Pope Leo X

Sourced

• Since God has given us the papacy, let us enjoy it.
  • Letter to his brother, Giuliano.

• Made thirty, we should make thirty-one
  • Said on July 1, 1517, when he created 30 new cardinals. Another priest, who seemed to him also worthy, was nominated during the ceremony.

• It is a heretical opinion, but a common one, that the sacraments of the New Law give pardoning grace to those who do not set up an obstacle.
  • Exsurge Domine, Bull of Pope Leo X issued June 15, 1520, condemning the 95 theses of Martin Luther. - Full text online

• To deny that in a child after baptism sin remains is to treat with contempt both Paul and Christ.
  • Exsurge Domine, Bull of Pope Leo X issued June 15, 1520.

• The inflammable sources of sin, even if there be no actual sin, delay a soul departing from the body from entrance into heaven.
  • Exsurge Domine, Bull of Pope Leo X issued June 15, 1520.

• To one on the point of death imperfect charity necessarily brings with it great fear, which in itself alone is enough to produce the punishment of purgatory, and impedes entrance into the kingdom.
  • Exsurge Domine, Bull of Pope Leo X issued June 15, 1520.

• That there are three parts to penance: contrition, confession, and satisfaction, has no foundation in Sacred Scripture nor in the ancient sacred Christian doctors.
  • Exsurge Domine, Bull of Pope Leo X issued June 15, 1520.

• Sins are not forgiven to anyone, unless when the priest forgives them he believes they are forgiven;
  • Exsurge Domine, Bull of Pope Leo X issued June 15, 1520.

• Hence, I say, trust confidently, if you have obtained the absolution of the priest, and firmly believe yourself to have been absolved, and you will truly be absolved, whatever there may be of contrition.
  • Exsurge Domine, Bull of Pope Leo X issued June 15, 1520.

• Christians must be taught to cherish excommunications rather than to fear them.
  • Exsurge Domine, Bull of Pope Leo X issued June 15, 1520.

Disputed

• It has served us well, this myth of Christ.
  • Widely attributed to Leo X, the earliest known source of this statement is actually a polemical work by John Bale Acta Romanorum Pontificum which was first translated from Latin into English as The Pageant of the Popes in 1574: "For on a time when a cardinall Bembus did move a question out of the Gospell, the Pope gave him a very contemptuous answer saying: All ages can testifie enough howe profitable that fable of Christe hath ben to us and our companie." The Pope in this case being Leo X.