Disrobing the Papacy –

The See of Rome only took on particular importance centuries after the life of Peter, with the crowning of Charlemagne and the advent of the Holy Roman Empire. Subsequently, popes have come to wield tremendous worldly power, but much of their history has been occluded from the public.

Perhaps the craziest pope of all was Stephen VII, who reigned in 896-97. He dug up a predecessor, Formosus (who reigned 891-96), dead for more than nine months, dressed him up in full pontificals, held a mock trial, and found him guilty of having been ineligible to be the bishop of Rome. As “punishment”, the two fingers with which Formosus had given his (anti)apostolic blessings were chopped off and the body was thrown in the Tiber.

The youngest pope was Benedict IX, who at the age of eleven was elected pope in October 1032. He was driven out of office twice, and twice recovered it. In 1045 he dispensed himself from the obligation of celibacy in order to marry a beautiful young cousin and abdicated in favour of his godfather, Gregory VI. Having been turned down by his cousin, however, he managed to climb back onto the throne for another eight months before retiring to a monastery.

“The Cambridge Medieval History (eds Gwatkin and Whitney, The Macmillan Co., 1911-13, vol. vii, p. 5), which records the general sentiment or judgement of modern historians, says that ‘the evidence seems conclusive that he [Boniface VIII] was doctrinally a sceptic and concealed under the mitre the spirit of mockery’. King Philip IV of France, supported by civilian lawyers concerned to exalt his authority against that of the pope, opposed the Bull ‘Unam Sanctam’ of Boniface VIII. He summoned his Parliament in Paris and laid before it an impeachment of the pope for heresy, simony and rapacity. Boniface was specifically accused of ‘…wizardry, dealing with the Devil, disbelief in Jesus Christ, declaring that sins of the flesh were not sins, and causing the murder of Pope Celestine and others. He had a certain ‘idol’ in which a ‘diabolical spirit’ was enclosed whom he was in the habit of consulting … a strange voice answered him’ (A History of the Popes, Dr. Joseph McCabe, C.A. Watts & Co, London, 1939).

In 1303, Pope Boniface VIII was seized at Anagni, to where he had fled, and was delivered to Paris to be tried. Sciarra Colonna and his embittered family were at the French court and a General Council was convened at the University of Paris. Before five archbishops, 22 bishops, many monks and friars, Boniface VIII jeered habitually at religion and morals, and made this remarkable statement:

‘There was no Jesus Christ and the Eucharist is just flour and water. Mary was no more a virgin than my own mother, and there is no more harm in adultery than in rubbing your hands together.’ (A History of the Popes, McCabe, ibid.)

[...]

The unpopularity of the popes was such that over the centuries many of them were murdered or driven from Rome by mobs or imperial enemies. For a total period exceeding 240 years between 1119 and 1445, popes were regularly and forcibly evicted from Rome, reigning variously in Avignon, Anagni, Orvieto, Viterbo, Siena, Florence, Pisa and Perugia.

As early as 1119, for example, the locals revolted against Pope Gelasius II (1118-19), who fled to Gaeta in southern Italy by rowing down the River Tiber in a dinghy. As he escaped, the angry crowd ran along the river’s edge, hurling stones, arrows and foul abuse at the rapidly disappearing pope.

Similarly, Pope Gregory VIII (1187) was so hated for his crime of blinding his opponents (as was Pope Adrian III, 884-85) that the locals tied him backwards on a camel and paraded him through the streets of Rome, screaming vulgarities at him and pelting him with rocks until he was dead (Diderot’s Encyclopédie).

To avoid impending charges of murder, Pope Calixtus II (1119-1124) desecrated the alleged tomb of St. Peter and fled to Constantinople with ’silver panels from the doors’, ‘thick plates of gold’ that had covered the altars and ‘a solid gold stature’ (A History of the Popes, McCabe, op. cit.).

The last recorded pope to be evicted from Rome was Eugenius IV (1431-47), who spent most of his nine-year exile living in the brothels of Naples (Diderot’s Encyclopédie).” – Tony Bushby, The Criminal History of the Papacy

Do you think things have changed much since then? Have the people in charge cleaned things up or has the Vatican remained unconscionably corrupt? Do you think similar abuses of power happen today? If so, why do you think people don’t get similarly boisterous in their disgust? How does the corruption of the Vatican compare with political corruption? What strategies might help undercut this situation?