Rampolla becomes Pope

Tom_B

in 1903 Pope Leo XIII dies. In the ensuing conclave the leading candidate is the secretary of state Mariano Cardinal Rampolla. Then out of the blue Kaiser Franz Josef exercised his power of exclusion. In OTL another candidate was selected. WI the Cardinals decided it was time to end the exclusion and picked Rampolla anyway--though a minority of Cardinals think this is a mistake.

Rampolla takes the name of Pope Clement XV. His papacy is another sociopolitical papacy like Leo's, not a theological one like Pius X of OTL The decision to oppose Austria has caused a lasting rift. Clement tries to reconcile but it is a tough sell, esp. as he is friendly with the French which bothers the Austrians (and Germans).

There is no crusade against Modernism which was the cornerstone of Pius X's papacy though a few Modernists are criticized and maybe one or two excommunicated. There are some prelates who increasingly accuse Clement of being soft on heresy. Leo XIII had shown some limited tolerance to a more modern Biblical theology which Pius X reversed. Clement continues the tolerance of Leo maybe extending it slightly.

Likwise the AntiMasonic rant is toned down (no Leo Taxil reprise thank God) though not to zero. There is also a softer more realistic tone about the loss of the Papal States.

Archbishop (later Cardinal) della Chiesa becomes secretary of state. Pope Clement also becomes very fond of Cardinal Gibbons of Baltimore and makes him an assistant to the secretariat. This annoys the French prelates who were very critical of Americans under Pope Leo accusing them of the Americanism heresy. Pope Clement becomes proUnion though he opposes Marxism.

In the latter part of his Papacy, Clement dips his tow in some more dangerous waters. He expands the College of Cardinals to 84 and stacks it with nonItalians favorable to his policies. He issues an encyclical where he backs away from the 'Error has No RIghts' opposition to religious liberty and instead argues 'But people in Error do' (again contrary to Pius X of OTL). Lastly he makes some small changes in the Mass in the Missal of 1912. The Gospel is read in the vernacular, St. Joseph is added to the list of Saints in the Canon and the Holy Week rites are simplified in moderation.

One final peculiarity of Pope Clement is he had studied Oriental languages and expressed a particular interest in the Far East and tried to reinvigorate the missions there allowing some degree of appreciation for indigenous culture.

In 1913 Pope Clement dies. Despite packing the College of Cardinals they remain deadlocked. The Clement supporters try to push Cardinal della Chiesa
but the opposition refuses to budge. In desperation they compromise on Cardinal Gibbons as an interim caretaker compromise Pope who they don't expect to live very long.

He becomes Pope innocent XIV.

More to come if anyone is interested.
 
Glen

Glen

Moderator
Tom_B said:
in 1903 Pope Leo XIII dies. In the ensuing conclave the leading candidate is the secretary of state Mariano Cardinal Rampolla. Then out of the blue Kaiser Franz Josef exercised his power of exclusion. In OTL another candidate was selected. WI the Cardinals decided it was time to end the exclusion and picked Rampolla anyway--though a minority of Cardinals think this is a mistake.

Rampolla takes the name of Pope Clement XV. His papacy is another sociopolitical papacy like Leo's, not a theological one like Pius X of OTL The decision to oppose Austria has caused a lasting rift. Clement tries to reconcile but it is a tough sell, esp. as he is friendly with the French which bothers the Austrians (and Germans).

There is no crusade against Modernism which was the cornerstone of Pius X's papacy though a few Modernists are criticized and maybe one or two excommunicated. There are some prelates who increasingly accuse Clement of being soft on heresy. Leo XIII had shown some limited tolerance to a more modern Biblical theology which Pius X reversed. Clement continues the tolerance of Leo maybe extending it slightly.

Likwise the AntiMasonic rant is toned down (no Leo Taxil reprise thank God) though not to zero. There is also a softer more realistic tone about the loss of the Papal States.

Archbishop (later Cardinal) della Chiesa becomes secretary of state. Pope Clement also becomes very fond of Cardinal Gibbons of Baltimore and makes him an assistant to the secretariat. This annoys the French prelates who were very critical of Americans under Pope Leo accusing them of the Americanism heresy. Pope Clement becomes proUnion though he opposes Marxism.

In the latter part of his Papacy, Clement dips his tow in some more dangerous waters. He expands the College of Cardinals to 84 and stacks it with nonItalians favorable to his policies. He issues an encyclical where he backs away from the 'Error has No RIghts' opposition to religious liberty and instead argues 'But people in Error do' (again contrary to Pius X of OTL). Lastly he makes some small changes in the Mass in the Missal of 1912. The Gospel is read in the vernacular, St. Joseph is added to the list of Saints in the Canon and the Holy Week rites are simplified in moderation.

One final peculiarity of Pope Clement is he had studied Oriental languages and expressed a particular interest in the Far East and tried to reinvigorate the missions there allowing some degree of appreciation for indigenous culture.

