Austrian Emperor Vetoes Papal Election, 1903

Last updated on: September 8, 2009 at 6:56 am by Pat McNamara

Austrian Emperor Vetoes Papal Election, 1903 2009-09-08T06:56:00-06:00 Pat McNamara

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Did you know that Europe’s Catholic monarchs once had the power to veto papal elections through the cardinals of their respective countries? The last time it happened was in the 1903 papal conclave (election) and today marks the death of the last cardinal to use the veto:

Prince Jan Maurycy Paweł Puzyna de Kosielsko (13 September 1842 in Gwoździec, Galicia – 8 September 1911 in Kraków, Poland) was a Roman Catholic Cardinal who was auxiliary bishop of Lwów (now Lviv, Ukraine) from 1886 to 1895, and the bishop of Kraków from 1895 until his death in 1911. Receiving the red hat in 1901, he was known for his conservative views and authoritarianism.

Puzyna was born in 1842 in Galicia, a historical European region that included parts of Poland and Ukraine. Ordained a priest on 1 December 1878, he was raised to auxiliary bishop of Lwów, present-day Lviv, and titular bishop of Memphis on 26 February 1886. He was consecrated a bishop on 25 March of that same year by Mieczysław Halka Ledóchowski, with Archbishop Franziskus von Paula Graf von Schönborn of Prague and Archbishop Josyf Sembratowicz of Ukrainian rite Lviv. On 15 April 1901, Puzyna was created a cardinal, with the title of Santi Vitale, Valeria, Gervasio e Protasio by Pope Leo XIII.

During the conclave of 1903 he presented an exclusive veto against the election of Cardinal Mariano Rampolla. Puzyna wanted to avoid the election of Rampolla, who was sympathetic to Russia and Germany. Among other things, Rampolla sought to curry favor with Russia by abolishing the Polish language and instituting Russian in the Russian partition’s Catholic churches. Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria, too, did not wish to see Rampolla elected to the Chair of Peter. He held a grudge against Rampolla for opposing a proper burial for his son Rudolf, Crown Prince of Austria, upon Rudolf’s suicide. Rampolla also openly supported political forces in Austria that were hostile to the Emperor.

On his way to the conclave, Puzyna met in Vienna with the Emperor and proposed that the Emperor present his veto against Cardinal Rampolla. The Emperor subscribed to the idea, and Puzyna presented the veto on the third day of the conclave. It was the last time such a veto was used. The veto, that was already not recognized by the Church’s law and as such non-binding, still carried much political weight, as the cardinals feared opposing the manifest will of one of the Christian monarchs. The civil veto was abolished by the newly elected Pope Pius X, who imposed the penalty of excommunication upon anyone that would dare to introduce a veto or otherwise interfere in the election of the Roman Pontiff. Pope Pius X further decreed that all cardinals should take an oath upon the beginning of the conclave, promising not to aid any civil power in an attempt to influence the election of the pope.

(From Wikipedia)

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