Bartolomeo Pacca

19th century Italian cleric, scholar, and statesman

Bartolomeo Pacca (27 December 1756, Benevento – 19 April 1844, Rome) was an Italian cardinal, scholar, and statesman as Cardinal Secretary of State. Pacca served as apostolic nuncio to Cologne, and later to Lisbon.

Bartolomeo Pacca was born at Benevento, the son of the nobleman Orazio Pacca, Marquess di Matrice, and Crispina Malaspina. He was educated by the Jesuits at Naples, by the Somaschans in the Clementine College at Rome, and at the Accademia dei Nobili Ecclesiastici.

In 1785, he was consecrated titular archbishop of Tamiathis and Pope Pius VI appointed him to succeed Carlo Bellisomi, who had been appointed to Portugal, as nuncio at Cologne, the centre of anti Roman agitation. Pacca arrived at Cologne in June 1786. Archduke Maximilian of Austria, who had written a courteous letter to Pacca at Rome, told him he would not be recognized unless he formally promised not to exercise any act of jurisdiction in the archdiocese. The same attitude was taken by the Archbishops of Trier and Mainz, the other ecclesiastical Electors. Hostility to Rome, incited chiefly by the work of Febronius, was then at a high pitch on account of the establishment of the new nunciature of Munich; yet the other bishops and the magistrates of Cologne received Pacca with all due respect. Even Prussia made no difficulty, and its monarch, in recognition of his friendly attitude, was accorded at Rome the title of king, against which Pope Clement XI had protested in 1701, when the emperor would have granted it. On his journey through his dominions on the Rhine, Frederick William received the nuncio with great honour. Pacca's position with respect to the three ecclesiastical electors was difficult. When the Archbishop of Cologne, in 1786, opened in his residential city the University of Bonn, the discourses given were a declaration of war against the Holy See. At the University of Cologne, although still loyal to the Holy See, an attempt to support Febronian propositions was frustrated by the nuncio, against whom innumerable pamphlets were directed. Pacca induced some prominent German writers to uphold the rights of the Holy See. The Portuguese kings ordered the construction of churches, and nominated pastors and bishops. Thus the structure of the kingdom of Portugal had both religious and political dimensions. Under the Padroado Real many characteristic activities of the Catholic Church were functions of powerful politicians. The Marquis of Pombal had institutionalized the process of book censorship with establishment of the Real Mesa Censória (Royal Censorial Court). A law passed on April 5, 1768 reaffirmed the right of "temporal sovereignty" over the prohibition of "pernicious books and papers" in the interest of political defense. This law actually prohibited even certain documents issued by the Holy See like the In Coena Domini bull of 1792 (which reserved exclusively to the Pope powers now claimed by the Monarch). The censors would forbid books supporting an ultramontane view and approve those espousing the opposite position. Four of the eight members of the Mesa, which supervised books pertaining to theology and dogma, were not ecclesiastics. As the Mesa had jurisdiction over all printed materials, this included pastoral letters. Pacca made little headway against the entrenched institution. and assigned to various Roman Congregations. Of both nunciatures, he wrote memoirs, containing observations on the character of the countries and their governments.