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THE DOORS OF WISDOM

The Mission of Francesco Chieregati to the Diet of Nuremberg. —Adrian's Attitude towards the German Schism.

In taking in hand the thorough regeneration of the Roman Curia, Adrian not only aimed at putting an end to a condition of things which to him must have been an abomination, but also hoped in this way to remove the grounds for defection from Rome in the countries beyond the Alps. But as the reform of the Curia was by no means a matter of swift realization, no other course remained open to the Pope than “to make a qualified appeal to the magnanimity of his enemies”. This explains the mission of Francesco Chieregati to the Diet convened at Nuremberg on the 1st of September 1522.

This native of Vicenza, chosen by the Pope for this difficult mission in Germany, where the elevation of a fellow-countryman to the Holy See had at once been accompanied by the highest hopes, was no novice in Papal diplomacy; already under Leo X he had been Nuncio in England, Spain, and Portugal. At Saragossa and Barcelona Adrian, then Viceroy for Charles V, had come to know him as a man of learning and earnest moral character, and one of his first appointments as Pope was to present him to the bishopric of Teramo in the Abruzzi. Almost immediately afterwards he was nominated Nuncio in Germany. Chieregati must have entered at once on his difficult and responsible mission to the country then in the ferment of revolt, for by the 26th of September 1522 he had already entered Nuremberg with a retinue. Two days later he had his first audience with the Archduke Ferdinand. On this occasion he directed himself to obtaining measures against the Lutheran heresy, and dwelt upon the Pope's serious intention of carrying on the war against the Turks and removing ecclesiastical abuses; at the same time he stated, in the Pope’s name, that henceforth annates and the fees for the pallium should not be sent to Rome, but retained in Germany and applied exclusively to the expenses of the Turkish war.

The Diet having at last been opened on the 17th of November, Chieregati appeared before it for the first time on the 19th, and appealed for the aid of the Hungarians in a forcible speech. He wisely avoided weakening the effect of his words by any reference to Church affairs. Not until the loth of December, when he made a second speech on the Turkish question, did he consider the opportune moment to have come for introducing his errand as it bore on Church affairs, and then, at first, only cautiously. He was commissioned by the Pope to call the attention of the States of the Empire to the spread of Lutheran teaching, a peril even more threatening than that of Turkish invasion, and to ask for the enforcement of the Edict of Worms. The Pope also did not deny the existence of many abuses in the Roman Curia, but had decided to take steps against them with the utmost promptitude. The States declared that before they could confer and come to any final judgment on these matters they must have the Papal proposals put before them in writing ; they had evidently little inclination to meddle with this delicate matter. It was not until the arrival, on the 23rd of December, of Joachim of Brandenburg, who had already fought energetically at the Diet of Worms on the Catholic side, that matters seem to have come to a head.

