Lecture I

What I am about to say seems unrelated to, or apparently unrelated to our subsequent inquiry; it is simply an introductory exposition. From the sixteenth century until 1839 all the Roman Cardinals were obliged to swear a solemn oath. During the pontificate of Pope Sixtus V (1585–90) a sum of five million scudi had been deposited in the Castel Sant’ Angelo to be used only in times of need. And since the Church attached great importance to this, the Cardinals were obliged to swear a solemn oath to preserve the fund intact. In 1839, under the pontificate of Pope Gregory XVI, Cardinal Acton[^1] refused to take the oath; he wanted the Cardinals to be released from their oath to preserve the fund.