Fifth Lateran Council (1512-1517)

Conciliarism after Constance and Basel

The underlying problem comes from the fifteenth century. The Council of Constance had ended the Western Schism; the Council of Basel then revived the idea that a council could stand durably against the pope. The question was no longer merely theoretical: princes could use the vocabulary of conciliar reform to put pressure on Rome.^[7]

In France, the Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges of 1438 had received several decisions of Basel and strengthened Gallican liberties. For Rome, the danger was twofold: a national Church too autonomous and a political use of the general council against the Apostolic See.^[8]

The conciliabulum of Pisa of 1511

In 1511, a few cardinals opposed to Julius II, backed by Louis XII, convened an assembly at Pisa. The acts of Lateran V and the historical notices designate it as a conciliabulum, that is, an assembly claiming conciliar rank without sufficient canonical legitimacy. Its gradual failure was decisive: several supporters withdrew, the assembly moved and lost its credibility.^[9][10]

Lateran V was therefore first of all a Roman answer. It was not born in the calm of a long-matured pastoral programme, but in a crisis of authority: who may convene a universal council? A group of cardinals with a king's backing, or the pope in communion with the Church?

A reform awaited but too late

The council also spoke of reform. Ecclesiastical abuses were real: accumulation of benefices, absenteeism, curial taxation, unregulated preaching, printed books without control, tensions among Christian princes. Lateran V tried to answer them with disciplinary decrees, but their implementation remained insufficient.^[11]

This point explains its ambivalent reception. The council was not empty; it promulgated real texts. But the reform it outlined lacked the time, the depth and the vigour that would have been needed on the eve of the Protestant rupture.

The Lateran, Roman seat of pontifical government

The council was held at the Lateran, in the traditional seat of medieval pontifical government. The Basilica of St John Lateran is the cathedral of the Bishop of Rome; the choice of place thus expressed continuity with the four previous Lateran councils.^[12]

The Fathers gathered at the Lateran from 3 May 1512; the first solemn session was held on 10 May 1512 under Julius II. After the latter's death on 21 February 1513, Leo X continued the council and led it to the twelfth session, on 16 March 1517.^[13][14]

Twelve sessions over two pontificates

The twelve sessions do not form a uniform block. The first ones mainly answered the Pisan schism; the central sessions contain the most important doctrinal and disciplinary texts; the last ones aimed at Christian peace, reform and closure.

Julius II, pope of struggle and restoration

Julius II, pope from 1503 to 1513, is famous for his political, military and artistic energy. He entrusted Michelangelo with the vault of the Sistine Chapel and protected Raphael, but he also governed as a Renaissance prince. In the conciliar dossier, his role is clear: he refused to let Pisa become a new Basel and convened a legitimate council at the Lateran.^[24]

His pontificate shows the tension of the time: a pope could defend a just ecclesiological position while belonging to a political culture deeply marked by Italian rivalries, military alliances and temporal ambitions.

Leo X, Medici pope and closure of the council

Leo X, elected on 11 March 1513 and crowned on 19 March 1513, is the pope who promulgated the major texts of Lateran V. It was under his pontificate that Apostolici regiminis, Inter multiplices and Pastor aeternus gregem were published. He closed the council on 16 March 1517.^[25][26]

His historical image remains dominated by the indulgences crisis and by the later condemnation of Luther. For Lateran V, two things must be distinguished: Leo X did have doctrinal and disciplinary texts promulgated; but he did not succeed in turning these texts into a reform strong enough to prevent the fracture.

Louis XII and the cardinals of Pisa

The King of France Louis XII used the conciliar dossier in his conflict with Julius II. The cardinals who supported Pisa relied on the vocabulary of reform, but their movement was soon perceived as an instrument of political pressure. According to H. Leclercq, the eighth session of Lateran V — dated 17 December 1513 in his notice, 19 December in the critical edition^[27] — read an act by which Louis XII disavowed Pisa and adhered to the Lateran council; the text of this act, distinct from the printed constitutions, has not been found in the critical edition of the acts.^[28] The substance — the adherence of the King of France to the Lateran and the rejection of the conciliabulum of Pisa — is on the other hand recorded by an act of the council itself: the closing bull of the twelfth session records that King Louis adhered to the Lateran council and held Pisa as condemned.^[29]

This development gave the council its first success: the Pisan front disintegrated. Lateran V did not settle all the weaknesses of the Church, but it prevented the lasting establishment of a rival council.

Apostolici regiminis: the human soul is personal and immortal

The major doctrinal text is the bull Apostolici regiminis, promulgated at the eighth session. It targeted neo-Aristotelian or Averroist currents — philosophers who, reading Aristotle through his commentator Averroes, refused each man his own immortal soul — when they maintained, at least on the philosophical plane, that the intellective soul would be mortal or single for all men.^[30]

"We condemn and reject all those who insist that the intellectual soul is mortal, or that it is only one among all human beings, and those who suggest doubts on this topic." — Lateran V, Apostolici regiminis, DS 1440 (English translation)^[31]

The council took up the doctrine of the Council of Vienne: the rational soul is the form of the human body. But it explicitly added two precisions: it is immortal and it is multiplied according to the multiplicity of bodies. In other words, each human person possesses his own spiritual soul; there is no common human intelligence of which individuals would be merely transient supports.^[32]

Philosophical truth and truth of faith

The rest of the text refused the thesis of a double truth. One cannot maintain that a proposition would be true in philosophy and false in faith if it contradicts a revealed truth. The Denzinger thus sums up the decision: truth cannot be contrary to truth; every assertion opposed to enlightened faith is false.^[33]

This point has lasting scope. Lateran V did not condemn philosophy; it condemned a way of hiding behind philosophy to maintain a proposition incompatible with Catholic doctrine. Reason and faith are not two enemy worlds, but two accesses to truth which cannot really contradict each other.