On the 3rd of January 1523 Chieregati read before the Diet and the representatives of the Empire several documents which had been sent after him clearly setting forth the intention and proposals of the Pope. The first was a Brief of the 25th of November 1522, addressed to the Diet assembled at Nuremberg, in which Adrian, after mentioning his assiduous efforts to restore peace in view of the danger arising from the Turks, went thoroughly into the question of the religious confusion in Germany. The originator of the trouble was Luther, who had himself to blame if he, Adrian, could no longer call him a son. Regardless of the Papal Bull of condemnation and of the Edict of Worms, he continued, in writings full of error, heresy, calumny, and destruction, to corrupt the minds and morals of Germany and the adjacent countries. It was still worse that Luther should have adherents and abettors among the princes, so that the possessions of the clergy—this perhaps was the first inducement to the present disorder—and the spiritual and secular authority were attacked, and a state of civil war had been brought about. Thus, at what was perhaps the worst moment of the Turkish danger, division and revolt had broken out in “our once so steadfast German nation”. The Pope recalled how, when residing in Spain as Cardinal, he had heard with heartfelt sorrow of the disturbance in his beloved German fatherland. He had then consoled himself with the hope that this was only transitory, and would not long be tolerated, especially among a people from whom in all ages illustrious antagonists of heresy had arisen. But now that this evil tree—perchance as a chastisement for the people’s sins or through the negligence of those who ought to have administered punishment—was beginning to spread its branches far and wide, the German princes and peoples should take good heed lest through passive acquiescence they come to be regarded as the promoters of so great a mischief: “We cannot even think of anything so incredible as that so great, so pious a nation should allow a petty monk, an apostate from that Catholic faith which for years he had preached, to seduce it from the way pointed out by the Saviour and His Apostles, sealed by the blood of so many martyrs, trodden by so many wise and holy men, your forefathers, just as if Luther alone were wise, and alone had the Holy Spirit, as if the Church, to which Christ promised His presence to the end of all days, had been walking in darkness and foolishness, and on the road to destruction, until Luther’s new light came to illuminate the darkness”. The Diet might well consider how the new teaching had renounced all obedience and gave permission to every man to gratify his wishes to the full. “Are they likely”, continued Adrian, “to remain obedient to the laws of the Empire who not merely despise those of the Church, the decrees of fathers and councils, but do not fear to tear them in pieces and burn them to ashes? We adjure you to lay aside all mutual hatreds, to strive for this one thing, to quench this fire and to bring back, by all ways in your power, Luther and other instigators of error and unrest into the right way; for such a charitable undertaking would be most pleasing and acceptable to us. If, nevertheless, which God forbid, you will not listen, then must the rod of severity and punishment be used according to the laws of the Empire and the recent Edict. God knows our willingness to forgive; but if it should be proved that the evil has penetrated so far that gentle means of healing are of no avail, then we must have recourse to methods of severity in order to safeguard the members as yet untainted by disease”.

Besides this Brief, Chieregati read an Instruction closely connected with it, and then demanded the execution of the Edict of Worms and the punishment of four preachers who had spread heretical teaching from the pulpits of the churches of Nuremberg.

This Instruction, which Chieregati communicated to the Diet, is of exceptional importance for an understanding of Adrian’s plans of reform, and his opinion of the state of things. The document, unique in the history of the Papacy, develops still more fully the principles already laid down in the foregoing Brief for the guidance of the German nation in their opposition to Lutheran errors. Besides the glory of God and the love of their neighbour, they are bidden to remember what is due to their glorious loyalty to the faith, whereby they have won the right to be considered the most Christian of all peoples, as well as the dishonour done to their forefathers by Luther, who has accused them of false belief and condemned them to the damnation of hell. Moreover, they must consider the danger of rebellion against all higher authority introduced by this doctrine under the guise of evangelical freedom, the scandals and disquiet already aroused, and the encouragement to break the most sacred vows in defiance of apostolic teaching, by which things Luther has set an example worse than that of Mohammed. On all these grounds Chieregati is justified in demanding the execution of the Papal and Imperial decrees; yet at the same time he must be ready to offer pardon to penitent sinners.

The objection, which ever gained wider acceptance, that Luther had been condemned unheard and upon insufficient inquiry, meets with thorough refutation in the Papal Instruction. The basis of belief is divine authority and not human testimony. St. Ambrose says : “Away with the arguments by which men try to arrive at belief; we believe in the Fisherman, not in dialecticians”. Luther’s only vindication lay in the questions of fact, whether he had or had not said, preached, and written this or that. But the divine law itself, and the doctrine of the sacraments, were to the saints and to the Church an irrefragable truth.

Almost all Luther’s deviations of doctrine had already been condemned by various councils; what the whole Church had accepted as an axiom of belief must not again be made a matter of doubt : “Otherwise, what guarantee remains for permanent belief? Or what end can there be to controversy and strife, if every conceited and puzzle­headed upstart is at liberty to dissent from teaching which puts forth its claims not as the opinion only of one man or of a number of men, but as established and consecrated by the unanimous consent of so many centuries and so many of the wisest men and by the decision of the Church, infallible in matters of faith? Since Luther and his party now condemn the councils of the holy fathers, annul sacred laws and ordinances, turn all things upside down, as their caprice dictates, and bring the whole world into confusion, it is manifest, if they persist in such deeds, that they must be suppressed, as enemies and destroyers of public peace, by all who have that peace at heart”.