In 1913 Pope Clement dies. Despite packing the College of Cardinals they remain deadlocked. The Clement supporters try to push Cardinal della Chiesa
but the opposition refuses to budge. In desperation they compromise on Cardinal Gibbons as an interim caretaker compromise Pope who they don't expect to live very long.

He becomes Pope innocent XIV.

More to come if anyone is interested.
Click to expand...

Tom...THIS HAPPENS IN THE XXTH CENTURY PROJECT!!!!!

Come bring some of your events to that timeline!

One thing I would say for that project, though. Franz Josef is assassinated early, and so Franz Ferdinand becomes emperor and gets Rampolla to reverse the morganic status of his marriage, thus healing the rift with the Emperor and the Vatican.
 

Max Sinister

Banned
@FJ: Why do you think Vatican 2 was a disaster?

If that happened, it would also mean a diplomatical blow for A-H - the old right of the Habsburgs doesn't count anymore...
 

Tom_B

Glen said:
Tom...THIS HAPPENS IN THE XXTH CENTURY PROJECT!!!!!

Come bring some of your events to that timeline!

One thing I would say for that project, though. Franz Josef is assassinated early, and so Franz Ferdinand becomes emperor and gets Rampolla to reverse the morganic status of his marriage, thus healing the rift with the Emperor and the Vatican.
Click to expand...

Great minds think alike. Let me pursue this more solo for a while to see what criticism it engenders and then I'll try to incorporate a Beta version into your Shared World.
 

Tom_B

Wendell said:
A Yankee Pope:eek: In 1913?:eek: Sounds faintly implausible. Can someone say Schism?
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Hmm. The biggest block is simply being a nonItalian. However in the 1958 conclave the fallback canididate of the conservative faction was a nonItalian. Also Pius XII was bizarrely fascinated with the braying jackass Spellman and thought in the early part of his Papacy that America was the hope of the Church. Later he came to think American Catholicism was superficial and he eventually soured on Spellman as well.

Gibbons is actually a much more impressive figure than Spellman who essentially outsourced any form of deep thought.

As for schism. This is 1913. A distraction is coming.
 

Tom_B

Max Sinister said:
@FJ: Why do you think Vatican 2 was a disaster?

If that happened, it would also mean a diplomatical blow for A-H - the old right of the Habsburgs doesn't count anymore...
Click to expand...

One of the first thing Pius X did OTL was revoke all further vetoes by anyone.
However there is a level of friction between the Vatican and the Dual Monarchy that did not exist OTL.
 

Wendell

Tom_B said:
Hmm. The biggest block is simply being a nonItalian. However in the 1958 conclave the fallback canididate of the conservative faction was a nonItalian. Also Pius XII was bizarrely fascinated with the braying jackass Spellman and thought in the early part of his Papacy that America was the hope of the Church. Later he came to think American Catholicism was superficial and he eventually soured on Spellman as well.

Gibbons is actually a much more impressive figure than Spellman who essentially outsourced any form of deep thought.

As for schism. This is 1913. A distraction is coming.
Click to expand...
This is interesting. I always thought that an American Pope would be unacceptable to the Church establishment.
 

Tom_B

Wendell said:
This is interesting. I always thought that an American Pope would be unacceptable to the Church establishment.
Click to expand...

Spellman actually thought he was papabili in 1958 and did something silly to make himself accord with St. Malachy's prophecies. Part of the American Pope is unacceptable line is that America became a superpower and so an American Pope would have geopolitical overtones the Vatican would want to avoid. America was only a larval superpower in 1913.
 

benedict XVII

Why don't you take Cardinal Mercier from Belgium? He is from a small neutral Catholic country, and the last non Italian Pope, Adrian VII was also from the Low Countries. He is a highly respected theologian, who revived and modernized Thomas Aquinas's theories earlier in the century. He was also spearheading efforts to Christianize Central Africa. He is moderate on social issues, being open but cool towards Christian democracy. Belgium was at the forefront of the Catholic workers' movement, but in a way that was extremely peaceful and without upsetting the established order.

OTL, he became an ardent advocate of Belgian patriotism during the German occupation in WWI. His letter "Patriotism and endurance", in which he denounced strongly the illegitimacy of the German occupation, was read in all churches for Christmas 1915 and took the Germans totally by surprise. A further threat of public intervention in 1917 is what put an end to the deportation of Belgian workers to Germany. Interesting to have a Belgian Pope at the onset of WWI, isn't it?
 

BGMan

At any rate...

Rampolla/Clement calls Vatican II in 1913. The Novus Ordo Missae comes online over the next decade, and combined with the effects of World War I, the entire Western world experiences a similar sort of "civilizational crisis" as it did after OTL's World War I... but possibly worse, since in OTL there was still the link to the past in Catholic countries.

The cultural revolution of the 1960s will be moved to the 1920s.

The Republicans keep Spain.

After WW2, the baby boom is perhaps muted to a considerable degree as the religiosity of Catholics (and everybody else to a somewhat lesser extent) will be likely much less than in OTL.

Austria and Vienna remain divided somewhat like Germany and Berlin.
 

