MONARCHIA SICULA. — From the beginning of the sixteenth century, the name m. s. was given to the right claimed by the kings of Sicily to exercise in their kingdom also the supreme ecclesiastical power, as representatives of the Holy See.
The claim was based on the privilege granted by Pope Urban II to Count Ruggero I of Sicily and Calabria on
5 July 1098, in recognition of his merits in the struggle against the Saracens. In the bull, the Pope assured Ruggero and his successors that he would not send any legate to Sicily against their will and that he would make use of them, legati vice, for the execution of pontifical provisions ordinarily carried out through legates. They thus obtained the right of apostolic legation in their lands, without this in any way implying that the rights of the Holy See were excluded anywhere.
The exceptional concession gave rise from the outset to conflicts of interpretation. Paschal II, who succeeded Urban II, while confirming it, sought to restrict it (1117); but Adrian IV in 1136 was obliged to recognize its broad extent. Innocent III (1198–1216), the great champion of pontifical authority, set it aside. It was the canonists of the Spanish court, at the time of state absolutism, who rediscovered the document and on its basis erected, for the benefit of their kings, as successors to the rights of the Normans and the Hohenstaufen in Sicily, a fantastic edifice of ecclesiastical privileges. Baronio, Orsi, and other writers cast doubt on its authenticity, but wrongly, as is now held. Thus, from the beginning of the sixteenth century, the kings of Sicily regarded themselves, by virtue of the apostolic privilege, as born legates of the supreme pontiff, and claimed full and exclusive spiritual and ecclesiastical power on the island; even acts of the Holy See could have no force without the viceroy’s executory letters, and even the internal discipline of the Church was subjected to royal jurisdiction. Ferdinando I the Catholic (d. in 1516) also claimed jurisdiction in ecclesiastical matters for himself; Filippo II requested, but in vain, in 1578, confirmation of the m. s. by the Apostolic See and established (1579) a permanent tribunal, called Judex monarchiae siculae, to which he delegated the exercise of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, said to derive from the m. s., prohibiting appeals from this tribunal to the Holy See. In the face of such open violations of apostolic rights and such a serious threat to the independence of the Sicilian bishops, Rome’s reaction could not fail to come. The conflict was particularly violent under the pontificates of Pius V (1566–72), Gregory XIII (1572–85), and Clement VIII (1592–1605); Baronio’s writing against the m. s. was prohibited by Filippo III. The dispute became still more heated under Urban VIII (1623–44); the tribunal of the royal monarchy, completely dependent on the lieutenant, and the so-called letters of safeguard, whose holders were removed from episcopal jurisdiction, threatened to annihilate what remained of the independence of the bishops of Sicily. In 1629 they raised fierce protests, demanding observance of the decrees of the Council of Trent. The Pope then established a Congregation of cardinals to discuss remedies, and it came very close to adopting extreme measures against the m. s. These were instead adopted in 1687, when Innocent XI had the Neapolitan officials excommunicated by the nuncio in Spain; but the government of Madrid succeeded in having the penalty lifted. The most heated battle broke out when King Vittorio Amedeo II of Savoy obtained the crown of Sicily in 1713 and was also explicitly granted the privilege of the m. s.: the Roman Curia was deeply alarmed, and Clement XI did not hesitate to suppress the tribunal of that monarchy by the constitution Romanus Pontifex of 20 February 1715. When the Austrian emperor Carlo VI subsequently became king of Sicily, he exerted persistent pressure to obtain from Benedict XIII the revocation of the Clementine constitution; but, confronted by the Pope’s resolute attitude, he fell back on a request for a bull that would suitably regulate ecclesiastical matters on the island. The extremely laborious negotiations, in which Cardinal Prospero Lambertini played an important role as the Pope’s trusted adviser, concluded with the promulgation of the bull Fideli of 30 August 1728. In it Benedict XIII reserved to the Holy See the most important ecclesiastical affairs of Sicily, but granted the sovereign, for the adjudication in third instance of other ecclesiastical cases, the establishment of a supreme judge, who for that very reason was to be regarded as a delegate of the Apostolic See. As was easy to foresee,
the absolutism of the kings of Sicily did not remain within these limits: the tribunal granted was constituted as a revival of the one suppressed by Clement XI, assuming the name “tribunal of the royal monarchy and apostolic legation,” and the other ancient claims to the full right of legation were revived. Even Garibaldi in 1860 took advantage of the alleged privileges of the m. s.; but shortly afterward Pius IX brought the centuries-old dispute to an end by definitively suppressing the apostolic legation with the bull Suprema of 28 January 1864, published on 10 October 1867. The Italian government did not fail to protest, but subsequently, by the Law of Guarantees (art. 15), declared that it renounced that privilege.
Impartial authors such as P. Hinschius have acknowledged that in this centuries-long struggle “the right was undoubtedly on the side of the Roman Curia” (Kirchebrecht, I, Berlin 1869, p. 522).