In the last and most remarkable portion of the Instruction, Adrian set forth with broadminded candour the grounds on which the religious innovators justified their defection from the Church on account of the corruption of the clergy, as well as that corruption itself. “You are also to say”, so run Chieregati’s express instructions, “that we frankly acknowledge that God permits this persecution of His Church on account of the sins of men, and especially of prelates and clergy of a surety the Lord's arm is not shortened that He cannot save us, but our sins separate us from Him, so that He does not hear. Holy Scripture declares aloud that the sins of the people are the outcome of the sins of the priesthood; therefore, as Chrysostom declares, when our Saviour wished to cleanse the city of Jerusalem of its sickness, He went first to the Temple to punish the sins of the priests before those of others, like a good physician who heals a disease at its roots. We know well that for many years things deserving of abhorrence have gathered round the Holy See; sacred things have been misused, ordinances transgressed, so that in everything there has been a change for the worse. Thus it is not surprising that the malady has crept down from the head to the members, from the Popes to the hierarchy.

“We all, prelates and clergy, have gone astray from the right way, and for long there is none that has done good; no, not one. To God, therefore, we must give all the glory and humble ourselves before Him; each one of us must consider how he has fallen and be more ready to judge himself than to be judged by God in the day of His wrath. Therefore, in our name give promises that we shall use all diligence to reform before all things the Roman Curia, whence, perhaps, all these evils have had their origin ; thus healing will begin at the source of sickness. We deem this to be all the more our duty, as the whole world is longing for such reform. The Papal dignity was not the object of our ambition, and we would rather have closed our days in the solitude of private life; willingly would we have put aside the tiara; the fear of God alone, the validity of our election, and the dread of schism, decided us to assume the position of Chief Shepherd. We desire to wield our power not as seeking dominion or means for enriching our kindred, but in order to restore to Christ’s bride, the Church, her former beauty, to give help to the oppressed, to uplift men of virtue and learning, above all, to do all that beseems a good shepherd and a successor of the blessed Peter.

“Yet let no man wonder if we do not remove all abuses at one blow ; for the malady is deeply rooted and takes many forms. We must advance, therefore, step by step, first applying the proper remedies to the most difficult and dangerous evils, so as not by a hurried reform to throw all things into greater confusion than before. Aristotle well says: ‘All sudden changes are dangerous to States’.”

In some supplementary instructions based on Chieregati’s reports, Adrian also undertook that in future there should be no infringement of the concordats already agreed upon. With regard to cases decided in the Rota, in which a reversal of judgment was desired in Germany, he would, as soon as the Auditors, who had fled before the plague, were reassembled, and as far as was consistent with honour, come to some understanding; he anxiously awaited pro­posals as to the best way to hinder the advance of the new teaching, and wished to be made acquainted with the names of learned, pious, and deserving Germans on whom Church preferment could be bestowed, as nothing had been more hurtful to the saving of souls than the appointment of unworthy priests.

The unprecedented publicity which Adrian in this Instruction gave to the abuses so long dominant in Rome, and the communication of this document to the Diet, certainly not in opposition to the Pope’s wishes, have often been blamed as impolitic acts; even the Papal admission of guilt has itself been questioned as incorrect and exaggerated. The charge of exaggeration cannot be sustained: the corruption in Rome was undoubtedly as great as Adrian described it to be. If there was to be any effectual cure, it was necessary that this lofty-minded Pope, in his enthusiasm for reform, should lay bare, with heroic courage, the wounds that called for healing.

On looking at the Instruction as a whole, we see that the Pope did not surrender, even on the smallest point, his firm ecclesiastical principles. He draws a sharp and definite line between the divine and human elements in the Church. The authority of the latter rests on God only : in matters of belief it is infallible. The members of the Church, however, are subject to human corruption, and all, good as well as bad, must not shrink from confession of guilt before God, the confession which every priest, even the holiest, has to lay on the steps of the altar before offering the sacrifice of the Mass. Such a confession Adrian as High Priest made before the whole world openly, solemnly, and  explicitly in expiation of the sins of his predecessors and as the earnest of a better future. Firmly convinced of the divine character of the Church, he nevertheless does not shrink one jot from speaking freely, though in grief, of the evils and abuses that lay open as day before the eyes of the world and brought dishonour on her external system of government

