This week in Christian history: Puritans apologize for Salem witch trials, Reformation ally dies

By Michael Gryboski, Mainline Church Editor Sunday, January 14, 2024

Pope Pius II issues decree against councils – Jan. 18, 1460

Pope Pius II (1405-1464), former head of the Roman Catholic Church who briefly led a failed crusade against the Turks. | Public Domain

This week marks the anniversary of when Pope Pius II issued a papal bull denouncing any effort to appeal to church councils to challenge the authority of the pontiff, a movement known as conciliarism.

Known as Execrabilis, the edict denounced any effort to make present or future councils superior in authority to the pope, threatening any person who did so with excommunication.

“An execrable, and in former ages unheard-of abuse, has sprung up in our time, namely that many people, imbued with the spirit of rebellion, presume to appeal to a future Council from the Roman Pontiff, the Vicar of Jesus Christ,” stated the papal bull.

“… we condemn appeals of this kind by the counsel of all prelates and jurisconsults of Divine and human law adhering to the Curia and on the ground of our sure knowledge; and we denounce them as erroneous and detestable, quash and entirely annul them in the event that any such appeals, extant at present, may be discovered, and we declare and determine that they are–like something void and pestilent–of no significance.”