The papal jubilee.
The papal jubilee.
§ 135. Boniface was first to institute and celebrate a jubilee year in the year of the Lord 1300 (according to Platina in his Vita of this pontiff; Polydorus Vergilius, De rerum invent., bk. 8, ch. 1; and other historians). This pope was especially addicted to greed. Therefore Crantzius (Histor., bk. 4, ch. 26) writes: “Boniface VIII was the first to institute the jubilee. Oh, that he had done it from piety alone! He wanted it to be celebrated also during the hundredth year, but Clement VI (and there is some doubt as to whether this was because of a love of money or a desire for the salvation of people) sanctioned it to be celebrated during the fiftieth year.” Sixtus V reduced it to every twenty-fifth year. They do not esteem this jubilee equally. Osorius (vol. 5, Conc. in publ. jubil.): “When a jubilee is connected to penance, the fullest indulgence is conceded, for at that time a person proceeds from it as if from the baptismal font, free from every sin, so that there is nothing to keep him from flying up into heaven, if he should depart from here.” “The jubilee can be called a third baptism. Just as Baptism is said to be the fullest indulgence, since every fault and punishment is wiped away in it, so also the jubilee can be called a baptism, since something similar happens in it” (p. 864). Clement VIII (in his bull of indiction [Bulla indictionis] of 1600) said: “The peaceable year of the Lord, the year of remission and pardon, is now approaching by the gift of God. Now the acceptable time and the days of eternal salvation are approaching for redeeming sins, for saving souls.” In the bull in which he appointed the jubilee year, Clement commanded the “angels in heaven to carry the soul of the pilgrim who dies on the way to Rome, and to bring it, absolved, from purgatory to eternal joys.” This is quite similar to that which Conradus Lagus of Danzig, who was sent as legate to the Russians, reported: “By unique privilege of the pope, the Russian bishops usually communicated this letter to everyone, if they ransomed it with money. They would then place it in the tomb of a dead person as a sort of provision so that if any dead person should come up to the gates of heaven, Peter would see this provision and permit him to enter without delay.” The form of the letter is as follows: “Makaria, by the grace of God archbishop of Kiev and Halych and in all of Russia, to our lord and friend St. Peter, doorkeeper of the omnipotent God, etc. We signify and command you that after a prince or N., a minister of God, has died at this or that time, at that very moment you look at this letter, put aside all delay, and immediately admit him into the very kingdom of God, for we have absolved him of all his sins and consequently grant him this as our Christian testimony of full absolution and exact remission, so that you may know to carry out these things,” etc. This is according to Wolf (Cent. 16, year 1580, p. 936).
** This is how Alexander Guaguinus of Verona, a gilded knight and captain of the infantry, considers it when he writes in his Descriptio of European Sarmatia these words about the religion of the Muscovites and of all the Ruthenes: “They arrange a sacred funeral service for the dead in such a way that by these intercessions they hope to gain a place more tolerable for the souls, where they can more easily await the last Day of Judgment. In fact, when a man of great authority dies, then the metropolitan or bishop writes a letter to St. Peter, seals it with his signet ring and hand, and places it on the breast of the dead man. This bears witness of his good and pious works and that he should be admitted more easily into heaven after Judgment Day, and that he acknowledges the catholic Christian religion.” **
In the jubilee year celebration of 1500, Alexander VI is said to have acquired three hundred thousand gold pieces.11 When his son, Caesar Borgia, had lost an immense sum of money playing dice, Alexander said as a joke: “What else have we lost than the sins of the Germans?” He knew that the money had come from indulgences, according to Hosea 4:8: “They will eat the sins of My people.”