A SUPREMACIA PAPAL NO FINAL DO SÉCULO XI ATÉ O INÍCIO DO SÉCULO XIII

ALGUNS ELEMENTOS ESSENCIAIS DO PONTIFICADO DE INOCÊNCIO III

Abstract

Innocent III was Pope at the head of a century that produced Saint Dominic and Saint Francis of Assisi, Saint Bonaventure, and Saint Thomas Aquinas, Saint Clare of Assisi and Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, Saint Anthony of Padua and Saint Louis IX, king of France. It was a period, marked by papal supremacy where one of the main goals of the popes was to secure their position of total leadership over the territories of Christendom. In fact, this goal was of paramount importance and directive to the popes' attitudes towards temporal power. Thus, there was a dichotomy between the popes' essentially traditional attitudes towards the internal political structures of secular society and their radical, even revolutionary, vision of the Church's place in this world. For this reason, the present research aims at presenting some essential elements of the pontificate of Innocent III, interpreting them within his time and bringing them up to date in a way that does not hide the 'absurdities' that the Church has carried out in its history, but rather learns from the past in order to live better the present and envision the future.