Pope Adrian VI - Papacy

Papacy

Adrian was not successful as a peacemaker among Christian princes, whom he hoped to unite in a war against the Turks. In August 1523 he was forced into an alliance with the Empire, England, and Venice against France; meanwhile, in 1522 the Sultan Suleiman I (1520–66) had conquered Rhodes.

In his reaction to the early stages of the Lutheran revolt, Adrian VI did not completely understand the gravity of the situation. At the Diet of Nuremberg, which opened in December 1522, he was represented by Francesco Chiericati, whose private instructions contain the frank admission that the disorder of the Church was perhaps the fault of the Roman Curia itself, and that it should be reformed. However, the former professor and Inquisitor General was strongly opposed to any change in doctrine (In Catholic doctrine, the Church's dogmata are infallible) and demanded that Luther be punished for teaching heresy.

The pope was mocked by the people of Rome on the Pasquino, and the Romans, who had never taken a liking to a man they saw as a "barbarian", rejoiced at his death.

Adrian VI died in Rome on 14 September 1523, after a somewhat brief tenure as pope. Most of his official papers were lost after his death. He published Quaestiones in quartum sententiarum praesertim circa sacramenta (Paris, 1512, 1516, 1518, 1537; Rome, 1522), and Quaestiones quodlibeticae XII. (1st ed., Leuven, 1515). He is buried in the Santa Maria dell'Anima church in Rome.

He made only one cardinal in the course of his pontificate, Willem van Enckevoirt, made a cardinal priest in a consistory held on September 10, 1523.