- One the one hand, it has provided
for the transmission of supreme power; in old Rome, they did not know
how to regulate this; hence, when an interregnum occurred, the many
violent competitors, the fierce conflicts, the brutalities, all the
usurpations of force, all the calamities of anarchy. In Catholic Rome,
the election of the sovereign pontiff belongs definitively to a
college of prelates[40] who vote according to established formalities;
these elect the new pope by a majority of two-thirds, and, for more
than four centuries, not one of these elections has been contested;
between each defunct pope and his elected successor, the transfer of
universal obedience has been prompt and unhesitating and, during as
after the interregnum, no schism in the Church has occurred. - On the
other hand, in the legal title of C?sar Augustus there was a defect.
According to Roman law, he was only the representative of the people;
the community had delegated all its rights incorporate to him; but in
it alone was omnipotence vested. According to canon law, omnipotence
was vested solely in God; it is not the Catholic community which
possesses this and delegates it to the Pope;[41] his rights accrue to
him from another and higher source.
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