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NEPOTISM
The granting of offices, preferments, and positions of
influenee to family members and relatives. The history of
the papacy is replete with incidents of nepotism, since the
practice became common custom in the Middle Ages when popes
belonged to prominent families and noble houses and there
were many relatives to reward. The institution of the
so-called cardinal nephew became so pervasive, in fact, that
the word nepotism is taken from the Italian nepoti (nephew).
The nepotistic tendencies of the popes stemmned in large
part from the need for a pontiff to appoint reliable
individuals to posts in his administration without fear of
scheming and ambitions by those outside his family. That the
custom was a problem by the eleventh century can be seen in
the denunciation of the practice by Pope Sylvester II
(999-1003). It continued unabated throughout the medieval
epoch and into the Renaissanee, reaching a peak during, the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when the cardinal
nephew system was a fully accepted part of papal life. The
reforms of the papacy gradually ended nepotism, culminating
with the proclamation of Pope Innocent XII (1691- 1700),
Romanum Decet Pontificem (1692), in which he decreed that
pontiffs should not grant offices or estates and only one
relative should be permitted elevation to the purple.
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