Papal Cupidity

… 10 things that the faithful would prefer

not to know about Popes …

John Graham

The Copper Beech

Hoogstraten, Belgium
Papal Cupidity

2010

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 John Graham

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Papal Cupidity
© 2010 John Graham
Published by The Copper Beech,
ETCetera Assessments LLP
Brouwerijstraat 8/7
Hoogstraten, B-2320 Belgium

ISBN: 1452881464
EAN-13: 9781452881461

Front Cover:
Papal insignia overlaid by Greed

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be

reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic or mechanical, including
photocopying, recording, or by any information
storage or retrieval system, without the prior
written permission of the copyright owner.
Printed and bound in the United States of
America.
For information on translations or distribution of
this book please contact the author, John
Graham, at author@webetc.info
Much of the factual information has been
excerpted and abridged from that of the New
Advent, Catholic Encyclopaedia. The opinions
expressed in this book are those of the author.

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Papal Cupidity

Contents
Dedication.................................7
This brief book is dedicated to the
New Advent, Catholic
Encyclopaedia. The encyclopaedia
is a piece of writing that subtly
combines the writing of ‘the
church’, which is often ‘fiction’,
with fact as it is known from other
sources. It pulls no punches to
protect church dignitaries and
above all, it is readable..............7
A Pope.......................................9
St. Peter (32 – 67) … 1st...........13
Papal Names............................19
Pope Boniface II (530 - 532) …
55th........................................22
Pope Constantine (708 – 715) …
88th........................................25
Pope Stephen VII (896–897) …
114th.......................................27
Pope John XII (955-963) … 131st29
Life in the Middle Ages.............32
..............................................35
Pope Benedict IX (1032 – 1045,
1045, 1047 – 1048) … 146th,
148th and 151st.......................36
..............................................38
Pope Blessed Urban II (1088 –

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1099) … 160th..........................39
Antipopes................................46
Pope Gregory IX (1227 – 1241) …
179th.......................................48
Pope Celestine V (1294) … 193rd
...............................................53
Pope Urban VI (1378 – 1389) …
203rd & Pope Clement VII (1378 –
1394) ......................................58
Pope John XXIII, Pope Benedict
VIII & Pope Gregory XII (1406 –
1415) … 206th..........................61
Pope Alexander VI (1492-1503) …
215th.......................................65
Pope Julius II (1503 – 1513) …
217th.......................................71
Pope Leo X (1513 – 1521) … 218th
...............................................77
Pope Clement VII (1523 – 1534) …
220th.......................................85
Pope Pius V (1566 – 1572) …
226th.......................................90
Pope Innocent X (1644-1655) …
237th.......................................93
John Graham 143......................3
Pope Pius VI (1775-1799) … 251st
...............................................96
Pope Pius XII (1939 – 1958) …
261st.....................................101

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Pope Paul VI (1963 – 1978) …

263rd.....................................109
Papal Cupidity............................2
Celibacy.................................113
Papal proclamations...............116
Pope John Paul II (1978 – 2005) …
265th.....................................119
Pope Benedict XVI (2005 - ) …
266th.....................................124
10 things that the faithful would
prefer not to know about Popes
and the Papacy.......................130
Chronological List of Popes.....134
References.............................142

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Dedication
This brief book is dedicated to the New Advent,
Catholic Encyclopaedia. The encyclopaedia is
a piece of writing that subtly combines the
writing of ‘the church’, which is often ‘fiction’,
with fact as it is known from other sources. It
pulls no punches to protect church dignitaries
and above all, it is readable.

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Papal Cupidity

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A Pope
Let us meet a “Pope” according to the
Church of Rome:
“The title Pope, once used with far
greater latitude, is at present employed
solely to denote the Bishop of Rome who,
in virtue of his position as successor of St.
Peter is the chief pastor of the whole
Church: The Vicar of Christ upon Earth.
Besides the bishopric of the Rome
Diocese, certain other dignities are held
by the pope as well as the supreme and
universal pastorate: he is Archbishop of
the Roman Province, Primate of Italy and
the adjacent islands, and sole Patriarch
of the Western Church.
The Church’s Doctrine as to the pope was
authoritatively declared in the Vatican
Council in the Constitution “Pastor
Aeternus.” The four chapters of that
Constitution deal respectively with the
office of Supreme Head conferred on St.
Peter, the perpetuity of this office in the
person of the Roman pontiff, the pope’s
Jurisdiction over the faithful, and his
supreme authority to define in all
questions of faith and morals.”
Ref: New Advent, Catholic Encyclopedia
There is an avowed belief in the Catholic
Church that apostle Peter came to Rome. It
is unlikely since he was an Israelite Jew and

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there was no motivation to leave the Antioch

region where he preached, to establish an
evangelistic group in Rome. For a start it
was a very long way when you had to walk
or travel by ass. Israel was the center of new
‘Christian’ ideals and Peter is on record of
teaching only locally. However, be that as it
may, the belief that Peter arrived in Rome is
the basis for establishing the Vicar of Rome
as the head of the Christian Church and to
credit popes as all being his successors.
They are assumed to carry forward Christian
beliefs and have St. Peter’s virtues in the
“perpetuity of this office.”
Facts, however, point to something quite
different. There have been 265 popes since
Peter was presumed the first in the year 32
AD. All have been the nominal head (Chief
Executive Officer) both of the Vatican, a
state, and of the Roman Catholic Church, a
religious institution. Only in 1870 did the
Pope lose the right to rule the City of Rome.
On many occasions, other men have been in
competition for the position of Pope, as
Antipopes. They were usually elected by a
competing section of the Church.
Popes have come from a variety of
backgrounds, but certainly most have had
powerful and rich supporters. It didn’t harm
to be born into a family all of whose
members worked for the Church in some
capacity or other. They were not trying to
succeed a poor Jewish evangelical activist to

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demonstrate the virtue of his teaching …
most were trying to obtain a position at the
head of the Christian organization, one of
power and wealth. With very few
exceptions, it was their cupidity that made
them pope. Only a small notable handful
objected to being elected … Popes Celestine
V and Pius V, both good men, come to
mind. They are the exception.
Many Popes have been good men but the
vast majority has fallen well below the idea
that they were of sufficient stature to be a
‘supreme authority to define in all questions
of faith and morals’. Indeed, nepotism,
bribery, the waging war, murder, torture,
excommunication, and neglect of the
peasant, are common themes throughout the
lives of Popes. Many have also engaged in
adultery, sodomy, and other unspeakable
acts.
Martin Luther, a faithful adherent to the
Church of Rome, for example, saw very
clearly in 1515 that his pope, Pope Leo X,
was a greedy immoral man who sold
indulgences for future sins to pay for his
own worldly pleasures. The behavior of Leo
and his predecessors was the reason for the
Reformation, the fracturing of the Catholic
Church and the loss of believers to the new
Protestant Churches. The Church literally
fell apart and remains apart.
Even today, when there is much more public

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scrutiny of the actions of the pope, the

present Pope adheres to archaic ideas of
morality that are so out of date with present
conditions that they have resulted in a vast
number of deaths among innocents. He and
his immediate predecessor cannot be
considered stupid men, merely mistaken
ones. It is unlikely that those who suffered
from AIDS in Africa will forgive them. It is
not going too far to call them ‘murderers’,
since they knew and know well what is
happening.
So it behooves the faithful to look carefully
at the heads of their church and to judge the
teachings of their church by the believability
of its infallible leadership. This was
essentially the advice that Martin Luther
gave in the 16th century. He found the
Church of Rome sadly lacking. Things
haven’t changed.

Let’s visit a few Popes through the ages to

see what they were like. Keep an open mind.

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st
St. Peter (32 – 67) … 1
Peter (whose original name was Symeon)
and his brother Andrew were fishermen
living in Capharnaum on the banks of Lake
Genesareth. He had a profitable business
with his own boat. He was married, had
children and his wife’s mother lived with
them. He was relatively well off.
Like many other Jews, Symeon was
attracted to the preacher of whom he had
heard and he made an effort to meet him
personally. Eventually, he and his brother
talked to Yeshua bin Yosef (now called
Jesus Christ) for a day and were convinced
by him. They became his followers.
Later Yeshua recruited Symeon to work
closely with him in his evangelism even
though Symeon occasionally went back to
fish to support his family. Still later, it is
said that Yeshua renamed Symeon: Cephas,
which when translated into Latin is Petrus
… hence Peter.
Yeshua had gathered around him some like-
minded friends. They were all manual
workers and they all suffered under the yoke
of the Roman-led Jewish Herod. Taxes were
high and the collections went to Herod’s
court and to Rome. Nothing much came
back to the people. However, Yeshua had
the idea that the people didn’t deserve to be
cared for until they corrected their ways so
he set about making them better people …

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which was the reason for his preaching.

Cephas agreed with that mission and was
soon a recognized a leader of those who
followed Yeshua … his disciples.
Yeshua began to rely on Cephas and even,
once, used his boat as a dais to preach to the
people who had come to hear him along the
shore of Lake Genesareth.
Cephas was a faithful friend right until at the
end when Yeshua had been condemned.
Then Cephas denied him telling Herod that
he didn’t know him. That, as the Catholic
Encyclopedia puts it, was due quite
naturally, to “fear and cowardice.” Hey!
Cephas was human.
After Yeshua was crucified, Cephas came
out of the closet and began to relay Yeshua’s
message across the land.
Of course, most of those who heard the
message thought, Well, I have better things
to do with my time, but a few were
convinced and the number of followers
increased. The number of groups of those
converted to Yeshua’s ideas grew as Cephas
preached around Palestine, Judea and as far
north as Antioch in Syria, 300 miles from
Jerusalem. He also took a tour along the
coast through Lydda, Joppa and Caesarea.
The Bible attributes miracles to Cephas
throughout his travels as they did to Yeshua
but this is more a matter of advertising his

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greatness in the written word of a century or
more later, than of the truth. One sanctifies
past heroes … one need only think of our
own.
As the little groups of followers grew, it
wasn’t long before Herod Agrippa I realized
that he had another troublesome activist on
his hands. He had Cephas arrested and
thrown into prison intending to have him
executed like the previous troublemaker,
Yeshua bin Yosef. However, Cephas
escaped and left the land. Where he went
was kept so secret that there is not even a
suggestion in the Bible. Now we know it to
have been Antioch … not far in modern
terms but very far away from Herod in those
times.
Cephas did originate one odd thing that sets
orthodox Jews apart.
“When the Christianized Jews arrived in
Jerusalem, Peter, fearing lest these rigid
observers of the Jewish ceremonial law
should be scandalized and his influence
with the Jewish Christians be imperiled,
avoided thenceforth eating with the
uncircumcised.”
It boggles the mind how one would
determine if one’s dining companion was
circumcised or not. His friend, Paul, was
horrified and, publicly censured Peter for the
idea. However, Peter’s views held.