What is to be said of the charge of impolicy brought against the Instruction? Was the Pope’s uncompromising admission of the corruption of Rome a short-sighted blunder whereby he sharpened one of the keenest weapons of the enemy? Many staunch partisans of the Church have thought so; but this is a narrow conception, without justification. Adrian was right in rising to a much higher idea of the Church; moreover, he was too clear-sighted a theologian to feel alarm for the true interests of the Church from a confession of guilt which was an actual matter of fact. It is sin itself, not its acknowledgment, which is dishonouring. With genuine German frankness and sincerity, which on this very account were unintelligible to the Romans, Adrian VI, in a magnanimous and honourable spirit, had turned to the noble and well­loved nation from which he came, with a courageous confession of abuses, promises of thorough reform, and exhortations to the maintenance of unity, law, and order in the Church. “It lay with the nations to reply in the same noble temper. But the existing tone was one of discord, and the prospect of reconciliation vanished never to return ; the gulf grew wider and wider, and no power on earth was able to close it”.

Had it depended upon the Archduke Ferdinand and the Elector Joachim of Brandenburg, the Pope’s solicitations for the execution of the Edict of Worms would have been acceded to. But neither succeeded in having his way. Hans von der Planitz, who was devoted to the new teaching and an active and astute champion of the Saxon Elector, knew how to procrastinate; the majority determined not to commit themselves at first to any definite answer, but to refer the whole matter to a consultative committee. In addition to the pressure put upon them by the unsettled condition of the Empire, they were influenced by an outbreak of indignation cleverly worked up by the Lutheran party on account of Chieregati’s demand for proceedings against the four preachers of Nuremberg. The town council had already, on the 5th of January 1523, decided to prevent this, if necessary by force. As Chieregati still remained obstinate, this matter also was referred to the committee. The Papal Nuncio soon found himself exposed to such insults, threats, and acts of violence that he hardly any longer dared to show himself in the streets.

The preachers, on the other hand, only became more vehement; “If the Pope”, declared one of them from the pulpit in the church of St. Lawrence, “were to add a fourth crown to the three already on his head, he would not on that account rob me of the word of God”. This feeling in the city, as well as the critical condition of the Empire, had from the first a strong influence on the conduct of affairs. The result gave satisfaction to neither party. The Lutherans certainly in no way derived a complete victory, but the Catholics and the Pope were equally unsuccessful in achieving their most important object, the execution of the Edict of Worms. This was postponed as being at the time impracticable; simultaneously demands were made on the Curia in a more imperative and aggressive form for the removal of German grievances and the convocation of a free Council on German soil; until then nothing else was to be preached except “the Holy Gospel as laid down in the Scriptures approved and received by the Christian Church, and nothing new was to be printed or offered for sale unless first examined and approved by learned persons especially appointed for that purpose”. Had the clergy, with their decided preponderance in the Diet, fulfilled their duties in a corporate capacity, the unsatisfactory result of the negotiations would be inexplicable. But both courage and good-will were wanting in too many of the prelates. The critical condition within the Empire, threatened by an outbreak of revolution, “put them”, as Planitz wrote,  “in fear of their skins”. Had it not been for the determined action of the Papal Nuncio, the affairs of the Church might well have been entirely neglected.

The prelates were not only weak-spirited, they were also steeped in worldliness. Heedless of the necessities of the age, they thought more of worldly enjoyments, the banquet and the dance, than of the deliberations of the Diet. The earnestness of the Nuncio was displeasing to them, still more the frank avowal of general blame and responsibility by a Pope who knew only too well the laxity of the German hierarchy. Adrian’s hope that the German prelates would search their own hearts, and even now smite their breasts as penitent sinners, was proved to be futile. Far from it, these worldly-minded men felt themselves affronted and roused to wrath at the bare idea of paying attention to the Papal declarations. Such small amount of zeal as there was for co-operation in Adrian’s wishes very soon sank below zero. Moreover, among the Catholic secular princes opinion was for the most part “out-and-out Lutheran.”

