Dear Voices in the Wilderness,
May God give you peace!
See below the continuation of Part II, Series 1 of the History of Franciscan Family Movement.
Enjoy reading and reflecting!
May God give you peace!
See below the continuation of Part II, Series 1 of the History of Franciscan Family Movement.
Enjoy reading and reflecting!
HISTORY OF THE FRANCISCAN FAMILY
First Order, Second Order, Third Order Secular and
Regular,
and the Franciscanists
For the OFM-Postulants
Custody of St. Anthony of Padua-Philippines
January 11-13, 2014
By: Fr. Eufrosino C. Solibar, OFM
First
Order
Part
II. The Rise of the Zelanti (Spirituals)
1. The Origin of the Zelanti
q During the
Council of Lyon (1274) many thought that Pope Gregory X wanted the mendicant
Orders to accept property in common, like the old monastic Order.
q This move would
have contradicted what the Franciscan Rule states. Therefore, a group of friars from the Marches
of Ancona decided to observe the Rule in a strict way. Their leader was Corrado d’Offida.
q These friars
were directly involved in the transmission of the oral tradition of the Actus
S. Francisci et sociorum eius and the Fioretti, which were written
towards the end of the 14th century. They were known as Spirituals, a name
linked to the age of the Spirit predicted by Joachim of Fiore.
q Many of these
friars were humble and even saintly.
Some, however, were militant against the institution of the Church and
the Community of the Order, whom they saw as betraying the Franciscan ideal.
q Among them, the
most famous were Angelo Clareno, Pietro da Macerata, Tommaso da Tolentino,
Ubertino da Casale, in Italy (Marches and Tuscany), and Hugh of Digne, Pierre
Jean Olieu (Pierre Giovanni Olivi) in Provence.
q Some are even
authors of polemical writings, such as the Arbor vitae crucifixae Jesu
of Ubertino da Casale, the Historia septem tribulationum Ordinis Minorum
of Angelo Clareno, and the Exppositio Regulae of Hugh of Digne.
q The Minister
General after St. Bonaventure include Girolamo da Ascoli Piceno (1274-1279),
who was the elected Pope in 1288 and took the name Nicholas IV. He gave the Rule: “Supra montem”
to the Third Order of St. Francis in 1289.
Next in the line of Generals is Bonagrazia di S. Giovanni in Persiceto
(1279-1285).
q The General
Chapter of Assisi in 1279 asked for a new Cardinal Protector, in the person of
Matteo Orsini. The capitulars also asked
for a revision of the various papal interpretations on the Rule.
q Pope Nicholas
III nominated a commission to revise this legislation, and on 14 August 1279
published the Bull: Exiit qui seminat.
In the document the Pope distinguished between “usus juris” and “usus
facti.” The friars had no use of right upon any goods; all they had was the
use in fact, which was to be moderate. The Order’s property remained in the
hands of the Pope, but the Ministers had the right to administer the use of
goods.
q In 1283 Pope
Martin IV introduced the figure of the “sindacus apostolicus,” who was a
lay person nominated by the Minister to administer the goods of the friars.
q The Chapter of
Milan elected Arlotto da Prato as Minister General (1285-1287). During the
Chapter the writings of Pierre Giovanni Olivi were examined. But after the Chapter of Montpellier (1287),
the new Minister General, Matteo da Aquasparta, one of the Franciscan masters
of Paris, sent him to lecture in Florence.
q Matteo was
elected cardinal in 1289, and Raymond Godefroy was elected General
instead. This practice of giving the
cardinal’s hat to Ministers General was detrimental to the stability of the
Order.
q In 1295 Godefroy
had to resign, because Pope Boniface VIII suspected him of being a Spiritual. Giovanni
Mincio da Murrovalle (1296-1304) was elected instead.
q By now the
Spirituals were causing trouble in the Order.
During the short reign of Pope Celestine V (1294), a group of
Spirituals, who Godefroy had sent as missionaries to Armenia in 1289, to defend
them from imprisonment, returned to Italy.
Pope Celestine V gave them permission to live in small hermitages and
observe the Franciscan Rule without any papal interpretations. They changed their name to Celestine friars
or Poor Hermits. Pietro da Macerata was
their leader.
q Naturally they
were persecuted by the Community, and also by the other Spirituals. They even went so far as to reject Boniface
VIII as Pope. The natural result was their excommunication. When Pietro da Macerata died in 1305, Angelo
Clareno took over the leadership of this faction.
q The successor of
Murrovalle was Gonsalvus of Valboa, from Spain in 13014-1313, who had been one
of John Duns Scotus’ lecturers in Paris.
During his generalate Pope Clement V summoned him, together with
Ubertino da Casale and other experts, to discuss the issues of tension in the
Order. This move came as a result of the
deliberations of the Council of Vienne (1311), which had discussed the issue of
Church reform.
q Pope Clement V,
as Boniface VIII and Benedict XI had done before, tried to solve the problem
regarding the mendicant’s deteriorating relations with the secular clergy as a
result of their privilege of exemption from episcopal jurisdiction. He also addressed the issue of the tension
between the Community and the Spirituals.
2. Tensions between the Community
and the Spirituals:
On Poverty
q On 20 November 1312, Clement V issued the Bull: Exivi de paradiso,
in which the Pope dealt with the precepts and counsels of the Franciscan Rule,
and also mentioned the various abuses in the Order regarding poverty. His hopes to ease tensions were short-lived.
q The Order was divided between the Community, which wanted the Order to
have large convents, studies, papal privileges and the like, and the
Spirituals, who wanted a return to the poverty and insecurity of the early days
of the Order, but among whom there were elements tainted with heresy –
Joachimism.
q The downfall of
the Spirituals was now imminent. Some of
them fled to Sicily, and were excommunicated in 1314. After the death of Gonzalvus of Valboa,
Alessandro di Alessandria was elected General (1313-1314).
q After his death,
the Order remained without a Minister until 1316, because even the Church was
without a Pope after the death of Clement V.
q In 1316 a new
Pope was elected, Pope John XXII (1316-1334), and a new Minister General, Michele
Fuschi da Cesena (1316-1328).
q The final war of
the Spirituals had begun.
