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Pope could sanction as his own the measures proposed by Them. And they also had an
astounding secret: a Cardinal, the Benedictine Gaetani, coming from a Ghibelline family and
openly enrolled in the cause of France, was one of their own. This Golem, Doctor in Canon Law,
Theologian and expert in Diplomacy, would place himself near to the Saint without awakening
the suspicions of the Colonna, against whom he fed in his interior mortal desires.
It is convenient to standout now the two changes introduced by Celestine V at the
requests of Charles II. The numbers of Cardinals increased naming other twelve, most of them
French and Italian, and he re-established the law of the Conclave, that obeyed to replace the
vacancies members of the Sacred College. And he bestowed to the Spiritual Franciscans the
authorization to work independently from the Order of Friars Minor. Such dispositions
favored the French influence in the Church and the party of the Colonna.
The Golems would not reach to control Celestine V. And as the moths passed and fell in
the account that the war between France and England not only strengthened Philip IV but
threatened with paralyzing the plans of the White Fraternity. There was no time for quibbling
anymore: was urgent to eliminate the Saint and put in his place a Golem Pope, a man capable to
impose over such callow King who dared to challenge the Potencies of the Matter: since the
Throne of Saint Peter, which dominion they had exerted almost continuously for seven
hundred years, would present to Philip IV an opposition as was never seen since the days of
Henry IV, Frederick I and Frederick II. However, they didn’t dare to kill Celestine for the
repercussions that this fact could have over the people of Italy, which was impressed by the
spiritual virtues of the Pope. In this way appeared the idea to convince the Saint that his
Pontificate was not appropriate for the Church, which required a Pope occupied to carry out
other important issues apart of the religious, as to be administrative, legislative, juristic, and
diplomatic.The prolocutor of this idea, and who offered the legal counseling to fulfill the
renounce, was the Benedictine Cardinal Gaetani.
Such pressures produced doubts in Celestine, but the advices of those who wanted him
to remain in his place could be more, due to the Church required the Sanctity of his presence.
Approximately after five months of his reign, Benedictine Gaetani reaches to the coarse
appeal to buy his valet and to place him from the superior floor, a voice bearer tube on the back
of the Christ of the Altar, in a Chapel to which Celestine concurred daily to pray: the voice that
emerged from «Jesus» said: «Celestine, release from your sword the feud of the Papacy, due to
its heaviest that your forces». In a beginning, the Saint took the advice as from Heaven, but
later he was warned about the humbug. However, the Christmas party was drawing nigh and
Celestine was disposed to retire to a lonely monastery in the Abruzzo to pray in solitude, as was
his custom of all his life. By counsel of the King of Naples, he decided to assign three Cardinals
authorized with great powers to make them act in his name during the four weeks of absence:
was in those weeks when a Golem Cardinal accused the Pope of an illegal action. The
Church, said him, that he could not have four husbands, the papal dignity was not delegable up
to that point. So, the Saint decided to renounce, more disgusted by the intrigues that were
around him than for the brandished arguments.
But to renounce from the papal investiture, is not the same to abdicate from the royal
investiture. In the Canon Law in force until then, the possibility was not contemplated and had
never presented a case since Saint Peter named his successor to Saint Linus, in the I century.
On the contrary, the Canon Law affirmed that the investiture was lifetime, due to its
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