The party of the new belief, cleverly led by Planitz and Johann von Schwarzenberg, opposed at first a discreet silence to the Pope’s magnanimous candour, in order there and then to bring to the front the demand for the punishment of the preachers and afterwards to fall upon the Nuncio. Even a man of so refined a culture as Melanchthon was not ashamed4 to describe the latter as no better than a weathercock; still worse was the license with which he and Luther inveighed against Adrian. In the spring of 1523 they issued a foul pamphlet aimed, under allusions to a monstrosity discovered in Rome in the reign of Alexander VI, at the strictest and most austere Pope ever raised to the Chair of Peter. Luther did not think it worth his trouble even to take notice of Adrian’s good intentions. He saw in him only the Antichrist: the whole “injustice and savagery” of his polemic is shown in the gibes “at the stupidity and ignorance” ascribed by him to this great man. “The Pope” he wrote, “is a magister noster of Louvain; in that University such asses are crowned; out of his mouth Satan speaks”.

Luther and his associates show thus plainly that their object was not the removal of abuses from the Church, but its fundamental overthrow. Regardless of the stipulation of Nuremberg, they urged on their politico-religious agitation. On the 28th of March 1523, Luther addressed to the heads of the German religious orders his appeal, calling on them to break their vows, contract marriages, and divide amongst themselves the property of their orders. He continued as before to revile the noble German Pontiff as a blind tyrant, a charlatan, even as the special minister of Satan.

For this Luther found a pretext on the 31st of May 1523 in Adrian’s canonization of Bishop Benno of Meissen. On the same day the Florentine Archbishop Antonino was raised to the altars of the Church. The lavish expenditure hitherto associated with such ceremonies was prohibited by Adrian. The canonization of such illustrious examples of the bygone episcopate was intended to appeal to their less spiritual successors. But the Pope’s lofty intention of thus uplifting the higher clergy was as little understood in Italy as in Germany; he also experienced a bitter disappointment in Erasmus, who had written to his former teacher immediately after his election, assuring Adrian of his orthodoxy and dedicating to him his edition of Arnobius. In answer, Adrian addressed Erasmus on the 1st of December 1522 in a lengthy and paternal Brief, thanking him for the dedication, setting his mind at rest with regard to certain accusations brought against him, and at the same time urgently entreating him to use his great literary gifts against the new errors. This practical Netherlander, now seated in the Papal Chair, wished to see Erasmus doing something and not merely conveying to him graceful words of compliment. He shrewdly remarks that Erasmus by such activity would best put to silence those who wished to implicate him in the Lutheran business: “Rouse thyself, rouse thyself to the defence of the things of God, and go forth to employ in His honour the great gifts of the Spirit thou hast received from Him. Consider how it lies with you, through God’s help, to bring back into the right way very many of those whom Luther has seduced, to give steadfastness to those who have not yet fallen, and to preserve from falling those whose steps are tottering”. He recommends as best that Erasmus should come to Rome, where he would find at his disposal literary resources and the society of learned and pious men. Adrian, who was well aware of the disinclination of Erasmus to any violent treatment of the innovators, very adroitly seizes this opportunity of impressing upon him that he also was much more desirous of the voluntary return of those who had been misled than of their compulsion under spiritual and secular penalties; to the attainment of this end, Erasmus would best conduce by engaging in a literary warfare with the friends of Luther. In the same spirit and at the same time, Adrian also admonished the University of Cologne.

On the 22nd of December 1522, Erasmus himself wrote a second letter to Adrian, in which he already makes sufficiently clear the advice that he purposes to communicate to the Pope in a more confidential manner; he only begs that there shall be no measures of suppression, no intrusion of personal hatreds, to the dishonour of the cause of Christ. To this Adrian answered in the most friendly way on the 23rd of January 1523, again inviting Erasmus to Rome. He looks forward with eager anticipation to the promised advice, “since he has no greater desire than to find the right means of removing from the midst of our nation this abominable evil while it is yet curable, not because our dignity and authority, so far as they concern us personally, seem endangered in the stormy tempests of the times—for not only have we never set our heart on these things, but, seeing that they come upon us without any connivance of ours, have greatly dreaded them, and, God be our witness, would have declined them altogether had we not feared thereby to offend God and injure our own conscience—but because we see so many thousands of souls, redeemed by the blood of Christ and committed to our pastoral care souls, moreover, belonging, after the flesh, to peoples of our own race—led away on the direct path of destruction through the hope of an evangelical freedom which, in very truth, is a bondage to the Devil”.

