Rome. His intense interest in history and Rome’s heritage led him to found academies for the study of Roman and Christian antiquities, Church history, and the history of canon law and liturgy. He established a museum of Christian history and expanded the Vatican library by some thirty-three hundred precious manuscripts. He also had the library’s entire collection cataloged. Benedict’s early writings were published in Rome and filled twelve folio volumes; a later, complete edition consists of seventeen volumes and includes 760 letters to one French cardinal alone.

Significance

By the mid-eighteenth century, the Papal States and the Catholic Church had long been dominated by sophisticated aristocratic rulers who managed to retain the Papacy’s integrity and authority in a rapidly changing world. Benedict XIV represented not the ruling class but rather the deeper traditions of sound Church pastoral leadership combined with a liberal realism. He was willing to compromise with the more powerful secular authorities when it meant that Church prerogatives would be preserved. His stances on matters of Church discipline and administration, while reformist, were nevertheless firm and unyielding and served to bolster support for the Church from important quarters. Benedict’s own broad intellectual interests and inviting personality recommended him to Europe’s ruling class in a way that family or even extensive experience could not.

Bibliography

Chadwick, Owen. The Popes and European Revolution. New York: Oxford University Press, 1981. Studies Benedict’s pontificate in relation to the social, intellectual, and political movements of his day.

Haynes, Renée. Philosopher King: The Humanist Pope Benedict XIV. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1970. This remains the only monographic biography on Benedict in English.

Pastor, Ludwig. History of the Popes from the Close of the Middle Ages. Vols. 35 and 36. Translated by Ernest Graff. St. Louis, Mo.: Herder, 1923-1969. Presents a full biography of Benedict and a detailed discussion of his pontificate.

Wright, A. D. The Early Modern Papacy: From the Council of Trent to the French Revolution, 1564-1789. New York: Longman, 2000. Examines Benedict in the context of his many roles as pope and the challenges of the mid-eighteenth century.