Second Papacy News Today

. ♪ in the mid-1360s, the papacy has left rome and been operating in avignon, france for almost 60 years. at this point the cardinals are almost all french and have become accustomed to the luxurious lifestyle afforded to them as a thank you for the churchs loyalty to the french crown. but outside the walls of the lush papal castle, the rest of europe is a wasteland, setting the stage for what will be the last papal resignation for 600 years. >> the black death. this contagious, dreadful

Avignon. >> rather than being in a landscape where the pope could actually act as an independent power and make alliances with anyone that he chose, he was now firmly entrenched in one country, clearly under the control of one king. that was what warped the papacy. it is a little bit as though wash d.c. suddenly upped and said, well, now manhattan is going to be the capital of the entire united states. >> for the first time since the invention of the conclave, the one with true power over the ch...

Captured by the king of france. for a long period of time, it was completely the instrument of the french crown, and almost every cardinal who was appointed to the college of cardinals during this time was french. >> by 1347, it appears that the papacy has become an arm of the french crown for good. if you have psoriasis, little things can be a big deal. thats why theres otezla.

But pope urban v and his successor, another frenchman, gregor xi, remained firm in their spiritual conviction that the papacy longs at the tomb of st. peter. >> there is a lot of resentment about their having to sort of come down in the world, which i think just shows what a cushioned, isolated existence they were living in avignon, that you have a europe thats been devastated by the plague, that the entire social structure of europe has changed, that in some places 90% of the population has die...

Disease devastated europe. >> pretty of the entire population was wiped out. >> in the wake of the plague, the papacy is forced to re-evaluate its role in europe and face dire conditions in the city it abandoned. >> with the absence of the papacy from rome, the upkeep of the city began to fail. a great deal of the upkeep of rome came out of the popes coffers. now this was all going to france. law and order became very, very shaky. you have a rise in pickpockets and muggings because there is no k...

Talking to anybody. he didnt want him to be able to communicate with his supporters, so essentially put him under house arrest in order to protect his own legitimacy as pope. >> and so celestine dies in captivity. >> in the 13th century, however, a retired pope is not the only threat to a sitting popes power. in a time when the lines between church and state are fluid, kings are just as threatening to papal power as previous popes. >> theres always a bit of a problem as to who was in charge. was...

Where the church is supposed to lie. if you leave the bones of peter behind and youre not moving them, youre moving to this other place, what youre saying is that maybe this isnt as important to the church as we had thought it was previously. that becomes a really dangerous situation for holding together not just the papacy, but holding together beliefs and tenets of the church. >> leaving rome costs the papacy its religious authority throughout europe. but once the church becomes established in...

Problem for the church and youve got to sort that out. >> in july of 1048, benedict ix is officially ousted once and for all. the cardinals decide the fairest way to consolidate papal power is to ignore sylvester and gregorys claims to the throne, clear the decks, and elect a new pope. >> one of the problems in the 11th century was there was no clear way of choosing a pope. >> it was an answer of frequently murder. bribery. and also relationship, the sons of popes sometimes became popes, choosin...

V decides that the papacy has lost sight of its spiritual purpose and must return to the bones of st. peter in rome. >> urban v, a reform-minded pope, is appalled by the luxury. he was appalled by the self-indulgence in avignon. he announced to the cardinals that they could only have one course at dinner rather than their usual ten-course bafrpg wet. it had increasingly become clear that as long as the papacy was tied to the fortunes of any country, that the ability to act as a spir attual leade...

>> the cardinals realize they must solidify rules for papal elections. they convene in an effort to solve this problem once and for all, and the result becomes one of the most iconic symbols of the papacy. >> in the 12th century, cardinals who were senior clergy in rome made what they called a college. and after that, cardinals would choose a pope in public, so that sort of regularized things, but, of course, you can always twist elections. >> after nearly 200 years of corrupt public elections, ...