The answer of Erasmus to this letter is only preserved in part. Enough remains, however, to show what his position at this time actually was. He coldly declines the enthusiastic summons of the Pope to devote his learning, reputation, and influence to the cause of the Church; he has not the adequate knowledge, nor does he enjoy a sufficient reputation, seeing that both parties, the Lutherans and their opponents, tear him in pieces. Even if his frail health permitted him to make the journey to Rome, he could get through much more work in Basle besides, if he were to write against Luther in measured and decorous terms, he would appear to be jesting with him. “If I were to imitate his own style of writing and make a hostile onslaught on Lutheranism, I should raise about me a hornet’s nest”. To this excuse Erasmus joins a warning against violent measures yet, in contradiction to this, he expresses the wish that the authorities “may beat back the innovations”; further, he trusts that the Pope may lead the world to hope that some of the things justly complained of may be altered. He recommends that incorruptible, moderate, and dispassionate men should be convoked from every country in Europe, in order to deliberate on reform. Here the letter breaks off. We are left in uncertainty whether Erasmus still adhered to his scheme of settling the Lutheran question by means of the arbitration of learned men; in any case, the conditions were less favourable for such a course than they had been in 1520, when Erasmus exerted himself to carry out this favourite project.

Adrian VI had also made attempts to win back the man who, in connection with the Lutheran ideas, had introduced into German Switzerland a movement of apostasy from Rome. The Pope’s position was one of twofold difficulty in respect of Switzerland, as there remained a debt of 30,000 ducats due from Leo X to the cantons. With great exertions Adrian VI succeeded, in the first instance, in finding the money required to pay the Zurichers, and in January 1523 he handed over to them 18,000 Rhenish gulden. In April he sent Ennio Filonardi to the Swiss in order to secure their neutrality, and, in case of a French invasion of Italy, an alliance; he gave him a letter to Ulrich Zwingli promising him rewards if he supported the Nuncio. But in the meantime Zwingli had already initiated his breach with Rome in his first discourse at Zurich on religion. Similar designs occupied the mind of the Grand Master of the Teutonic Order, Albert of Brandenburg, despite his still repeated asseverations of loyalty to the Pope and the Church. He had even instructed the Roman procurator of the Order to obtain from the Pope a penal edict against any of his knights who had joined the party of Luther! Adrian, who had ordered Albert to accept without alteration the reforms of the Order already prescribed by Leo X, was spared the experience of seeing this German Prince, in violation of his vows, obtain the secularization of the lands of the Order for which he had denounced in Rome the King of Poland.

Next to Germany the countries of Scandinavia repeatedly claimed Adrian’s attention. The want of determination shown by Leo X with regard to the arbitrary government of the tyrannical Christian II of Denmark had inflicted serious injury on the Church in those countries. That under Adrian a stronger conception of duty prevailed is clear from the transactions of a Consistory held on the 29th of April 1523. But before a decree against Christian was drawn up, the King had been compelled to leave his kingdom, where the government was taken over by his uncle, Frederick of Gottorp. On the ground of the Union of Colmar, Frederick also claimed acknowledgment in Sweden; but in vain. Gustavus Wasa, the gifted leader of the Swedish national party, since 1521 administrator of the kingdom, was, on the 6th of June 1523, proclaimed in the Diet of Strengnas “King of Sweden and of the Goths”.

Luther’s teaching had also made its way into Sweden through the efforts of Olaus Petri, and during the confusion of the war of independence had spread unhindered. As an apt pupil of the Wittenberg Professor, at whose feet he had sat, Olaus Petri declaimed quite openly in Strengnas against the sacrament of penance and the veneration of the saints; at the same time he proclaimed the duty of the Church to return to apostolic poverty. He soon found a like-minded colleague in Laurentius Andrea. Their anti­Catholic agitation was able to make unimpeded progress as long as the see of Strengnas was vacant. The state of disorder into which the Swedish Church had fallen, in consequence of the turmoil of the preceding years, is best illustrated by the fact that, with the exception of the excellent Johann Brask in Linkoping, and the revered Ingemar in Vexjo, there were no other bishops in the whole country.