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As Herod’s troops searched more keenly for

Christians, Peter and other converted Jews
made Antioch on the banks of the Orontes
River in Syria their home. There they could
change their citizenship. To avoid
persecution, they worshiped secretly in
caves where they could not easily be found.
Paul also habitually started and ended his
missionary journeys in Antioch.
Later, St. Peter’s Grottos Church was built
at the cave location. It is one of more than
twenty fourth-century churches uncovered in
Antioch. Tradition says that Peter preached
and taught here while he was in the city
from 47 A.D. to 54 A.D. He would have
been an old and respected man.
Peter, in all probability, died in Antioch of
old age. That’s where he did most of his
work and he was among friends and out of
the reach of persecution.
However, the Catholic Church would prefer
that we believe that Peter traveled all the
way to Rome where he was in even more
danger than in Jerusalem and worked there
until he was caught and crucified. But as his
denial of Yeshua bin Yosef at the last shows
Peter was not one to walk into danger.
The Church dates his papacy as being from
32 A.D. to 67 A.D. This would validate the
Catholic Church as the Church of Rome,
elevate Peter to something like Sainthood
and make sense of the papal succession.

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However, there is no reason to believe that
Peter ever got to Rome or even wanted to
travel so far.
In fact, the Church writings on this matter
are so positive any intelligent reader must
judge them to be false:
“It is an indisputably established
historical fact that St. Peter laboured in
Rome during the last portion of his life,
and there ended his earthly course.”
“St. Peter's residence and death in Rome
are established beyond contention as
historical facts by a series of distinct
testimonies extending from the end of the
first to the end of the second centuries,
and issuing from several lands.”
The twelve ‘testimonies,’ offered by the
Catholic Encyclopedia, are stories of rumors
about Rome, or conjectures inferred from
the Bible written much later. Furthermore,
most do not refer specifically to Peter but to
anonymous apostles.
The Church doth protest too much,
methinks.
What matters to the Church of Rome in this
case is precedence, that “this constitutes the
historical foundation of the claim of the
Bishops of Rome to the Apostolic Primacy
of Peter.” In other words if one doesn’t
believe that Peter came, worked and died in
Rome, there is no case at all for the all–

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powerful Church of Rome.

Well-documented life in Pompeii and the
surrounding towns, extending from 100 B.C.
to 79 A.D., from evidence found under the
ashes of Vesuvius, often speaks of visitors
from Rome and the religious cults that were
evident. The history shows no sign of any
Christian Church of Rome either in practical
existence or in influence. Instead, the
practices of Greece, Egypt and the Roman
Empire affected how the inhabitants lived
and worshipped.
It is very unlikely that Peter traveled further
west than Antioch when he was 65. It is
more likely that the Roman cell of converted
Christians grew and being more powerful
than others simply assumed the seniority
among Christian groups in succeeding
centuries. It has happened in other groups.
The Church of Rome then wrote its own
history. Very little is heard of Rome in
Church matters until after 120 A.D. and
documentation really began in about 400
A.D.
However, whatever the facts are, the Church
of Rome lives by what it believes.

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Papal Names
St. Peter was named first by the Latin and then
the Anglicized version of his given name. The
Catholic Church would have us believe that
Symeon was renamed Cephas by Yeshua bin
Yosef (Jesus Christ) and that Cephas was
translated into Petrus and, thence, to Peter.
An alternative possibility is that Symeon
was translated to the Aramaic Cephas in the
first Greek writings, just as Yeshua became
Jesus in Greek because the Y was
unpronounceable. However, finally, the
Catholic Church named Symeon, Pope
Peter, albeit a long time after his death. They
used his own name in this instance.
The first 42 popes also used their own
names but since about the 100th incumbent it
has been the custom for a Pope to take a
name from prior Popes. Some of the names
have meanings: Pius (pious), Clement
(clemency), Innocent (merciful and
innocent) and so on, although these
adjectives have nothing to do with the actual
character of the individual. Sometimes one
suspects that the name the Pope chose for
himself was merely a cover. Choosing to be
Pius, the umpti-umpth, provides great
anonymity.
Thus, for example, Eugenio Maria Giuseppe
Giovanni Pacelli took the name ‘Pius’ … the
twelfth pope of that name. In this case he
was indeed pious although not good.

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Likewise, Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio

Maria Montini became the sixth Pope Paul.
Our most recent Pope is named Benedict
XVI, although his real German name is
Joseph Alois Ratzinger.
Apart from the real convenience of brevity
to the owners of the names in these three
examples, why have there been sixteen
Benedicts, thirteen Leos, sixteen Gregorys
and twenty-three Johns? In fact, there are
only eighty-two original names distributed
among 266 Popes and only one new one
since the 108th holder of the position.
The single new name in the past 158 popes
has been John Paul, but since Pope John
Paul was only pope for 33 days, his name
was immediately assumed, in tribute to him,
by his successor, Karol Jozef Wojtyla, Pope
John Paul II.
Presently, the incoming Pope selects a name
immediately that he is elected and the
Sacred College announces the name along
with the results of the election. In theory the
incoming Pope is free to pick from any of
his predecessors, use his own first name or
come up with something new. In practice
nothing but the first option has been used for
the past 150 popes except for Pope John
Paul.
Thus, when one speaks of a Pope it is vital
to say which he is. Pope John has twenty-
three possible references so the title is

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ambiguous.
Moreover, confusion reigns with the name
of Stephen. Some lists, including that of the
Catholic Encyclopedia, list Stephen II
although he died before he was consecrated.
However, the Vatican’s list omits him and
all future Stephens are renumbered. Thus,
Stephen VII is this book could also be
Stephen VI and so forth.
(See the appended list of Popes from the
Catholic Encyclopedia on page 132.)

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Pope Boniface II (530 - 532) … 55th

It is the custom that prior Popes are
regularly made Saints. Pope Boniface was
the third in the history of the Papacy not to
be honored by beatification. One has to ask
why.
Boniface was German, son of Sigisbald. We
know nothing of his youth but that he came
to Rome to work with the Roman Church.
Under Pope Felix IV he was archdeacon and
he became a person of some influence.
Felix felt himself near death and fearing that
the Roman and Gothic factions of the
Roman Church might come to arms over a
successor, he took an unusual step. He took
it upon himself to appoint his own
successor. He appointed the aged Boniface.
Thus, when Felix died, Boniface took
succession.
Unfortunately for him, sixty of the seventy
Roman priests disagreed and elected their
own pope, Pope Dioscorus. The reason was
not so much a dislike of Boniface but fear
that the Ostrogothic King Athalari, whose
grandfather was influential in electing Felix
and, therefore, Boniface, might have too
much influence. It was a political issue.
Both popes were consecrated on the same
day, Boniface in the Basilica of St. Julius,
and Dioscorus in the Lateran. This was
already the seventh papal schism in a history

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of only 55 papal successions. Fortunately, it
only last twenty-two days because
Dioscorus died leaving Boniface in sole
possession of the position.
Boniface then convened a Roman synod
where he anathematized (cursed) Dioscorus.
Although the dissenting priests didn’t
formally confirm his papacy they were all
persuaded to vow allegiance to him. All
Popes have powerful persuasive talents
since they can excommunicate those who
don’t follow their word and
excommunicated ecclesiasts lose their
positions and their income.
In a second synod he presented a
constitution that gave him the right to
appoint a successor and he named Vigilius.
The assembly of priests quickly ratified the
constitution. However, the people did not.
The constitution was so unpopular that
Boniface was forced, in a third synod, to
retract it and nullify his nomination of
Vigilius.
Apart from the matter of succession, the
term of Pope Boniface II was spent in
assisting Christian groups throughout the
West and East of Europe, and in North
Africa. Remembering that in 500 AD the
Roman Catholic Church was just a growing
cult amongst other cults, most of the work
needed was to strengthen the outposts of the
Church.

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However, for all the work he did in support

of the church and for the charity he provided
to the populace of Rome during a year of
famine, subsequent church deliberations
found him not worthy of sainthood.
Perhaps it was because he sought to appoint
his successor.

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th
Pope Constantine (708 – 715) … 88
He was a Syrian and his father was John. So
much is known of his early life.
On coming to the Papacy, Constantine was
faced with the challenge of new secular
power. Felix, whom he had even
consecrated as Archbishop of Ravenna,
refused to acknowledge his overriding
power as Pope.
The Archbishop eventually obeyed but only
after, as Catholic history reports, suffering
“dire misfortune.” One wonders what this
“dire misfortune” was that brought Felix
into line, especially as the same Catholic
history proclaims that Constantine was “a
remarkably affable man.” Perhaps he smiled
as he visited Felix on the rack.
Constantine’s papacy was a sequence of
opposites. The first half of his tenancy, for
example, was marked by a severe famine
while the second half had an abundance of
crops.
Then, on one hand, he welcomed visitors
from Britain, Coenred of Mercia and Offa of
the East Saxons, both of whom received
tonsure, a condition close to but not quite
ordination. It merited cutting the hair and
wearing a surplice to become monks. The
Bishop of Worchester, who had
accompanied them, earned some privileges
for his monastery of Evesham. His visitors

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were easy to deal with.

On the other hand, closer to home the
Emperor Justinian II had convened a
meeting, a Council, just before Constantine
was elected Pope, at which 102 canons were
passed. Many of these proposed customs
were in contravention to the Church’s
teachings. One, for example, allowed the
Greek secular clergy to abandon celibacy,
while another granted the Patriarch of
Constantinople independence of the Church
of Rome. The general theme of Justinian’s
meddling was to promote Monothelism (a
heresy admitting the spiritual nature of
Christ by denying his human nature).
However, when pressed by Constantine,
Justinian denied this motive. The Pope then
took a firm hand in undoing what Justinian
had done and he regained control.
In order to meet Justinian, Constantine
traveled to and from Constantinople when it
was rare for any Pope to emerge from
Rome. In doing so he was able to consecrate
sixty-four bishops in the presence of their
people rather than having the candidate
bishops travel to Rome.
However, other than consecrating Bishops
he did not do much else.

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th
Pope Stephen VII (896–897) … 114
Stephen VII was Roman and the son of a
priest, but he clearly didn’t think much of
the Church.
He was consecrated bishop of Anagni by
Pope Formosus and there is a suggestion
that it might have been against his will for
later he got revenge. He was consecrated as
Pope in 896.
On the other hand, Emperor Lambert and his
mother Ageltruda might have had something
to do with what happened next. They may
have forced him to act. He had the body of
Formosus exhumed. Then, before an
unwilling synod he had the body placed on
the papal throne. A deacon was appointed to
answer for the dead pontiff, who was then
tried and condemned for acting as a bishop
when he had been deposed and for passing
from the See of Porto to that of Rome.
The corpse was then stripped of its sacred
vestments, two fingers were cut from his
right hand and he was dressed in layman’s
clothes. Formosus was then briefly reburied
but exhumed, later to be thrown into the
River Tiber.
Stephen then forced several of those who
had been ordained by Formosus to resign
their offices.
He couldn’t do much more since shortly
afterwards he was strangled.