The monti di pietà: economic charity and refusal of usury

The decree Inter multiplices dealt with the monti di pietà, charitable lending institutions meant to offer the poor an alternative to usurious lenders. The debate was subtle: some theologians feared that levying charges beyond the loaned capital was already usury; others answered that moderate administration costs, without profit, were necessary for the institution to function.^[34][35]

Lateran V decided in favour of the lawfulness of the monti di pietà when they did not seek profit and levied only a moderate indemnity for necessary expenses. The text even declared this loan meritorious, praiseworthy and not usurious.^[36]

This decision mattered because it showed a concrete reform. The council did not content itself with condemning usury; it protected a social institution able to help the poor without abandoning traditional moral doctrine.

The printing of books

The tenth session also promulgated, in the acts dated 4 May 1515, rules on printing (the so-called bull Inter sollicitudines) — a text distinct from the decree on the monti di pietà (Inter multiplices) given in the same session. The printed book was already transforming the circulation of ideas: theological texts, pamphlets, translations, satires and treatises circulated far faster than in the previous century. Lateran V therefore required prior examination of books, especially in places where printing was active.^[37]

The measure may seem defensive to a modern reader, but it answered a new fact: the printed writing had a power of diffusion the manuscript did not have. A few years later, the Lutheran controversy would demonstrate exactly this force.

Pastor aeternus gregem and the Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges

The bull Pastor aeternus gregem, at the eleventh session, abrogated the Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges. It affirmed that the acts of Basel received by Bourges could not serve as a foundation against Rome, since they belonged to the phase when Basel had opposed the transfer willed by Eugene IV.^[38]

"[...] it is clearly established that only the contemporary Roman pontiff, as holding authority over all councils, has the full right and power to summon, transfer and dissolve councils." — Lateran V, Pastor aeternus gregem, DS 1445 (English translation)^[39]

This text must not be read as a definition of pontifical infallibility, which belongs to the First Vatican Council. Lateran V dealt here first with the relationship between pope and council: an ecumenical council is not a permanent assembly that can turn against the legitimate pope according to the interests of a kingdom.

A success against Pisa

On its immediate objective, Lateran V succeeded. The conciliabulum of Pisa did not become a lasting centre of ecclesial authority. Louis XII drew closer to the Lateran, the supporters of Pisa dispersed and juridical unity around the pope was restored.^[40]

This result had real importance. After the Western Schism, the Latin Church could not afford a new institutional competition between rival councils, kingdoms and the papacy. Lateran V closed off this danger.

A reform too weak before the Reformation

The negative reception of the council comes from its other objective: reform. The texts existed, but they did not produce the expected spiritual and institutional shock. The abuses that would feed the Protestant crisis did not disappear. The contrast was brutal: Lateran V closed its work in March 1517; Luther's challenge became public in October of the same year.^[41]

This weakness does not mean the council had been useless. It means that Catholic reform needed more than a series of decrees: it demanded an institutional, pastoral and doctrinal conversion which would take its full shape only with the Council of Trent.

A discreet but doctrinally real council

Lateran V remains cited for the doctrine of the soul. The Catechism of the Catholic Church refers to this tradition when it teaches that every spiritual soul is immediately created by God, that it is not produced by the parents and that it is immortal.^[42]

The council thus keeps a precise place: less famous than Lateran IV, less structuring than Trent, but important for Catholic anthropology and for closing the medieval conciliarist cycle.

A clear limit to anthropological materialism

Lateran V recalled that the human being is not only a biological organism. His intellective soul is personal, immortal and irreducible to a material function. This doctrine does not resolve all contemporary questions on the brain, consciousness or evolution, but it fixes a boundary: no scientific explanation of man can eliminate the spiritual soul without leaving Catholic faith.^[43][44]

A clarification of the pope-council relationship

The council also marked the practical end of a certain Western conciliarist temptation. An ecumenical council is not a political weapon that cardinals or princes can turn against the pope. This clarification indirectly prepared modern ecclesiology, even though Vatican I and Vatican II would later specify primacy, the episcopate and collegiality differently.

A warning about reforms that come too late

Finally, Lateran V remains a historical warning. A true reform cannot content itself with being right in texts. It must touch pastors, institutions, finances, preaching, catechesis and real spiritual life. Lateran V saw several problems; it did not transform them fast enough. Trent would be, in part, the Catholic answer to this delay.

• Read Florence: the preceding council in the Catholic list, still marked by the union dossiers and the legacy of Basel.
• Read The Council of Trent: the great doctrinal and disciplinary reform after the Protestant rupture.
• Read The soul immediately created by God: to deepen the Catholic doctrine of the spiritual soul.
• Keep in mind the heart of the matter: Lateran V closed the medieval conciliarist cycle, affirmed the personal immortality of the soul and attempted a reform that would remain too weak on the eve of 1517.