Adrian did not neglect the needs of the Swedish Church in order to help, he sent, in the person of Johann Magni, a legate of Swedish extraction, with whom he had been personally acquainted from the Louvain days. Magni arrived in Strengnas when the election of Gustavus Wasa to the throne was already accomplished. The cunning sovereign, at heart estranged from the Church, and covetous of the rich possessions of the clergy, concealed his real feelings and received the Pope’s representative with every token of honour. Johann Magni’s mission resembled that of Chieregati: he was to announce Adrian’s readiness to remove abuses in the Church, but at the same time to call upon the government of the kingdom to take steps against the Lutheran innovations. In reply, the royal council, inspired by the King, first expressed satisfaction at the Pope’s promises of reform, but immediately went on to insist, as indispensable preliminaries for the Swedish Church, on the formal deposition of the Archbishop of Upsala, Gustavus Trolle “the turbulent”, who had been sentenced to perpetual exile as a partisan of the Danish king Christian II, and the institution of good native-born bishops to the vacant sees, and especially of a peace­abiding primate. Until this was done it would be a hard task to eradicate the many errors introduced into the Christian religion—the name of Luther being intentionally omitted. The question of the Episcopate being settled, the Papal Nuncio was to return and undertake the best reform possible.

When the Legate on a further occasion made personal representations to the King respecting the payments of money to the Church, and the Lutheran heresy, he received such a very conciliatory answer that he believed his mission to have come to a prosperous issue. The too trustful Magni seems to have shut his eyes to the fact that the King, for all his courtesy, had shirked the essential points, and had not forbidden Olaus Petri to preach Lutheran doctrine in Strengnas. On the loth of September 1523 Gustavus Wasa wrote himself to the Pope that, when the vacant bishoprics were filled by peace-abiding bishops who would be loyal to the Crown, and the Legate returned with newly constituted powers, he would then do all in his power, after taking counsel with the bishops, to extirpate the destructive heresies, and to forward the union of the Muscovites with the Church and the conversion of the Laplanders. A few days later the King forwarded to the Pope the list of bishops chosen by the Swedish chapters, with the name of the Papal Nuncio at their head as Archbishop of Upsala, and asked for their confirmation and for the remission of the customary dues.

It was an extremely clever move thus to link the personal interests of Magni with the formal deposition of Trolle. Magni was on the point of starting for Rome, when a Brief from Adrian arrived to the effect that Trolle was still to be considered Archbishop of Upsala and to be reinstated as such. The Nuncio declared that the document was spurious, but his supposition was wrong : the Pope had actually taken this impolitic step. The King now dropped his mask. Evidently under the influence of the events that had recently taken place at the Diet of Nuremberg, and guided by his secretary, Laurentius Andrea, a man of Lutheran opinions, he sent to the Holy See in the beginning of October a threatening ultimatum; that if the Pope did not withdraw his demands respecting Trolle, the rebel and traitor to his country, he would, on the strength of his royal authority, dispose of the bishops and the Christian religion in his territories in such a manner as would, he believed, be pleasing to God and all Christian princes. To Magni, Gustavus used still plainer language: if his patience and goodness were unavailing, he was determined to let his prerogative have full play and free his people from the intolerable yoke of strangers. A royal letter of the 2nd of November 1523 informed the Pope, the news of whose death had not yet come, that if the confirmation of the proposed candidates for the vacant sees was refused or any longer delayed, he, the King, had made up his mind to care for the orphaned Church in other ways and would enforce the confirmation of those chosen by Christ, the highest Pontiff. All doubt was removed that the King had determined to sever his countries from that Church to which they owed their culture and civilization.

As a consolation amid the sorrow caused to Adrian by the dangers and losses of the Church in Germanic lands came the reconciliation of Theophilus, the schismatic Patriarch of Alexandria, the dawning hopes of a reunion with the Russian schismatics, and the spread of Christianity in the New World. To promote the missionary activity of the Franciscans in America, the Pope conferred upon the Order in that continent extensive privileges : they were to elect their own superior every three years, to possess the full powers of the Minister-General, and even to exercise episcopal functions, except those of ordination. This new organization encouraged the hope that races which, notwithstanding highly developed civilization, were yet votaries of a blood-stained heathen worship, would soon be delivered from the night of idolatry and be won over to the truth of Christianity.