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His papal work had been limited to granting

a few privileges to some churches.

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29
st
Pope John XII (955-963) … 131
After the death of the reigning pontiff,
Agapetus II, a Roman Octavius, then
eighteen years of age, was chosen his
successor in 955. Octavius took the name of
John XII.
The Catholic Encyclopedia reports, “The
temporal and spiritual authority in Rome
were thus again united in one person -- a
coarse, immoral man, whose life was such
that the Lateran was spoken of as a brothel,
and the moral corruption in the city became
the subject of general odium. War and the
sexual chase were more congenial to this
pope than church government.”
In fact, Octavius, now Pope John XII, was
merely a boy and he loved the excitement of
war when he was not in bed with some
woman.
However, his campaigns were not
successful, He was defeated by the King
Berengarius of Italy and his son and Duke
Pandulf of Capua. Pope John resorted to an
alliance with King Otto II of Germany who
drove Berengarius and Pandulf away from
Rome. In return he crowned Otto II an
Emperor and he created the Archbishopric
of Magdeburg and the Bishopric of
Morseburg. Furthermore he made all future
popes subject to the approval of the
Emperor.

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As soon as Otto left, Pope John changed his

mind and sought help from Adalbert, son of
his previous enemy Berengarius, and from
the Hungarians. It was a confusing time to
keep a tally of friends and enemies.
A synod composed of 50 Italian and German
bishops was convened in St. Peter's; John
was accused of sacrilege, simony, perjury,
murder, adultery and incest, and was
summoned to defend himself. Refusing to
recognize the meeting, John sentenced them
all to excommunication if they elected
another pope. The emperor now came
forward to accuse John of having broken the
agreement ratified by oath and he called in
Adalbert as a witness. The synod deposed
John XII and elected a layman as a new
pope Leo VIII.
The imperial troops finally left and John’s
supporters rose up in revolt. They were
suppressed but they revolted again,
successfully, bringing John XII back to
Rome. There he took bloody revenge on
those who had deposed him. Cardinal-
Deacon John had his right hand struck off,
Bishop Otgar of Speyer was scourged, and a
high palatine official lost nose and ears and
others were put to death. In another synod
the election of Leo VIII was declared invalid
and John XII was restored to the papacy.
However, John died in 964, eight days after
he had been, according to rumor, stricken by

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31
paralysis in the act of adultery. Another
rumor was that the woman’s husband killed
him on finding them in bed together. That
would certainly have caused paralysis. He
was 27.

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Life in the Middle Ages

The higher ranks of the Catholic Church:
Bishops, Cardinals and Popes, occupied a
stratum of society equal to that of Kings and
Emperors in the Middle Ages. They lived in
comparable luxury, occupying castles and
palaces defended by their own armies and
cared for by countless servants. The Popes
answered to no one and always had the
ultimate defense that they could
excommunicate anyone they wished. They
could even order imprisonment and
executions. Their only responsibility was the
conduct of church rites and contemplation.
No wonder these positions were highly
sought.
However, ordinary people didn’t live like
this. The years between 1100 and 1500 were
a time of plague and poverty, when the
populace was at the mercy of weather and,
at times, starvation, marauding armies, and
the ever-present strictures of the church. At
the peasant level, people were considered
simply ‘usable’ by the ‘upper’ classes, in
many ways, always for labor or sometimes
for an army.
Below the elite, landlords owned the land
and, for them, the peasants, both freemen
and serfs with varying types of land
ownership, worked. In almost all cases,
peasants were answerable to the lord of the
manor in their community. They could not

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travel to other parts.
The villages also had a legal and social
hierarchy. At the top was the parish priest
who might be a gentleman but was most
often a peasant among his own
congregation. He might own some land but
he was as much one of the village as
anybody, laboring alongside in smock and
coarse boots. However, being the priest, he
commanded a little respect and he came into
his own on Sundays as well as at births,
marriages and burials.
Many of the peasants were specialists in, for
example, repairing pots and pans, thatching,
wood-working, shoeing horses, grave
digging, repairing farm equipment like
plowshares, or making hinges, keys and
locks and even firearms. This counted for a
great deal of practically in any village but
nothing at all to a bishop who was
convening a crusade. A peasant was simply
a peasant.
A typical home in Europe was made of
wood and plaster, which is the reason that
very few structures remain from before the
late sixteenth century when stone structures
became the norm. The home would probably
have earthen floors and any second floor
would be limited to a ladder that lead to an
open half-floor either for food storage away
from rats or, sometimes, for an extra pallet if
the family was large. In farms the livestock

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might also share the farmhouse either in a

barn adjacent to the living room or, at least
for small animals, in the house itself. In
winter they contributed warmth.
The woman of the house, when she wasn’t
washing or mending clothes or caring for
infants was also the cook. She worked close
to the fire. The fireplace was equipped with
a spit or iron-cooking supports that swiveled
above the fire. Usually a large iron cooking
pot would be hung close to the fire for the
stew to simmer. Another hanging cauldron
boiled water. It was an economical and
efficient way of cooking for a family
because the food could be slow cooked or
brought to the boil quickly if needed when
the man returned from working outside.
Of course, while Popes dined on fresh meat,
white bread and wine, the peasant ate
porridge and turnip stew, and drank beer or
ale. Meat might consist of a chicken or a
rabbit.
Since the fire also supplied the only heat for
the house it was the family focus of
attention, the hearth was large and the
smaller children played in front of it. The
fireplace usually included, at least one side,
a nook with a seat occupied by one of the
grandparents … there was nowhere warmer.
In the evening, the wife would sit knitting or
darning while her husband smoked a pipe,
and they talked.

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35
Even though peasants might boast of
comfortable shelter, food and warmth, life
was very uncertain for them. The hoofs of
an unexpected horse or the clatter of
halberds might signal anything from a
traveler seeking shelter to the complete
disruption of their lives. It was something
that a Pope, born in a rich family and
elevated through the ranks of the Church,
would never experience.

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Papal Cupidity

Pope Benedict IX (1032 – 1045, 1045,

1047 – 1048) … 146th, 148th and 151st
Pope Benedict IX was a persistent man …
be became pope three times and didn’t die in
office. Instead, he was seeking a fourth
election. He had been born into a church
family, raised under Church protection, and
he came to believe that he would inevitably
become Pope.
Since the family practically owned the
papacy at this time, Benedict’s father,
Alberic, regarding the position of pope as a
kind of heirloom, and placed his son in the
throne when he was just twenty in 1032.
Benedict was the nephew of the two Popes
who immediately preceded him but he had
quite a different character. As the Catholic
Encyclopedia, which is rarely critical of a
Pope, notes, “He was a disgrace to the Chair
of St. Peter.”
As Pope, Benedict did fulfill some of the
responsibilities of his position by holding
synods, endowing some churches and
monasteries, excommunicating one cleric,
and forcing the Duke of Bohemia to found a
monastery for having stolen the body of St.
Adalbert from Poland. It was all run-of-the-
mill stuff.
However, Benedict was a dissolute youth so,
in 1044, one of the religious factions in
Rome drove him from the city and elected

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37
an Antipope, Sylvester III. Benedict quickly
took control once more by driving Sylvester
out of Rome.
However, showing more frailty than is usual
in a Pope, in 1045 Pope Benedict IX sold the
office to John Gratian for a large sum of
money in order to marry. Gratian then
became Pope Gregory VI. However,
Benedict regretted the decision and tried to
regain the papacy only to incur the
intervention of King Henry II, Holy Roman
Emperor. As a result a German bishop was
elected to be Pope Clement II instead of
either Benedict or Gregory.
However, having lived the good life and
wanting to regain it, Benedict was not so
easily put aside. He again seized Rome and
the papacy by force of arms and became
Pope for the third time.
Now he couldn’t hold on to it so he, in turn,
was driven out once more in favor of yet
another Pope, Damasus II.
Apparently, Benedict never ceased trying to
regain what he considered to be his by right
of birth, although the Church historians
would like posterity to believe that the
Abbot of Grottoferrata testified that
“Benedict turned from his sin and came to
(St.) Bartholomew for a remedy for his
disorders.” The Abbot added that, “he died
in penitence at Grottoferrata.”

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Papal Cupidity

Nothing is known of his wife or even

whether he went through with the proposed
marriage in 1045.

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39
Pope Blessed Urban II (1088 – 1099) …
160th
Pope Gregory VII (1073-1085) was the first
to establish the idea of a “Holy War,” that
churchmen could wage a war directed by
God to convert heathens. It wasn’t an
original idea since St. Augustine before him
had first made the suggestion in the 4th
Century. War, they both said, was no longer
to be a defensive action but a positive moral
act.
“In his treatment of heretics, schismatics,
and pagans his (Gregory’s) method was to
try every means — persuasions,
exhortations, threats — before resorting to
force; but, if gentler treatment failed, he had
no hesitation, in accordance with the ideas
of his age, in resorting to compulsion, and
invoking the aid of the secular arm therein.”
(New Advent – Catholic Encyclopedia)
In modern language, Gregory intended to
beat-the-hell out of non-Christians.
In making this determination, Gregory laid
the foundations of the disastrous Crusades
against Islam that occupied Europe between
1097 and 1215.
Otho of Lagery was born of a knightly
family, at Châtillon-sur-Marne in the
province of Champagne, about 1042. His
origin gave him money and a knightly idea
of chivalry. Had he been born into a farming

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family things might have been different but

then he could not have aspired to the papacy
anyway.
His money helped him to be educated in
Reims and to move up the ranks in the
church, first as canon, archdeacon, monk,
and prior. At 36 he became a Cardinal and
very much ‘Gregory’s man’. In office, he
appointed only those who were liked by
Gregory.
It was a time when Gregory’s papacy was in
danger from a competitor, Pope Victor III,
but fortunately they both came together to
suggest Otho as their successor. When he
was elected unanimously at 46 he took the
name Urban II.
Later he said of Gregory, "all that he
rejected, I reject, what he condemned, I
condemn, what he loved, I embrace, what he
considered as Catholic, I confirm and
approve" He remained still ‘Gregory’s man.’
Thus, it was natural from his knightly
upbringing and his faithfulness to the ideas
of his predecessor that he would adopt
Gregory’s idea of a Holy War. When he
made his appeal two decades later for a
Crusade against ‘unclean nations,’ he said,
“Let the deeds of your ancestors move you
and incite your minds to manly
achievements.”
“Unclean nations” meant, as far as Urban

