What kind of corruption existed in the Catholic Church during the Great Schism?

Answer 1

A:

The Western Schism (1378-1417) is also known among Catholics as the 'Great Schism' to distinguish it from the many lesser schisms that marred the Church's history from the time of the earlier 'Great Schism' that created a permanent division in Christianity. This was certainly a time of considerable corruption in the Church, but no more so than in much of the Church's previous history, nor in the centuries that followed.

Pope Urban VI brought about the Great Schism (Western Schism) because of his strong stance and intemperate preaching against simony, yet it was Urban himself who raised four of his own nephews to the cardinalate as soon as he became pope, even seeking to place one of them in control of Naples. We know some of the corrupt practices of the time because of what he attempted to restrict, including soliciting gifts and gratuities for conducting the business of the curia, receiving annuities from secular rulers, the multiplication of benefices and bishoprics in the hands of the cardinals, and their overly luxurious lifestyles. Apart from his own nepotism, Urban was also a cruel and violent man.

The Schism did not, and could not, eliminate corruption, which continued in Rome and Avignon, but especially Avignon. Pope Gregory XII was chosen at Rome in 1406 by a conclave consisting of only fifteen cardinals under the express condition that, should Antipope Benedict XIII, the rival papal claimant at Avignon, renounce all claim to the Papacy, he would also renounce his, so that a fresh election might be made and the Western Schism ended. Despite the Cardinal of Florence claiming that Gregory XII, at almost ninety years old when elected Pope, was too frail and old to be corrupt, the first act of his Pontificate was to pawn his Papal Tiara to pay for his gambling debts.

Answer 2

There were many factors that led up to the protestant revolt (Catholic scholars rarely refer to is as the "protestant reformation") mostly having to do with a weakening or coldness in the spiritual lives of many Catholics, and the weakening of the Papacy during the Great Schism of the late 14th century. They were not primarily corruption in the Catholic Church, although that did exist to an extent and was used as by those who left the Church as an excuse, but it was not the reason for it. The kinds of corruption are the same ones that have affected the Church since its very beginning: sin, and its various aspects. Man, since the fall, has had a damaged nature which is inclined to sin, this is called concupiscence, and that led to the various kinds of corruption: simony, clerical marriage, and other failures on the part of the clergy to live their vows. However, the Church should never be judged by the failure of people (including bishops and priests) to follow her dictates, she is the Bride and Body of Christ. To use the sins of some to besmirch the Church is despicable, and those errant priests who did it will have to answer to God for their sins, every bit as much of the priests who practiced simony and clerical marriage.

The Protestant Catastrophe

The events and causes that led up to the Catholic Reform and the protestant revolt were manifold and stretched over the two centuries prior to Martin Luther posting his famous 95 Theses. These are seen by some Catholic historians as divine chastisements. For a more complete discussion of all of this, please get Ten Dates Every Catholic Should Know by Diane Moczar, you may view it at the link below.

A massive famine struck Europe in 1315 and continued to 1322, causing mass starvation in northern Europe. That was followed by seven other famines in southern France in the same century. And that was only the beginning, it was shortly followed by the Black Death, the Hundred Years' War, the papal catastrophe in the Avignon Papacy, known as the Great Schism, and the heresy of Conciliarism which taught that a Church council was a higher authority than the pope.

In addition there was the coldness that was seeping into society which had previously been totally devoted to religion. Late Medieval society had gone commercial to such an extent that they began to keep two sets of books, one for God and one for themselves. On fifteenth-century merchant headed the pages of his ledger, "In the name of God and profit."

One interesting sign of this spiritual chill, as Ms. Moczar puts it, was the fact that the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 had to require reception of Holy Communion at least once a year under pain of mortal sin. As she puts it: "That this central expression of Catholic piety, not to mention inexpressible privilege, should have to be made an obligation rather than naturally be considered a joy shows us again how religious fervor had diminished.

Also, many intellectuals were enamored of the new philosophy of Nominalism put out by William of Ockham, which subverted the great scholastic synthesis of faith and reason by destroying its philosophic foundation in Aristotelian realism.

Finally, the later Renaissance, (late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries) finished off Medieval civilization with individualism fueled by such writers as Pico della Mirandola, Machiavelli, and others.

The entire conventual wisdom about the corruption of the Catholic Church leading to dissatisfaction with the Catholic faith and leading to a simple monk (Martin Luther) standing up to the Church and trying to reinstate the simple faith of the apostles is so much bunk which has been swallowed whole by too many for too long. I should recommend the book entitled The European Reformation by Euan Cameron put out by Oxford University Press for anyone interested in the real story.

The above was extracted mostly from Ten Dates Every Catholic Should Know by Diane Moczar, c 2005 by Diane Moczar, Sophia Institute Press, Manchester, NH 03108.