Tom_B

Adrian

benedict XVII said:
Why don't you take Cardinal Mercier from Belgium? He is from a small neutral Catholic country, and the last non Italian Pope, Adrian VII was also from the Low Countries. He is a highly respected theologian, who revived and modernized Thomas Aquinas's theories earlier in the century. He was also spearheading efforts to Christianize Central Africa. He is moderate on social issues, being open but cool towards Christian democracy. Belgium was at the forefront of the Catholic workers' movement, but in a way that was extremely peaceful and without upsetting the established order.

OTL, he became an ardent advocate of Belgian patriotism during the German occupation in WWI. His letter "Patriotism and endurance", in which he denounced strongly the illegitimacy of the German occupation, was read in all churches for Christmas 1915 and took the Germans totally by surprise. A further threat of public intervention in 1917 is what put an end to the deportation of Belgian workers to Germany. Interesting to have a Belgian Pope at the onset of WWI, isn't it?
Click to expand...

Part of the justification for the Italian lock on the Papacy was that Adrian was accused by the Italains of mishandling the start of the Reformation. So the last thing a nonItalian candidate would want is further resemblance to Adrian. Also Mercier is relatively young in 1913 (early 60's) while Gibbons is late 70's and one of the reasons Gibbons was elected was the expectation that he would not last long.

However Mercier would be a member of Pope Clement's moderate progressive faction.
 

Franz Josef II

BGMan said:
At any rate...

Rampolla/Clement calls Vatican II in 1913. The Novus Ordo Missae comes online over the next decade, and combined with the effects of World War I, the entire Western world experiences a similar sort of "civilizational crisis" as it did after OTL's World War I... but possibly worse, since in OTL there was still the link to the past in Catholic countries.

The cultural revolution of the 1960s will be moved to the 1920s.

The Republicans keep Spain.

After WW2, the baby boom is perhaps muted to a considerable degree as the religiosity of Catholics (and everybody else to a somewhat lesser extent) will be likely much less than in OTL.

Austria and Vienna remain divided somewhat like Germany and Berlin.
Click to expand...

You need another thirty years at least of "liturgical study" before enough people would buy into the concept of Novus Ordo Missae. After forty years of the supposedly wonderful Novus Ordo it is finally getting the kind of opposition that should have met it when it was first introduced.
 

Tom_B

Pope Innocent XIV 1913-1916

Cardinal Gibbons had given very serious consideration to refusing the Papacy. In the days ahead he seriously wish that he had. The Italians resented the fact that he was not Italian. The Austrian prelates still held a grudge against the Rampolla faction, still circulating accusations that Rampolla was a Freemason. The conservative French prelates dusted off their complaints about an Americanism heresy.

Outside the Catholic Church the British government is leery of an American of irish origin.

Woodrow Wilson disliked Gibbons as a Cardinal. He positively HATES him as a Pope.

Inside the Curia some clerics bet money on how long the old American would live. They bet in weeks.

In early 1914 Pope Innocent finished the revision of Canon law, Pope CLement had started. He also canonized Joan of Arc to try to appease the French. He was by nature a more theological pope than his predecessor. His inner circle soon became Cardinal della Chiesa (retained as Secretary of State), Pietro Maffi, Mercier of Belgium and John Ireland of St. Paul (appointed as the 2nd American cardinal by Pope Clement). To the dismay of the Curia Pope Inncoent began a correspondence with 3 controversial theologians--Maurice Blondel, Jacques Maritain and Max Scheler. This started before the war but continued through. Of the 3 the Pope was most favorable towards Maritain, and adopts some of his ideas about lay ministry. He had the most difficulty with Blondel and his correpondence frequently said things like 'can you clarify", 'just what does that mean', and 'doesn't that contradict what you said in...' He also warned Blondel of being close to heresy on more than one occasion.

The Great War starts on schedule. Tension soon emerges in the Vatican. Cardinal della Chiesa wants to the Papacy to try to end the war. Cardinal Mercier wants a strong condemnation of German behavior in Belgium. Pope Innocent tries to do both. The Austrians now claim he is worse than Rampolla--definitely a Mason, probably knows Albert Pike. Eventually the German government is making ominous noises and there is a confrontation there as well. Both Pope Innocent and Cardinal Mercier are seen as standing up to the Germans. Result is the Germans are a little nastier to Mercier than OTL but things go a notch better for the Belgians.

In 1916 Innocent suddenly draws the wrath of the Entente by vigorously condemning Gen. Maxwell's handling of the Easter Rising.

However the greatest impact of Pope Innocent is that Woodrow Wilson's ongoing battle with Pope Innocent costs him enough Catholic votes he loses the 1916 election.

So this now becomes a President Hughes TL.
 

Shope

Banned
BGMan said:
Unfortunately, not too many people here would agree with that. :eek:
Click to expand...

I agree with the sentiment, but I wouldn't call it a complete disaster. Pope Paul managed to rein-in the cogniscenti in time to keep it from being one; if it weren't for him, we'd all be Episcopalians.:eek:
 
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