How Did The Fourth Lateran Council Address The Problems Of Christian Society

“I have decided … to convoke a general council, by means of which evils may be uprooted, virtues implanted, morals reformed, heresies extirpated, faith strengthened, peace established, to persuade Christian princes and people to aid the Holy Land and salutary decrees enacted for the higher and lower clergy.” It was with these words, set down in the Vineam Domini Sabaoth, that Pope Innocent III convoked the Fourth Lateran Council and set the Catholic Church on a path which would have a potent effect not only on the society but also on the lives of millions of people in the Middle Ages. The implications of the precedents set at the Fourth Laternum, at which Pope Innocent attempted to tackle both the temporal andIII spiritual issues facing the church, on religious life cannot be underestimated. The Fourth Lateran Council of 1215 ranks as the twelfth ecumenical council and just as it was the most largely attended so it was the most important of all the councils of the Middle Ages; it would be no exaggeration to say that it was the most significant assembly of the Roman Communion before the Counter-Reformation. To many attendants, the external and political disturbances, both in Europe and in the East, may have obscured the
While Innocent hoped that the legislation of the Council would cure the ills of the church, he also possessed a decree of skepticism regarding human volition, realising not all leaders would enthusiastically enforce the program presented to