Same cardinals choose two different popes in five months

FONDI, Kingdom of Naples, September 20, 1378 AD — In April 1378 AD, sixteen cardinals in Rome chose a new pope while an angry crowd roared outside. That September, thirteen of the same men met again at Fondi, in Italy. They announced that their first vote hadn’t counted, and they chose another man.

From then on, two men each said he was the pope. Every country, every bishop and almost every person in Europe took one side or the other.

One of the people who had to choose was Saint Vincent Ferrer. He was a young Dominican friar from Valencia, in Spain, and he was studying in France. In most places, people followed the pope their king had chosen. But St. Vincent’s king, Peter IV of Aragon, hadn’t picked either pope. So St. Vincent had to decide on his own.

A cardinal who wouldn’t run

The fight started over where the pope should live. For most of that century, popes had lived at Avignon, in France. Then Pope Gregory XI moved back to Rome, and he died there on March 27, 1378 AD. The people of Rome wanted a Roman or Italian pope, so that the next pope would stay.

Most of the cardinals were French. They began the conclave on April 7. Romans attacked the building while they were inside. One cardinal from Aragon, Pedro de Luna, refused to escape. “Even if I must die, I will fall here,” Pedro de Luna said. The next day the cardinals chose Bartolomeo Prignano, the archbishop of Bari. He took the name Urban VI, and Pedro de Luna voted for him.

Nobody complained at first. The cardinals crowned Pope Urban VI at St. Peter’s on April 18. They wrote to the kings of Europe with the news.

Second thoughts at Fondi

Pope Urban VI turned out to be suspicious and harsh with the cardinals who had elected him. In May they left Rome, saying the summer heat was unhealthy. By July they were at Fondi, where Queen Joanna of Naples protected them. There they began to say that the crowd had frightened them into their choice. A vote made in fear wasn’t free, they said, so it didn’t count.

On September 20 they chose Robert of Geneva, who took the name Clement VII. Pedro de Luna voted with them. Clement VII soon moved his court to Avignon.

Only the cardinals had seen what happened inside the voting room, and now they had said both things. In time, most of Italy and Germany backed the pope in Rome, and so did England and Flanders. France, Spain and Scotland backed the pope in Avignon.

A book for the king

St. Vincent picked Avignon, and he didn’t do it halfway. He was young, and once he made up his mind he held to it. He believed the cardinals on Avignon’s side. They said the crowd had put the conclave in danger, so the April vote wasn’t free.

A French Dominican later wrote St. Vincent’s life. He thought that Pedro de Luna’s account of the vote helped St. Vincent decide. In 1379 AD Pedro de Luna was in Aragon, trying to win the king over to Avignon. He took St. Vincent on to work for him.

In 1380 AD St. Vincent published a book, his Treatise on the Schism. The first half argued that the Church could only be put right if everyone obeyed the true pope. The second half told how the split began. It ended by declaring that Clement VII was the true pope.

St. Vincent offered the book to King Peter. The king was staying out of the quarrel, because while he did, he could take church money and keep it. After the book came out, though, King Peter moved much closer to the pope in Avignon. The book also changed the minds of many people in Aragon who hadn’t been able to decide.

The Church counts Pope Urban VI and the popes who came after him in Rome as the true popes. Clement VII, the man St. Vincent wrote his book to defend, is counted as an antipope.

When Clement VII died in 1394 AD, the cardinals at Avignon chose Pedro de Luna to take his place. He was the cardinal who wouldn’t run from the crowd in Rome, and St. Vincent’s friend.