en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
1 correction found
Innocent XII banned the practice with his 1692 anti-nepotism papal bull Romanum decet Pontificem.
Romanum decet Pontificem did not end papal relatives being made cardinals. It restricted nepotism and allowed only one papal relative to be eligible for the cardinalate, and later cardinal-nephews were still created.
Full reasoning
This overstates what Romanum decet pontificem did.
According to the New Catholic Encyclopedia entry on Innocent XII, the 1692 bull "forbade nepotism" but specifically decreed that only one of the pope's relatives should be eligible for the cardinalate. In other words, it restricted papal nepotism; it did not completely end the creation of papal relatives as cardinals.
Later history confirms this. Institutional sources on Neri Maria Corsini state that his uncle Lorenzo Corsini became Pope Clement XII in 1730 and that Neri Maria was made a cardinal the same year. CoopCulture even refers to him explicitly as "cardinal nephew Neri Corsini".
So the bull did not literally "ban the practice" of creating cardinal-nephews in the sense defined earlier in the article. It abolished or curtailed the old system of papal nepotism, but later papal relatives still entered the College of Cardinals.
3 sources
- Innocent XII, Pope | Encyclopedia.com
By the Romanum decet pontificem (June 22, 1692) he forbade nepotism, decreeing that only one of the pope's relatives should be eligible for the cardinalate.
- The Cardinal's rooms. Neri Maria Corsini, a leading player in 18th century Rome - Gallerie Nazionali Barberini Corsini
Moving to Rome in 1726, he lived with his uncle Cardinal Lorenzo Corsini who was elected to the papacy in 1730, taking the name of Clement XII (1730-40). Raised to the purple in the same year...
- Galleria Corsini | CoopCulture
A part of the palace is now home to the Accademia dei Lincei, into whose library the book collection of cardinal nephew Neri Corsini has flowed... The collection held in the palace ... was set up by Pope Clement XII ... and his nephew Cardinal Neri Maria (1685-1770).