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41
was concerned, Muslim nations and
societies. The Papacy had very little
difficulty with Jews especially because, even
though making a profit from lending money
is usury and, therefore, a sin, Jews were
useful in that capacity. Fortunately for the
Popes, it was the lender not the borrower
who was considered sinful.
Primarily, Urban was reacting to an appeal
from the Christian ruler Alexius I Comnenus
for assistance against the Turks. King
Alexius was having trouble as the Turks
acquired land and he needed troops. It was
not originally a squabble between religions,
but from Urban’s point of view, it was a
holy crusade against Muslim Turks. From
that beginning, the idea of a holy crusade
grew to encompass the retaking of Jerusalem
from the Muslims.
At no time did Urban, or any other Pope, try
to understand the Muslim religion or see that
it had many things in common with
Christianity … it simply stemmed from
Mohammed rather than from the many
contributors to the Bible. They had the same
origins. Moreover, Christianity had as many
failings in its teaching as did Islam and it’s
Augustine Holy War simply matched a
Jihad.
However, now committed to his Holy War,
Urban traveled through Western Europe,
particularly in the country of his origin,

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Papal Cupidity

France, calling for a great religious military

expedition to Jerusalem. He clearly had a
way with words because finally through a
combination of threats and pleading 100,000
people ‘took the cross’, and the first Crusade
became a reality.
Of course, beyond threats and pleading,
bribery was involved. The fact that each
crusader was offered redemption of all his
sins was a telling incentive to ‘take the
cross.’ It was an offer almost none could
refuse.
With losses and desertions, and, hopefully,
some rational changes of heart, 60,000
eventually gathered at Nicaea near
Constantinople in June 1097. Urban had
been so persuasive that many of the leaders
like Godfrey, the Duke of Lorraine, who
was actually a vassal of Urban’s political
enemy, the emperor Henry IV, sold many of
their lands to finance their armies.
The result? Even though Jerusalem was
taken, the first Crusade was a failure.
Jerusalem couldn’t be held. Nothing was
gained and the attempt itself created a new
Islamic unity. Succeeding Crusades to the
Holy Land were a confusion of poor
organization under many different
motivations, some religious and some mere
greed. What marked the Crusades was the
outright cruelty of Christian armies, killing
everywhere on the way through Europe. Old

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43
scores were settled and new ones created.
All five major Crusades failed in one way or
another, and Pope Urban II certainly bore
most of the responsibility for starting the ill-
conceived mess.
But this wasn’t the end. Crusading became
the fashion for Popes against the Muslims at
the start but also for gain. Indeed, the
missions over the years grew ridiculous.
Each new pope felt compelled to initiate a
crusade.
In 1114, Pope Paschal II proclaimed a
crusade against Muslims in Spain. In 1118,
Pope Gelassius II promoted a crusade to
capture Saragossa. In 1120, Pope Calixtus
II proposed crusades to both Spain and the
Holy Land. In 1127, Pope Honorius II
urged a crusade against the Normans of
South Italy, and, in 1132, Pope Anacletus II
called for a crusade against his rival Pope
Innocent II. In 1199, Pope Innocent III
declared a crusade against a minor German
noble to recover church lands in Italy. In
each of these cases the crusaders were
bribed. They were offered redemption from
their sins if they ‘took the Cross.’
In later years, Popes used the call for a
crusade for purely political reasons, for
example, Pope Clement V in 1308 called
for a crusade against Venice, granting
Spanish mercenaries and other supporters all
the spiritual rewards of Eastern crusaders.

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Papal Cupidity

In 1145 Pope Eugenius II called for a

second Crusade to the east and used Abbott
Bernard of Clairvaux as his mouthpiece. In
1187 Pope Gregory VIII, witnessing
Muslim Saladin’s victories in the East
persuaded the elite of Europe, including
King Richard I of England, to take up the
sword. They failed to recapture Jerusalem.
Pope Innocent III took up the challenge for
a fourth Crusade in 1200. It was not only a
disaster but the Muslim gains included a
sack of Constantinople … the war had
moved from the East to the gates of Europe.
Pope Innocent III didn’t learn a thing
because in 1213 he called for a fifth Crusade
to the East hoping that the death of Saladin
would make a difference. It didn’t. When
Innocent died, his successor, Pope
Honorius III, was no brighter. With no
leader, his crusade, the fifth to the east, was
an utter failure.
These Popes were unworldly men. They
were schooled only in the precepts of one
religion and had no idea how armies moved,
how they were provisioned, how they
fought. Instead they each depended on either
the elite of Europe to do the job for them or
on mercenaries who were their own men.
They forgot that these self-same people
could never agree at home let alone in
foreign lands where lands and cities were for
the taking. Internecine squabbling between
the Christian Dukes, Princes, and Kings,

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45
marked each crusade since all wanted a
piece of the Islamic pie. Throughout this
period the papacy wore blinkers … Popes
preferred not to see who the enemy was.
Moreover those in Rome had no
compunction against squandering lives.
The Crusades started by Pope Urban II
gained no territory; instead more was lost to
a much stronger and more unified enemy …
the Muslims who occupied North Africa and
parts of the Iberian Peninsula. Hundreds of
thousands of lives and great wealth were lost
and, furthermore, no one understood the
Muslim or his beliefs any better than before.
The Popes concentrated only on differences
rather than similarities.

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Antipopes
Competing popes have appeared many times
in history. They arose not only because of
personal ambitions but also because political
separations (schisms) came about both in the
West and in the East. Different Cardinals
simply championed their candidates to
uphold their views and at times there were
sufficient Cardinals with different views to
champion a number of different popes,
usually two but sometimes three.
Of course, since the clerks at the Vatican
have corrected these difficulties and the
present list of 266 popes shows none in
parallel occupation. It is a smooth
continuation of history as the latter day
Church sees it. The written history carefully
smoothes over the rough spots in papal
competitions and shows a clean sequence
from the mythical first pope, St. Peter, to the
present day. However, the authorities also
list 30 false claimants between the 3rd and
15th Centuries. They are described as
Antipopes.
Here is a typical situation:
Pope Innocent II (1130 – 1143) … 165th
Pope, and Pope Anacletus II (1130 - 1138)
Both claimants were consecrated in Rome
on the same day, Gregorio Papereschi as
Innocent II in Sta. Maria Nuova, and
Anacletus in St. Peter's three hours later.

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47
Innocent immediately left for France where
he gained the support of King Louis VI and
his bishops. He then traveled throughout
France and the German states to gain the
support of bishops throughout the land.
Bishops acknowledged him everywhere and
he was able to perform some activities that
only a pope might have done. He crowned
King Lothair and Queen Richenza,
appointed bishops, celebrated Easter in
Paris, opened a great synod at Reims, and
crowned the young king of France, Louis
VII.
Meanwhile, Anacletus does not seem to
have campaigned, perhaps because of
sickness since he died shortly. Anacletus’
supporters elected a successor, Pope Victor
IV. However when Innocent II returned
triumphantly to Rome supported by an army
that he had gathered, Victor quietly
abandoned the papacy.
Innocent moved swiftly to ensure his
position and to heal the schism. He called
the tenth Ecumenical Council to which a
thousand bishops came. All of Antipope
Anacletus’ official acts were declared null
and void and the bishops that he ordained
were, with few exceptions, deposed and
some of his principal supporters were
excommunicated.

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Pope Gregory IX (1227 – 1241) … 179th

Ugolino, the Count of Segni, was born in the
Campagia region of Southern Italy and he
was educated at the Universities of Paris and
Bologna. His family was not poor to be able
to send him those distances.
After the accession of Innocent III to the
papal throne in 1198, Ugolino had no
difficulty in getting Church appointments.
Even visible nepotism was a way of life for
Popes in those days. Thus, Ugolino became,
successively, papal chaplain, Archpriest of
St. Peter's, and Cardinal-Deacon of Saint'
Eustachio in 1198. In 1206, he became
Cardinal-Bishop of Ostia and Velletri. A
year still later he became a papal legate
(ambassador). It was a matter of who one
knew rather than having to show that one
would be a virtuous leader of the church.
As Papal Legate, with a colleague, Ugolino
was given the job of negotiating between
two claimants to the German throne, Philip
of Swabia and Otto of Brunswick … hardly
a religious issue. They neither managed to
get agreement nor to have Otto abandon his
claims so they left for Rome to consult with
the Pope. Then they heard that Philip had
been murdered, so they returned to Germany
to persuade everyone to accept Otto without
even, apparently, enquiring who had killed
Philip. They were successful and they
returned home. That mission took Ugolino

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49
and his colleague four years.
After the death of Innocent III, in order to
hasten the choice of a successor, the College
of Cardinals agreed to an election by
compromise and they empowered Cardinals
Ugolino and Guido of Preneste to appoint
the new pope. There must have been a
whole bunch of politicking to have that
happen. Still the pair appointed Honorius III
who, of course, immediately rewarded them.
Ugolino became plenipotentiary legate for
Lombardy and Tuscia, and was entrusted
with preaching the crusade in those
territories. Later he was also given the
responsibility for Central and Northern Italy.
He was certainly one of the inner-circle in
Rome
Then after the death Honorius III, the
College of Cardinals again asked three of
their number to make the decision. First the
choice came down to one of the three but he,
very honourably, objected since it might
look as if he had elected himself. Instead,
the College now elected Ugolino and he
became Pope Gregory IX at age 80.
He surprised them all by staying in office for
14 years.
His first activity was a soap opera.
His knowledge of European politics and
personalities first stood him in good stead.
His first problem was Emperor Frederick II,

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who was delaying his promised departure on

a crusade. Pope Gregory IX ordered him to
go, which he did returning just three days
later claiming that he and his partner in arms
were sick. Pope Gregory knew Frederick
had not departed for the crusade eight or
nine times already so he place him under a
ban of the Church and when this didn’t work
he excommunicated the Emperor. This
resulted in a mob attacking the Pope so he
escaped to Perugia.
Now, the Emperor Frederick II, hoping to
show that Pope Gregory had been hasty,
decided to leave on a Crusade. Pope
Gregory IX replied that an excommunicated
ruler was not a suitable person to lead a
Crusade and he put the Emperor under a ban
a second time.
The Emperor Frederick now, seeing he
wasn’t getting anywhere, attempted
reconciliation. However, Pope Gregory
knew how these things worked and he
distrusted the Emperor. He was right, for
German clerics at the urging of Frederick’s
son, would neither recognize the bans placed
on the Emperor nor his excommunication.
Furthermore the Emperor defeated the papal
army that Gregory had sent to invade Sicily.
Things weren’t looking good for Gregory.
More attempts at reconciliation didn’t work
and it seemed that the Empire of Frederick
and the Papacy of Gregory simply could not

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51
exist together in peace. Even a truce, which
restored land to the papacy and removed the
papal ban on the Emperor, was just
temporary.
Frederick’s armies were doing well in
Northern Italy and Gregory therefore allied
himself with the states of Tuscany, Umbria
and the Lombard League to oppose him.
Pope Gregory also ordered a crusade against
the Emperor Frederick and back in Germany
his legates urged the election of a new king.
However, all the German bishops remained
faithful to the Emperor, who, in order to
embarrass Gregory further declared himself
master of the Pontifical States.
In the next step of this soap opera, Pope
Gregory ordered all Bishops to attend a
General Council in Rome, but the Emperor
Frederick forbade attendance and captured
all those bishops who had started to travel to
the council despite his prohibition. Instead,
he and his armies went and camped outside
Rome.
Pope Gregory XII however had the last
laugh. He died … at 94 years of age.
Soap opera apart, during his papacy, when
he wasn’t leading an army a little like Don
Quixote, Pope Gregory XII had a good
heart. He despised the luxury that many
ecclesiastical figures aspired to, much
preferring the Mendicant Friars. When he
was Bishop of Ostia he had sometimes

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Papal Cupidity

donned the robes of St. Francis and walked

barefoot. Likewise, St. Clare and her order
were within his protection and he built three
convents for them. He gave new statutes to
the Carmelites and assisted the Cistercians
and other orders.
He canonized St. Francis and several other
worthy characters. On the other hand he was
very severe on heretics. He was in favor of
the Inquisition and of putting heretics to
death by fire. Whenever he was away Rome
became home to a number of heretics but he
hounded them down on his return and
delivered them to the secular authorities for
punishment … usually death by fire for the
obstinate and life imprisonment for the
penitent. There was, of course, no mercy.
He helped the University of Paris, his Alma
Mater, but also watched carefully over its
professors. He warned repeatedly against a
tendency to subjecting theology to
philosophy by making the truth of the
mysteries of faith dependent on arguable
proofs. In that Pope Gregory XII was no
different from prior or future Popes.

