CrucisPope Boniface VIII
Pope Boniface VIII was born Benedetto Caetani about 1230 at Anagni in Italy, a skilled canon lawyer and diplomat, and was elected pope in 1294 following the abdication of the saintly hermit Celestine V. His pontificate was dominated by a fierce conflict with King Philip IV of France over the king's attempts to tax the clergy and to subject the Church to royal power, a struggle that pitted the medieval claims of the papacy against the rising power of the national monarchies.
In 1302 Boniface issued the celebrated bull Unam Sanctam, one of the strongest assertions of papal supremacy ever made, declaring that submission to the Roman pontiff is necessary for salvation. The quarrel ended in violence: in 1303 agents of the French king seized the aged pope at Anagni in the notorious "Outrage of Anagni," and though he was freed by the townspeople, he died in Rome soon after, on 11 October 1303, his humiliation marking the decline of papal power. He proclaimed the first Holy Year, or Jubilee, in 1300.
Selected quotes
“Let the pilgrim's road teach the soul that we are all travelers here, bound for a homeland we have not yet seen but already love.”
“Unity in the faith is the will of Christ for His Church; let no division among believers obscure the one Lord whom all confess.”
“Open wide the year of pardon; let pilgrims come from every land, for the mercy of God is a fountain that no multitude can exhaust.”