3.
Pope John XXII and the Spirituals
q John XXII was
determined to control the upsurge of evangelism and Joachimite tendencies in
the Franciscan Order. Some were even
using the name Franciscan to hide their heretical tendencies. This was the case of the “friars of the free
spirit,” led by a certain Dulcino. Some
of these heretics ended up burnt alive at the state . Many others were imprisoned or exiled.
q In 1317 John
XXII called a group of Spirituals from Provence to appear before him at
Avignon, together with Angelo Clareno and Ubertino da Casale.
q As soon as they
arrived they were imprisoned. Clareno
was excommunicated, but Ubertino da Casale was spared after being defended by
Cardinal Giacomo Colonna. On 7 October
1317 John XXII published the Constitution: Quorundam exigit, which marks
the official suppression of the Spirituals.
q Angelo Clareno
rebelled against the Pope and fled to Basilicata, where he became leader of the
Spirituals, who began to be called Clareni
of Fraticelli. Clareno died in
1337, but the Fraticelli continued to exist until the mid-15th century. In the Bull: Sancta Romana (1317) Pope
John XXII formally condemned the Fraticelli.
q The Pope also
wanted the Order to revise is doctrine regarding poverty. He did not agree with the doctrine of
voluntary poverty, based upon the assertion that Christ and the Apostles were
without possessions. The issue was to
cause a great deal of trouble for Michele da Cesena during the Chapter of
Marseilles in 1321. In 1322 Pope John
XXII commissioned a group of masters of theology and prelates of the Curia to
propose their views regarding the question of the poverty of Christ.
q The answers of
the Commission varied. But the majority
were against the theory that Christ and the Apostles did not possess goods,
because that would have condemned the Church own right for possession.
q In 1322 Pope
John XXII issued the Bull: Quia nonnumquam, in which he hinted that the
Pope had the right to revise decrees made by his predecessors. He was referring to the Exiit qui seminat. This would have dealt a blow upon the
Franciscan ideal of poverty, and Michele da Cesena was not prepared to give in
easily to the challenge. During the
Chapter of Perugia, in May 1322, the capitulars declared: “To say or
assert that Christ, in showing the way of perfection, and the Apostles, in
following that way and setting an example to others who wished to lead the
perfect life, possessed nothing either severally or in common, either by right
of ownership and “dominium” or by personal right, we corporately and
unanimously declare to be not heretical, but true and catholic.” One of
the Franciscan experts during the Chapter was Bonagrazia di Bergamo, who
defended the thesis of the friars’ “simplex usus facti” (simple use of
necessities).
q John XXII
replied by the Bull: Ad conditorem canonum, which was affixed to the doors
of the Cathedral of Avignon on 8 December 1322.
In it the Pope said that, although the Church reserved the right of
ownership of the friars’ goods, it had not interest whatever to own anything
which they, in fact, used. In other
words, the theory separating “usus” from “dominium” made no
sense. The Church did not want to retain
any possessions of the friars any longer.
q This decision
naturally destroyed the very foundation of the Franciscan ideal of poverty.
q On 23 November
1323 the Pope issued another Bull: Cum inter nonnullos, in which he
declared it “heretical to deny that Christ and the Apostles used their
right to temporal possessions.”
q Tensions rose to
uncontrollable proportions. In 1324 the
Emperor Louis of Bavaria sided with the friars and accused the Pope of
heresy. John XXII replied with the Quia
quorundam, in which he ordered his views to be taught in the universities.
q In 1328 Michele
da Cesena was summoned to Avignon to explain the Order’s intransigence in
refusing the Pope’s order and its complicity with Emperor Louis of
Bavaria. Michele was imprisoned in
Avignon, together with Francesco d’Ascoli, Bonagrazia dii Bergamo and William
of Ockham, one of the masters of the Oxford Franciscan School.
q Since the
Chapter was due to be celebrated on 22 May 1328, the Pope send Cardinal
Bertrand of Poietto to preside it, and left the Minister General in prison.
q The Chapter met
in Bologna, with instructions to depose Michele da Cesena. The capitulars duly
obeyed – by re-electing Michele! Pope John XXII excommunicated Michele,
together with Bonagrazia and Ockham, and nominated Cardinal Bertrand as Vicar
of the Order until the next General Chapter.
q In the meantime,
on 12 May 1328, Emperor Louis of Bavaria had entered Rome and was crowned
emperor. He declared Pope John XXII a
heretic and an antichrist, and chose the Franciscan Pietro da Corbaro as
antipope. Pietro took the name of Nicholas
V (1328-1333).
q On 26 May 1328
Michele and his companions fled from Avignon.
The group sought refuge in the court of Emperor Louis of Bavaria. The Pope addressed the Bull: Quia vir
reprobus to the rebel Minister General.
Michele died on 29 November 1342, still holding the seal of the
Order. Bonagrazia died in 1343, and
Ockham died reconciled to the Church in 1349, and gave back the seal of the
Order.
q Less than half
of the Ministers Provincial were present at the Chapter of Paris of 1329, in
which Gerald Eudes (Odonis) was elected Minister General (1329-1342). Eudes was a personal friend of Pope John
XXII, and was definitely inclined towards the Conventual family of the Order.
Fraternally yours,
Fr. Yosi, OFM
P.S. HAPPY NEW YEAR 2016!!!!