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53
rd
Pope Celestine V (1294) … 193
Pietro di Murrone was of humble parentage,
a Neapolitan. He became a Benedictine
monk when he was seventeen and he was
ordained a priest in Rome.
He loved solitude and this lead him to him
the wilderness of Monte Morone in the
Abruzzi and then later to wilder places in
Mount Majella. He took for his model the
Baptist. His hair-cloth shirt was roughened
with knots; a chain of iron encompassed his
emaciated frame; he only ate on Sundays
and each year he kept four Lents, passing
three of them on bread and water; the entire
day and a great part of the night he devoted
to prayer and work.
However, as others who want solitude have
found out, it wasn’t to be. Others gathered
around him wanting to be like him and soon
there were many disciples in his wilderness.
They called themselves Celesti and at
Pietro’s death there were thirty-six
monasteries and 600 adherents. Another
group of hermits also called themselves
Celesti but they were associated with
Franciscan monasteries. They lived
according to the rule of St. Francis.
Eventually, it was too much for Pietro so he
appointed a certain Robert as his deacon to
look after his disciples and he went deeper
into the wilderness. There must be solitude
somewhere, he was probably thinking.

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Then in 1294, three eminent men and a host

of monks, priests and laymen, ascended
Pietro’s mountain and told the 81-year-old
hermit that the Sacred College of Cardinals
had elected him Pope.
There had been no pope for over two years
since the College had been divided between
two rival families, the Orsini and the
Collona. They simply could not agree.
The crux came when Charles II of Naples
wanted Papal authority to regain Sicily. He
was a patron of the Catholic Church.
Cardinal Orsini mentioned the hermit on the
mountain and the deal was done. They came
to an immediate unanimous decision.
Pietro, on hearing of his elevation, burst into
tears but realizing that flight was impossible,
he obeyed what he viewed as a call from
God to abandon his own wishes for a life of
public service. Down from the mountain a
crowd of some 200,000 greeted him it was
said. He said good-bye to solitude.
On hearing about the event King Charles of
Naples, with his son, the titular head of
Hungary, hurried to meet Pietro, now
Celestine V, ostensibly to pay homage to the
new pope, in reality to take the simple old
man into honorable custody. Had Charles
known how to be moderate in his good luck,
this election might have brought him
incalculable benefits; as it was, he ruined
everything by greed.

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55
Instead of going to Rome, at King Charles’
request, Pietro asked the Cardinals to come
to Naples. There he arrived riding on an ass
and although only two Cardinals came he
was crowned Pope. Later he was again
crowned in Rome … the only double
investiture of a pope in history.
He remained under the control of King
Charles and it is amazing how many serious
mistakes the simple old man crowded into
five short months. There is no full register of
them, because his official acts were annulled
by his successor.
At the urging of King Charles he ordered the
Curia to repair Naples. He appointed twelve
Cardinals, seven French and the remainder
Neapolitan, thereby creating the basis for the
Western Schism to come. At Monte Cassino
he tried to make the monks obey a hermit’s
life but they humored him only while he was
with them.
Then as Advent approached Pietro had a
little hut built like the one he lived in
Abruzzi. He began to feel that his soul was
in danger as the affairs of state were taking
too much of his time that ought to be spent
in piety.
The thought of abdication seems to have
occurred simultaneously to the Celestine V
and to his discontented cardinals, whom he
rarely consulted. However, since he was the
supreme he had no superior, to whom could

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he resign? The point was put to an expert in

canon law, Cardinal Gaetani, and he decided
according to common sense, affirmatively.
The fact that he was next in line for the
papacy didn’t affect his decision that the old
man could resign!
King Charles tried to mount an opposition to
the abdication, after all Celestine V was
doing a lot of good for Naples, His castle
was surrounded by a host of monks in tears
imploring Celestine V to continue his
papacy but, after some evasive answers, a
week later his mind was made up.
When Cardinal Gaetani was elected Pope
Boniface VIII. He immediately revoked
many of the enactments of Celestine V so
King Charles lost many of the favors done to
Naples and Neapolitans.
Gaetani, now Boniface VIII, took Pietro
along with him to Rome dressed as a hermit
but he was forced to keep him in custody for
fear that opponents might make use of the
old man. Still Pietro managed to escape and
he turned up, to the delight of a host of
monks, at his old hermitage at Majella.
Boniface ordered his arrest but it took
several months to catch him while he
wandered through the wilderness and even
tried to cross over to Greece. Eventually he
was arrested and Boniface imprisoned him
in a small cell in the Castle of Fumone near
Anagni.

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57
Boniface treated him cruelly in captivity for
nine months and then had him murdered.
Clement V canonized him in 1313 and his
remains were taken to the church of his
order at Aquila, where they are still revered.
Pietro was a reluctant Pope … a good man.

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Pope Urban VI (1378 – 1389) … 203rd &

Pope Clement VII (1378 – 1394)
The College of Cardinals elected
Bartolomeo Prignano as Urban VI. They did
so after difficult negotiations between the
Italian and French members of the Sacred
College with those of Limoges.
Prignano, at the time was Archbishop of
Naples and a good candidate given his
business ability, integrity, and knowledge of
law. The fact that he was a subject of Queen
Joanna of Naples also favored him.
However what was most compelling was
that the Roman mob turned out in force and
even invaded the Vatican to ensure an
Italian pope. The College of Cardinals gave
in quickly and their deliberations were the
shortest on record.
However, once Prignano was in office his
violent disposition became apparent …
especially when he struck a Cardinal who
had annoyed him.
As Pope he did not show any of the good
qualities, which had distinguished him
before. He wanted to reform the church but
he set about it with little prudence. He
quarreled with the Sacred College, abused
the cardinals and high dignitaries of the
Church and, furthermore, he insulted Otto of
Brunswick, a church benefactor. Insulting a
benefactor of the church could be more
damaging than even hitting a Cardinal.

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59
So a group of disaffected churchmen
thought that Urban VI was not suitable. A
mistake had been made … so they elected an
alternative pope, Pope Clement VII, who
took up residence in Avignon, a French city
owned by the Vatican.
The two papal rivals then established their
own courts and appointed their own College
of Cardinals and acted as independent popes
for many years. This split Europe in two as
France, Scotland and Spain supported
Avignon while England, and the Italian and
German states supported Rome.
This was the start of the Western Schism in
the Catholic Church that lasted 40 years
until 1417.
Urban VI was undoubtedly elected legally
according to Church law and there is no
proviso for ridding the world of a bad pope
… there still isn’t. Unfortunately, he
accomplished nothing during his papacy
except alienation of all those around him. He
was inconsistent, capricious and
quarrelsome and he certainly hadn’t the
genius or talent to heal the rift between
Avignon and Rome.
Urban’s aggressive behavior became even
more irritable to the older members of the
Sacred College. His cardinals needed a more
practical way of proceeding; they proposed
to depose or arrest him. But he discovered
the plot and six of them were put in prison

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and their possessions confiscated. Those

who did not confess were tortured and Pope
Urban VI complained that he could not hear
them screaming.
The King and Queen of Naples, since they
were suspected of being accomplices, were
excommunicated.
He died in 1389 a senile and difficult man.
No one mourned his loss.
The Catholic Church eventually struck Pope
Clement VII from the official lists and then
released the name Clement for another pope
to use 150 years later. It’s not clear what
happened to the cardinals appointed by the
Antipope.

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61
Pope John XXIII, Pope Benedict VIII &
Pope Gregory XII (1406 – 1415) … 206th
These three men were “in vitriolic and even
bloody conflict with each other.” John (or
Giovanni) occupied the papal palace in
Rome, Benedict held court in Avignon while
Gregory held council in Naples.
People continued to believe whatever they
wanted to believe but having three popes
made the church an administrative
nightmare. Who makes appointments and
who collects the church taxes? To whom do
priests and bishops report?
Eventually, the Holy Roman Emperor
invited all three to a Council of the Church
in Constance to settle the matter.
Pope John (Giovanni) also had the power of
the Medici banking family behind him. They
made good profit over the comings and
going of three popes, an immense number of
Cardinals and innumerable other churchmen
to Constance, but in the end their candidate
lost. After some difficult negotiations
Giovanni saw that he might be losing the
decision so he tried to scuttle the conference.
For this action he was taken into custody
and once he was discredited the ecumenical
vultures moved in to make a meal of his
shame. Even the Medici money couldn’t
help him.
The Council, left without candidates, elected

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its own, Pope Martin V.

Giovanni ceased to be pope and was erased
from the church’s memory. Instead he “was
arrested and accused of heresy, incest,
piracy, sodomy, tyranny, murder and
fornication with more than two hundred
women.”
You were in those days either a really
excellent saint or a really evil villain.
One other candidate, Gregory, seeing what
had happened to Giovanni wisely retired
from the fray lest someone look into his own
background. Some of the accusations against
Giovanni must have sounded familiar. The
third candidate, Benedict, remained stubborn
to the end, but his successor finally
submitted to Martin V twelve years later.
Giovanni spent four years in prison until the
Medici family was able to ransom him for
3,500 florins in return for his collection of
rare jewels. With some urging and financial
inducement Pope Martin V made Giovanni
the Bishop of Frascati, to the south of Rome,
despite the horrendous accusations against
him. Hands that are washed with bribes can
make as many consecrating blessings as
clean ones.
Pope Martin V was the fastest rising
churchman to assume the mantel of Pope.
Representatives of five nations unanimously
elected him at the Council of Constance

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after a short conclave because he was not
aligned to any faction in this three-way
horse race. He was elected on the 11th of
November but because he was then only a
sub-deacon, he was ordained deacon on the
12th, priest on the 13th, consecrated bishop on
the 14th and crowned pope on the 21st. He
was only 41 and he represented the new
blood that the church needed to heal the
Western Schism.
He was a good unassuming man with a great
knowledge of canon law and “numerous
other good qualities.” Subsequently he did
all that he could to erase the rift that had
formed the Western Schism. The Avignon
papacy was ended.
However, the state of Rome made it
impossible to re-establish the papal throne
there. The city was almost in ruins, while
famine and sickness had killed many of its
inhabitants. The few people that still lived
there were on the verge of starvation. Martin
V therefore, proceeded slowly on his way
thither, stopping for some time at a number
of cities: Berne, Mantua, Geneva and
Florence, to carry out some papal duties. In
advance he recognized Queen Joanna as
queen of Naples getting her thereby to
relinquish Rome.
Martin was now able to continue on his
journey to Rome, where he arrived three
years later after the Council of Constance.

