CLEMENTE II, POPE. — After the forced abdication of Gregorio VI, on 24 December 1046 Suitgero, bishop of Bamberga, was appointed pope by the will of Enrico III. The validity of his election therefore remains doubtful (v. ANTIPAPA). He took the name C. II. Consecrated the following day, the new Pope solemnly crowned the emperor Enrico III and his wife Agnese in St Peter’s. Enrico III also received the title of patrician of the Romans. In this way he was taking up again the policy of Ottone I and now intended to wrest the election of the Pope from the overbearing power of the lay aristocracy and the turmoil of the factions, reserving the designation of the person to the Emperor. Such a measure appeared at that moment to promise abundant good, and therefore s. Pier Damiani
and all the friends of reform exalted Enrico III as a second David and a new Joshua, and expressed the hope that better days were being prepared for the Church.
C.’s pontificate was too brief for him to undertake extensive activity. Concerned to reform the Church, in January 1047 he convened at Rome, in the presence of the Emperor, a council aimed at removing various abuses, especially simony. At it he punished with excommunication anyone who had received money for consecrating a church or conferring Holy Orders and benefices. Anyone, however, who had received Holy Orders from a bishop convicted of simony, but without himself having acted simoniacally, was punished with a penance of forty days. In order to put an end to the disputes over precedence among the archbishops of Ravenna, Milan, and Aquileia, C. decreed that the first place to the right of the Pope, in the Emperor’s absence, should belong to the archbishop of Ravenna. After accompanying the Emperor to southern Italy and Germany, he died at Pesaro on 9 October 1047. His remains were taken to Bamberga and buried there in the choir of the Cathedral. The funerary monument dates from 1237.