Antonio Santarelli (theologian)
Antonio Santarelli SJ (Latin: Antonio Sanctarellus; 1569 – 1649) was an Italian Roman Catholic priest and theologian.
Biography
Antonio Santarelli was born at Atri, in the present Province of Teramo, then in the Papal States (or, according to some sources, in Adria, then in the Republic of Venice, now in the Province of Rovigo in Veneto).
He entered the Society of Jesus in 1586 and is remembered in particular for being the author of the work, Treatise on Heresy and Schism... and the Authority of the Supreme Pontiff in Punishing these Crimes, a 644-page volume, published in Rome in 1625, approved by the Superior General of the Society of Jesus, Mutio Vitelleschi[1] and dedicated to the Cardinal of Savoy.[2]
Santarelli developed the theses supported at the end of the previous century by Cardinal Bellarmine on the indirect power of the pope in temporal matters. His argument stated that the pope had the power to depose heretical rulers,[3] punish them with temporal penalties, and compel them to obedience.
To the many enemies of the Holy See and the Jesuits in France nothing could be more welcome than so indiscreet a discussion of such delicate questions just at that critical moment when the Gallican theories of Edmond Richer were being revived, and the enemies of the Society of Jesus, especially those of the Paris University, were redoubling their assaults.[4]
When the book reached France, it provoked a great reaction against the Jesuits. Referred simultaneously to the Parliament of Paris and the University of the Sorbonne, on March 13, 1626, the Supreme Court decreed that the work be banned and burned, deeming it contrary to the laws of the kingdom, the King's authority and the freedom of the Gallican church.
The faculty of theology in Paris censured Santarelli's treatise.[5] A text issued by the university warned professors and students against the work, qualified as a "new pestilential doctrine." Other universities of France also censured it in 1626. Pope Urban VIII regretted the appearance of the work, but he did not want to condemn it, in spite of the desire of Richelieu and Louis XIII.
Antonio Santarelli's book was referred to Parliament and condemned by it to be burned at the stake on January 29, 1627. A minority of the Faculty of Theology demanded a new vote. Its leader, André Duval, went to declare to the Queen Mother that he and most of his colleagues were ready to shed their blood or leave the kingdom rather than agree to Santarelli's censure. Marillac supported the Jesuits. The nuncio Spada broke off his relations with Richelieu.
This condemnation caused great embarrassment to the Jesuits of France,[6] who were forced to sign an abjuration, on a text that had been dictated by the Parliament, to avoid being sanctioned and declared "traitors to their country" and thus banished from the kingdom.
Antonio Santarelli died in Rome.
Works
- Trattato del giubileo dell'anno santo, e de gl' altri giubilei (1624)
- Tractatus de haeresi, schismate, apostasia, sollicitatione in sacramento pœnitentiæ, et de potestate Romani Pontificis in his delictis puniendis (1625)
- Tractatus de Jubileo Anni magni piacularis, et aliis præterea Jubileis, ac eorum adjunctis (1626)
Notes
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References
- Church, William Farr (1973). Richelieu and Reason of State. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
- Fouqueray, Henri (1925). Histoire de la Compagnie de Jésus en France, des Origines à la Suppression (1528-1762), Vol. 4. Paris: Boureaux des Études.
- Höpfl, Harro (2004). Jesuit Political Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Richer, Edmond (1626). Raisons pour les condemnations cy-devant faictes du libelle admonitio, du livre de Santarel et autres semblables.
External links
- ↑ Negruzzo, Simona (2020). "Vitelleschi, Muzio." In: Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, Vol. 99. Roma: Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana.
- ↑ Prat, Jean-Marie (1876). Recherches Historiques et Critiques sur la Compagnie de Jésus en France au Temps du P. Coton, 1564-1626, Vol. 4. Lyon: Briday, p. 714.
- ↑ Among other things, Santarelli asserted that the Pope could depose kings and absolve their subjects from their oath of allegiance, not only on account of heresy and schism, but also for incompetence.
- ↑ Puyol, P. E. (1876). Edmond Richer. Paris: T. Olmer.
- ↑ Hitier, M. J. (1903). "La Doctrine de l'Absolutisme," Annales de l'Université de Grenoble, Vol. XV, p. 70.
- ↑ Not only the superiors but other fathers were forced to sign, and they did so reluctantly in order to avoid worse.