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He at once set to work, establishing order

and restoring the dilapidated structures such
as churches, palaces, and bridges. For this
reconstruction he engaged some famous
masters of the Tuscan school, and thus,
inadvertently, laid the foundation for the
Northern Italian Renaissance.
His Council of Cardinals wanted to have his
actions overseen by a General Council, but
he wangled his way out of that until he died.

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65
th
Pope Alexander VI (1492-1503) … 215
Rodrigo Borja (Borgia) had popes in the
family. He was born near Valencia in Spain.
His parents were Jofre Lançol and Isabella
Borja, sister of Cardinal Alfonso Borja.
Rodrigo hadn’t intended on the Church …
there were other jobs available but when his
uncle became Pope Callixtus III he was
taken into his uncle’s family and that
determined his vocation.
Like all family members of Popes, Rodrigo
was obtruded onto the Church. His uncle
sent him for a year to study law at the
University of Bologna and on his return,
when he was 25, he was made Cardinal–
Deacon of St. Nicolo and he held that
position for 17 years. Then in quick
succession he became Cardinal-Bishop of
Albana and then Oporto and then he became
Dean of the Sacred College. His actual title
was Vice-Chancellor of the Roman Church.
Many envied him but he seems to have
given satisfaction, even the evil Guicciardini
admitted that, "in him were combined rare
prudence and vigilance mature reflection,
marvelous powers of persuasion, (as well
as) skill and capacity for the conduct of the
most difficult affairs".
Because of his uncle the Pope, Rodrigo held
a long list of archbishoprics, Bishoprics,
abbacies, and other honors, and his

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acquaintances knew nepotism when they

saw it. Yet he didn’t flaunt his position,
notwithstanding the magnificence of his
household and his passion for card playing,
he was strictly abstemious in eating and
drinking, and a careful administrator, he
became one of the wealthiest men of his
time.
When he was 29, Rodrigo earned a letter of
reproof from Pope Pius II for his behavior in
Sienna, which, it is said, shocked the Church
and the town. Since he didn’t drink it was
probably connected with one of his earthly
vices. He was interested in women.
In about 1470 he met Vanozza Catanei, who
lived in Rome. She became the mother of
his four children: Juan, Caesar, Lucrezia and
Jofre, born in 1474, 1476, 1480, and 1482.
Lucrezia Borja, who was very beautiful,
became infamous in her own right as the
epitome of sexual depravity and murder.
In 1492, Rodrigo became Pope and took the
name Pope Alexander VI. He was fortunate;
he narrowly obtained the required two-thirds
majority of votes with a margin that was his
own vote. It was suspected that he bought
others.
The populace were overjoyed and
demonstrated with “bonfires, torchlight
processions, garlands of flowers, and the
erection of triumphal arches with
extravagant inscriptions.”

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67
He repaid the populace’s welcome well. He
set about curing the general lawlessness that
pervaded the city of Rome. Within a few
months, 220 assassinations had taken place.
In each case, Pope Alexander VI ordered an
investigation and once the culprit was found
he was hanged on the spot and his home
razed to the ground. In addition, he divided
the city into four parts, each with its own
magistrate to maintain the peace. Finally, he
reserved the Tuesday of every week for
settling grievances. Anyone could appear
before him and argue his or her case and he
dispensed justice “in an admirable manner.”
Then he rebuilt the defenses to Rome,
employed Bramante to decorate the Borja
apartments in the Vatican and sponsored
literature even though he laid no particular
claim to learning.
Apart from these excellent initiations, Pope
Alexander VI remains a model from which
one might judge nepotism. He continued in
his papacy to act as he had done in his
position as Cardinal particularly because he
had a strong affection for his children. In
this he was perhaps at odds with the Church
but he was a model of what a non-celibate
papacy should be about. He married one of
his daughters, Girolama, to a Spanish
Nobleman and set up two sons with valued
positions in Spain. However, unfortunately
he selected Caesar to follow him in the

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church. A week after he became Pope he

appointed his eighteen-year-old son to be
Archbishop of Valencia even though the boy
never went to Spain nor did he take Orders.
He was even appointed a cardinal later
without being a qualified priest.
Lucrezia’s first husband was Giovanni
Sforza, Lord of Pesaro, and a cousin of
Ascanio. The marriage was celebrated in the
Vatican in the presence of the Pope, ten
Cardinals, and the elite of Rome. The
elaborate revelries and parties for the event
remained a blot on Alexander’s character.
The marriage also had a political
significance since it cemented an alliance
between Alexander V and Milan and
Venice. He needed the alliance at the time to
withstand an archenemy, King Ferrante of
Naples. Later, Lucrezia got rid of Giovanni
on the grounds that the marriage was never
consummated although she was pregnant at
the time the marriage was finally annulled
… her pregnancy was said to have come by
virtue of a tryst with Alexander VI’s
messenger.
Alexander’s nepotism went on.
The politics of the Church States and the
Italian States were closely intertwined and
Alexander VI set about dispossessing those
Barons who were disloyal to him. They were
the families of Orsini, Colonna, Savelli, the
Gaetani, and others. They were continually

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69
plotting between each other, against each
other, and against the Papacy. If Alexander
VI had just simply dispossessed them by
force of arms and his own allies from Milan
and Venice, it would have been a worthy
thing to do. However, he had always in mind
that he would dispossess them of their
castles and possession and award everything
to members of his own family.
By the time he was 75, the Sacred College
was composed only of his supporters and he
had affairs well in hand.
He enjoyed and laughed at the scurrilous
lampoons that were in circulation in which
he was accused of incredible crimes, and he
took no steps to shield his reputation. War
had broken out in Naples between France
and Spain over the division of the spoils.
Alexander was still in doubt which side he
could most advantageously support, when
his career came to an abrupt close. In 1503,
the Pope, with Caesar, his son, and others,
dined with Cardinal Adriano da Corneto in
his villa and imprudently remained in the
open air after dark. All of them paid the
penalty by contracting the pernicious Roman
fever. Within twelve days Alexander was so
sick that he made his confession, received
the last sacraments, and died.
Afterwards, the rapid decomposition and
swollen appearance of his corpse gave rise
to the usual suspicion of poison. His

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reputation was such that later the tale ran

that he had drunk by mistake a poisoned cup
of wine, which he had prepared for his host.
However, the poison, which killed him, was
merely the deadly microbe of the Roman
countryside.
So, after 11 years as Pope, Alexander VI left
behind some excellent innovations for the
populace of Rome embedded in a life of
international intrigue and nepotism.

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71
th
Pope Julius II (1503 – 1513) … 217
Giuliano Della Rovere was born into a noble
but poor family with an Italian father and a
mother of Greek extraction. He followed his
uncle into the Franciscans and was educated
at Perugia.
When his uncle was elevated to Pope Sixtus
IV, Giuliano’s papal career began when he
was 28. Within four months of his uncle’s
elevation he was created Cardinal Priest of
San Pietro in Vincoli. Thereafter, blessings
flowed and he was overwhelmed with
benefices.
He held Episcopal sees In Carpentras (1471-
2), Lausanne (1472-6), Catania (1473-4),
Coutances (1476-7), Mende (1478-83),
Viviers (1477-9), Sabina (1479-83),
Bologna (1483-1502), Ostia (1478-1503),
Lodève (1488-9), Savona (1499-1502),
Vercelli (1502-3) and the Archepiscopal see
of Avignon (1474-1503). He also drew
revenue from being a commendatory Abbot
of Nonantola and various other ecclesiastical
benefices.
However, he didn’t spend these large
incomes on himself, nor it might be added,
on the poor. He was a patron of the fine arts;
so much of his income went to building
magnificent palaces and fortresses. The
patronage continued after he became Pope.
Giuliano didn’t neglect himself either. When

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he eventually became pope he had three

illegitimate daughters, the best known of
which, Felice, married into the Orsini
family. The other two, Clarissa and Giulia,
didn’t amount to anything and were
probably happier for that.
In return for all the benefices he received,
Giuliano served Pope Sixtus IV faithfully.
He became a Papal legate charged with
settling various disputes around Western
Europe in particular to regulate the affairs of
the Archdiocese of Avignon but also on
various missions through France and the
Netherlands. Once, he was sent at the head
of a papal army to restore order in Umbria.
When Sixtus IV died, since he saw he had
no chance Giuliano supported someone
whom he could influence, Pope Innocent
VIII. Giuliano held virtual full power for the
next eight years. Then, when Innocent VIII
died, Giuliano was still not selected because
of his strong support for France. Instead a
representative of a family that he disliked,
the Borgias, was elected as Alexander VI.
Giuliano immediately withdrew to his
fortified stronghold in Ostia.
Despite apparent reconciliations, Giuliano
evaded Rome while Alexander VI was in
power but returned on his death for a third
attempt at the papacy. Again he was
unsuccessful, a very old Francesco
Piccolomini was elected as Pius III.

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73
However he died within twenty-six days and
Giuliano had yet a fourth chance
This time, using a great deal of bribery
among the Cardinals, and a great number of
promises, Giuliano was elected Pope in the
shortest conclave ever. He became Pope
Julius II.
He was now an avenger seeking to establish
and extend his temporal power over the
independent republican states of Venice,
Perugia and Bologna, who had taken over
some papal lands. The warlike Julius II
personally directed the campaign against
both, setting out at the head of his army in
1506. Perugia surrendered without any
bloodshed and Bologna only took the
excommunication of its leader and the cities
were his in a few months.
Then he turned to the Italian states and
finally after complicated alliances, battles
and an exercise of his papal powers
(excommunication worked wonders) he rid
the Italian Peninsula of France. He is famous
primarily for this.
He didn’t neglect his papal duties. He was
still spiritual head of the church. He heard
Mass almost daily and often conducted it
himself. Unlike most Popes he was free of
nepotism and many of his enactments were
designed to cure the ills of the church and
the monasteries. He also inducted dioceses
in the new American colonies, in particular

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Papal Cupidity

in Espanola, San Domingo and Porto Rico.

Even while engaged in war and leading the
armies of the Lord, Pope Julius II still had
time for beauty.
Kren and Marx write: Julius II had an
enduring impact … in art.
“With his wealth of visionary ideas, he
contributed to the creativity of Bramante,
Raphael, and Michelangelo. Following
an overall plan, he added many fine
buildings to Rome and laid the
groundwork in the Vatican Museum for
the world's greatest collection of
antiquities. Among the innumerable
Italian churches that benefited was Sta.
Maria del Popolo, for which he
commissioned Andrea Sansovino to
create sepulchers for a number of
cardinals and Pinturicchio to paint the
frescoes in the apse. Around 1503 the
Pope conceived the idea of building a
new basilica of St. Peter, the first model
of which Bramante created. Julius laid
the foundation stone in 1506.
The Pope's friendship with Michelangelo
was enduring despite recurrent strains
imposed on their relations by the two
overly similar personalities. Their
relationship was so close that the Pope
became, in fact, Michelangelo's
intellectual collaborator. Of Julius' tomb
only the "Moses" in the church of S.

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75
Pietro in Vincoli, in Rome, was
completed; the Pope is, however, not
interred there but in St. Peter's, along
with the remains of Sixtus IV. In 1508
Michelangelo was prevailed upon by
Julius to begin his paintings on the
ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, which were
unveiled in 1512. The paintings were, in
form and conception, a product of the
artistic ideas of both Michelangelo and
the Pope.
By 1509 Raphael began his masterpieces
for the Pope, the frescoes in three rooms
of the Vatican. Spiritual references to the
person and the pontificate of Julius II are
evident in one of the rooms where
secular and religious wisdom are
juxtaposed in the "School of Athens" and
the "Disputa," while the beauty of
creativity is represented in the
"Parnassus." The theme of another room
(the Stanza d'Eliodoro), which could be
called a transcendental "political"
biography of the Pope, is still more
personal. "The Expulsion of Heliodorus
from the Temple" symbolizes the
expulsion of the French and the
subjugation of all the church's enemies,
with Julius II depicted witnessing the
scene from his portable throne. Closely
related to this is the "Liberation of St.
Peter," in which light and darkness serve
to symbolize the historic events of the

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pontificate. The third great fresco in this

room, the "Mass of Bolsena," shows the
Pope kneeling, rather than enthroned, in
commemoration of his veneration of the
communion cloth of Bolsena in the
cathedral of Orvieto. In addition to these
fresco portraits, there is one by Raphael
in the Uffizi gallery in Florence, one of
the masterpieces of portraiture, which
shows the Pope not as the victorious
Moses springing to his feet, as
Michelangelo portrayed him, but as a
resigned, pensive old man at the end of
an adventurous, embattled life.
Michelangelo's chalk drawing of the
Pope in the Uffizi gallery approaches it
in quality.”
Would you rather be known as someone
who inspired and sponsored great art or one
who lead holy armies into battle?

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77
th
Pope Leo X (1513 – 1521) … 218
Giovanni de Medici was destined to be Pope
before he arrived on this mortal soil in 1475.
He was the second son of the most important
scion of the Medici banking family, Lorenzo
the Magnificent. His mother was Clarice
Orsini. The Medici family found that having
a pope who was a member of the family
helped their banking business … especially
in the matter of charging interest on loans,
which was the sin of usury.
Giovanni became pope when he was 38 and
whereas one of the normal populace of Italy
at that time might have experienced life and
its vicissitudes in those early years, Joe did
not. He was born into a wealthy family and
lived in the family’s magnificent palace.
Ultimately, his father decided, that he would
be Pope. He really had no choice.
Progress went well. Giovanni was received
into the clerical order (tonsured) when he
was six and made a member of the highest
order of Prelates when he was seven as well
as being appointed Abbot of a French
monastery in Font Douce. When he was
eight he became the Abbot of the rich
Passignano monastery and at ten he was the
Abbot of Monte Cassino. He gained every
clerical post that his father could arrange.
His father, ruler of the Florentine Republic
kept up pressure on the church so that
Giovanni was elected a Cardinal at thirteen

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while his education was completed by a

number of well-known humanists and
scholars. Not that he knew much about life
in the streets.
However, things changed. His father and
chief supporter died when he was sixteen
and the family fortunes took a plunge.
First, Cardinal Giovanni returned from
Rome to Florence but shortly afterwards the
Medici family was expelled from the city
and he had to leave disguised as a
Franciscan monk. Now at eighteen he began
to experience life a little. He was ill
prepared for it.
After trying to restore the supremacy of his
family, he led the life of a literary and
artistic amateur. However, while excelling
in dignity, proprietary and irreproachable
conduct, he was incapable of managing
money so he was soon reduced to a
distressed straits. He was a bad manager to
the last.
Towards the end of Pope Julius II’s life,
fortune once more smiled on Giovanni de'
Medici. In 1511, when the pope was
dangerously ill Giovanni became legate in
Bologna and Romagna. However, then he
suffered another reverse. The Spanish and
Papal armies, with which he was traveling,
were defeated in 1512 at Ravenna by the
French and he was taken prisoner. It was a
pyrrhic victory for the French soon lost all

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79
their Italian possessions and Giovanni, who
was to have been taken to France, succeeded
in making his escape.
The supremacy of the Medici in Florence
was re-established in 1512, and this
unexpected change in the fortunes of his
Medici family was the prelude to better
things for Giovanni.
The Pope died in 1513, and Giovanni de'
Medici, then thirty-eight years old, was
elected as the new Pope. If his father had
been alive, Giovanni would probably have
been pope twenty years earlier.
Now, he showed another side as he made up
for a lost twenty years of power and luxury.
Despite his age was he was still a boy at
heart. He liked laughter and had an addiction
to music and theater and secular pleasures
such as hunting and banquets. He said, “ Let
us enjoy the papacy, since God has given it
to us.” He was known as a free-spending
libertine. He dispensed money far and wide
with no regard to the dwindling papal
treasury. In one single ceremony he spent a
seventh of his predecessors’ total reserves.
The Catholic Encyclopedia explained,
“He paid no attention to the dangers
threatening the papacy, and gave himself
up unrestrainedly to amusements, that
were provided in lavish abundance. He
was possessed by an insatiable love of

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pleasure, that distinctive trait of the

Medicis. Music, the theater, art, and
poetry appealed to him as (much as) to
any pampered playboy. He loved to give
banquets and expensive entertainments,
accompanied by revelry and carousing;
and notwithstanding his indolence he had
a strong passion for the chase, which he
conducted every year on the largest
scale. From his youth he was an
enthusiastic lover of music and attracted
to his court the most distinguished
musicians. At table he enjoyed hearing
improvisations and though it is hard to
believe, in view of his dignity and his
artistic tastes, the fact remains that he
enjoyed also the flat and absurd jokes of
buffoons. Their loose speech and
incredible appetites delighted him. In
ridicule and caricature he was himself a
master. Pageantry, dear to the pleasure-
seeking Romans, bullfights, and the like,
were not neglected. Every year he
amused himself during the carnival with
masques, music, theatrical performances,
dances, and races. Even during the
troubled years of 1520 he took part in
unusually brilliant festivities. Theatrical
representations, with agreeable music
and graceful dancing, were his favorite
diversions. The papal palace became a
theater and the Pope did not hesitate to
attend such improper plays as the

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81
immoral "Calendra" by Bibbiena and
Ariosto’s indecent "Suppositi". His
contemporaries all praised and admired
Leo's unfailing good temper, which he
never entirely lost even in adversity and
trouble. Himself cheerful, he wished to
see others cheerful. He was good-natured
and liberal and never refused a favor
either to his relatives and fellow
Florentines, who flooded Rome and
seized upon all official positions, or to
the numerous other petitioners, artists
and poets. His generosity was boundless,
nor was his pleasure in giving a pose or
desire for vainglory; it came from the
heart.”
In 1515 the papal treasury was empty. His
solution to avoid becoming destitute was to
sell titles, favors and indulgences. There
were plenty of customers in Rome.
An indulgence gave the purchaser relief
from any future sin that the purchaser might
commit. The larger the contribution then the
larger the sin that would be pardoned. It was
an easy way to ensure that one went to
heaven virtuously if you had enough money
to buy sufficient indulgence. The revenue
paid for Leo’s enjoyment.
Not only did Leo sell indulgences and
pardons, he also had revenue from the Holy
Roman Emperor and his blessing was
crucial in the election of a new Holy Roman

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Emperor. Any aspirant would have to pay

dearly for the honour.
The Holy Roman Emperor was an elective
office founded in 800. The position was to
unify France, much of Germany, the
Netherlands, Luxembourg and northern
Italy. Over time it had become fragmented
until Voltaire declared that the Holy Roman
Empire was “neither holy, nor Roman, nor
an Empire.”
Still Charles of Spain aspired to the vacant
position … he borrowed heavily to pay Leo
for his support with the German electors.
That money too was dissipated on Leo’s
pleasures.
Eventually, some younger cardinals decided
that enough was enough and that Leo
needed to go. They decided to poison him.
However, Leo uncovered the plot and
Cardinal Petrucci, who admitted to knowing
of it, was strangled in prison. Other
conspirators were either executed or exiled.
There was no mercy when Leo’s way of life
was being threatened.
Another critic, Martin Luther, who dwelt
beyond the Pope’s arm in Wittenberg,
Germany, also felt that the church should
brought back to its primary mission of
persuading people to live a virtuous life
rather than collecting money for pardoning
their sins and then squandering it. Presently
the church was a vision of corruption and

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arrogance led by the Pope: Leo X.
Luther wrote a very critical and menacing
letter to Leo.
He wrote sarcastically, “Among those
monstrous evils of this age I am sometimes
compelled to look to you and call you to
mind, most blessed father Leo.” He
continued, under your influence, the Church
of Rome, “formerly the most holy of all
Churches has become the most lawless den
of thieves, the most shameless of all
brothels.” And more, “Not even the
antichrist if he were to come, could devise
any addition to its wickedness.” He went on
like this for some time. He was not a man to
mince words.
Leon X put the letter aside for later attention
and his reply reached Luther three years
later.
Meanwhile in 1515, not waiting for a reply,
Luther posted his 95 theses on a church door
in Wittenberg. He argued that in Catholic
countries the elected popes were not leading
the church in the right way but were more
interested in wealth and possessions. He
invited, nay forced, the faithful to consider
their own position. In that time, bishoprics
were bought and sold and retained through
force of arms. Bishops supported their own
armies. There was nothing holy or peaceful
about Catholicism.

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Leo didn’t see the problem. He was, of

course, concerned that some of those who he
viewed as his congregation would think of
breaking away to form a new church but he
had delayed his response for so long,
thinking that this miserable priest, Luther,
would change his mind, that the schism was
unstoppable. Luther and Calvin travelled
throughout France and Germany preaching
the new gospel of sombre restraint,
abhorrence of decoration, and strict attention
to the word of the Bible. Protestantism was
born and it enveloped northern Europe and,
not long after, the Americas.
Leo X, by his attention to earthly pleasures,
played while the Catholic Church was torn
asunder. His later attempts, at the Council of
Trent and the introduction of the Inquisition,
to counteract the protestant movement came
to nothing more than furious wars between
Protestant and Catholic supporters.

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85
th
Pope Clement VII (1523 – 1534) … 220
Guilio de’Medici was born a few months
after the death of his father Giuliano who
was killed in Florence following
disturbances that resulted from a conspiracy
of rival bankers. Subsequently his uncle,
Lorenzo the Magnificent raised him.
Lorenzo was a Medici banker who was also
ruler of the Florentine Republic so he was a
powerful backer.
Guilio was illegitimate since his parents
were only betrothed, but he was later
declared legitimate under an abstruse
element of Canon Law and with Lorenzo’s
assistance he rose within the ranks of the
church.
He became a Knight of Rhodes and was
made Grand Prior of Capua, and, then upon
the election of his cousin, Giovanni de'
Medici, to the papacy as Leo X, he at once
became influential within the Church. In
1513, he was made Cardinal and has the
credit for helping to make papal policy
during Leo’s pontificate although, given
Leo’s lack of response to Martin Luther’s
critical letter that does not seem much of a
recommendation.
When Leo died in 1522, Guilio was a
favored candidate for election to Pope.
However, after a lengthy conclave, the new
pope became Pope Adrian VI. It was only
after Adrian’s death a year later than Guilio

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got his chance. He became Pope Clement

VII “with enthusiastic rejoicing.”
Most of the early years of his pontificate
were involved with a war between Holy
Roman Emperor Charles V and Francis I of
France. It was a confused affair especially as
Pope Clement, as Guilio de’Medici had
negotiated the marriage of his young relative
Catherine de’Medici to Francis’ son. In the
end he allied himself to France and only
evaded the wrath of Charles by a truce and
an indemnity of 60,000 ducats.
That proved to be not enough for unpaid
mercenaries who then attacked Rome. They
reached the walls, which, owing to the
pope’s confidence in the truce he had
concluded, were almost undefended.
Clement had barely time to take refuge in
the Castle of Sant’ Angelo, and for eight
days the "Sack of Rome" continued amid
horrors almost unexampled in the history of
war. "The mercenaries, all Lutherans,” says
an impartial authority, "rejoiced to burn and
to defile what all the world had adored.
Churches were desecrated, women, even the
religious, violated, ambassadors pillaged,
cardinals put to ransom, ecclesiastical
dignitaries and ceremonies made a mockery,
and the soldiers fought among themselves
for the spoils." Clement took refuge, as a
virtual prisoner, in the Castle of Sant’
Angelo.

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Were this not enough to harass Clement in
return for his underhand negotiations with
The Holy Roman Emperor and the King of
France, Francis 1, things were happening in
England that needed his attention.
King Henry VIII, tired of Queen Catherine
who had produced no heirs, was now
passionately in love with Anne Boleyn. She,
he thought, looked as though she could give
him an heir. The only problem was that he
was married to Catherine and he had had
carnal knowledge of Anne’s sister, which
would not allow a marriage to Anne. In
church-speak, Henry needed a dispensation
from “the impediment of affinity.”
Cardinal Wolsey was sent to Rome for two
indulgences from the strictures of the
church: … that Henry’s bedding of Anne’s
sister would be ignored and that Henry
would be granted a divorce from Catherine.
Wolsey in Rome had to wait until Clement
managed to escape Sant’ Angelo and even
had to travel twice to Rome. Then, though
Clement had no issue with Henry’s carnal
knowledge of Anne’s sister, he drew the line
at the divorce.
History shows that Clement first authorized
that a Commission in England should decide
the issue but he put stringent conditions on
the outcome. Negotiations continued to flow
between London and Rome with occasional
interference from Francis of France and

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Emperor Charles. The latter once simply

declared a communication that he didn’t like
“a forgery.” However history notes in the
Catholic Encyclopedia, that Pope Clement’s
“intelligence was of a high order, though his
diplomacy was feeble and irresolute.” He
simply didn’t know whom he was up against
in Henry VIII.
Upon the death of the Archbishop of
Canterbury, Henry appointed Cranmer and
made him his papal negotiator. Henry did
two other things: first he secretly married
Anne Boleyn and then he ordered
Archbishop Cranmer to approve his divorce
from Catherine, which he did.
Now Clement finally acted. He
excommunicated King Henry VIII and
declared his marriage to Boleyn null and
void.
However, he had not thought the matter
through. Being celibate he understood
neither Henry’s desires for this woman nor
his power in England.
Henry VII declared himself head of the
Anglican Church, issued new rules for
services and life within the church. He
destroyed the Roman Catholic monasteries
and, effectively, did away with Roman
Catholicism in England forever. Now he
didn’t need the Pope.
‘Popery’ became an English word for

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89
‘arbitrary power.’
In one fell swoop, without noticeable
sorrow, Clement had lost a great section of
the Roman Catholic Church. Following his
predecessor Leo X’s loss of the Netherlands,
Scotland, Germany and Switzerland to the
reformed Protestant Church, it looked as
though the Church in Rome was crumbling.
Pope Clement VII dabbled in politics
without the talent to do so.

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Pope Pius V (1566 – 1572) … 226th

Pope Pius V does not fit under the heading
of “Papal Cupidity” except for reasons of
contrast. He was unequivocally a good man
who was neither ambitious nor greedy for
power.
Michele Ghisleri was born in Lombardy to
poor but noble parents. Although, normally,
he would have been expected to be trained
in a solid trade to help his family, the
Dominicans took him to the Monastery of
Voghera where he was brought up in austere
piety.
He entered the Dominican order and at 24
was ordained as a priest. He taught religion
and philosophy and worked with the
novices. He was an excellent example to the
novices. “He fasted, did penance, passed
long hours of the night in meditation and
prayer, traveled on foot without a cloak in
deep silence, or only speaking to his
companions of the things of God.”
Ghisleri was not ambitious. It wasn’t until
he was 52 that he was made Bishop of Sutri
but when his piety and fervor against heresy
came to the notice of the Pope he was
appointed cardinal just three years later and
he was appointed general inquisitor for all of
Christendom.
As Cardinal he continued to show his zeal. It
was he who opposed Pope Pius IV when the

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latter wanted to admit Ferdinand de’Medici,
a relative, to the Sacred College when he
was just thirteen and it was he who defeated
Maximilian II, Emperor of Germany, who
wanted to abolish ecclesiastical celibacy.
One might say that Ghisleri was misguided
now but he acted then entirely and
consistently according to his faith.
When Pius IV died, Ghisleri was, “despite
his tears and entreaties, elected pope, to the
great joy of the whole Church”, other than
himself. He was 62.
As Pope he didn’t change.
He gave large alms to the poor, instead of
distributing his charity at haphazard like his
predecessors. As pope he practiced the
virtues he had displayed before. He was still
pious and, in spite of the work of his office,
he made at least two meditations a day on
bended knees. In his charity he visited the
hospitals, and sat by the sick, consoling
them and, if necessary, preparing them to
die. He washed the feet of the poor, and
embraced the lepers. It is related that an
English nobleman was converted on seeing
him kiss a beggar’s feet covered with ulcers.
(Adapted from New Advent: Catholic
Encyclopedia.)
Despite his piety Pope Pius V did not
neglect the office. He banished luxury from
the papal court, raised the standard of
morality, and attempted to reform the clergy.

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On a more human side he banished

prostitutes to a more distant location and
forbade bull fighting.
Despite his humble beginnings he also
worked assiduously on an international
level. He supported Mary Queen of Scots
against Elizabeth in England: writing to
console Mary in prison and
excommunicating Elizabeth. He fought for
Catholicism in the Netherlands by
supporting Charles of Spain, in France by
encouraging the Catholic League against the
Protestants, and in Germany against
heretical princes.
However, his main passion was to oppose
the Turks in very practical matters. He
supported the Knights of Malta … the
hospitalers of the Crusades, and gave money
for the fortification of Italian towns. When
Solyman II attacked Cyprus, Pope Pius V
rallied the forces of Venice, Spain and the
Holy See to oppose him. He broke into tears
when the Catholic forces won the battle of
Lepanto setting back to Turkish invasion.
He was in the middle of negotiations to unite
Europe against Islam when he died.
“He left the memory of a rare virtue and an
unfailing and inflexible integrity. He was
beatified by Clement X in 1672, and
canonized by Clement XI in 1712.”

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93
th
Pope Innocent X (1644-1655) … 237
Giambattista Pamfili’s father and mother
were Camillo Pamfili and Flaminia de
Bubalis, from Umbria.
The young man studied law at the Collegio
Romano and from there he climbed the steps
one-by-one directly to the papacy with a
pope at his elbow every step that he
climbed. Pope Clement VIII appointed him
consistorial advocate and auditor. Pope
Gregory XV made him Nuncio in Naples.
Pope Urban VIII appointed him the datary
with the cardinal legate to France and Spain
and then appointed him titular Latin
Patriarch of Antioch and Nuncio of Madrid.
He was created a Cardinal of Sant' Eusebio
in 1626. He was a member of various
Catholic assemblies: the Council of Trent,
the Inquisition, Jurisdiction and Immunity.
He had arrived at the innermost of circles
but probably knew nothing f life outside the
church.
In 1644, a conclave for the election of a
successor to Urban VIII was a stormy one.
The French faction refused to vote for a
candidate who was nominally friendly
towards Spain … good man or not. It was
Cardinal Firenzola, the Spanish candidate
that they were targeting. Cardinal Mazarin,
the prime minister of France put the hit in.
So, even though Pamfil was friendly with
Spain, he wasn’t from Spain so he was duly

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elected and took the name of Innocent X.

That last step needed someone else to slip
from it.
Pope Innocent X was pliable … he bent with
the wind.
Soon after his accession, he was forced to
take Barberini to court for misuse of public
money. Barberini fled to France for the
protection of Mazarin. Innocent X issued a
papal bull announcing that any Cardinal
leaving Rome without permission and not
returning would forfeit all his properties and
benefices and the Cardinalate itself. The
French Parliament declared his
announcement null and void. He didn’t give
in until Mazarin threatened to mount an
army against the papacy … then he yielded
and Barberini was later rehabilitated.
Innocent X was “a lover of justice and his
life was ‘blameless’; he was, however, often
irresolute and suspicious.” Also … and
there is always something else in the life of
a Pope.
Also, his papacy was tainted by his
dependence on Donna Olimpia Maidalchini,
the wife of his deceased brother. For a short
time his sister-in-law’s influence yielded to
the influence of young Camillo Astalli, a
very distant relative whom Innocent made a
Cardinal. But he was unable to get along
without his sister-in-law, Donna, and at her
instigation Astalli was deprived of the

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purple and removed from the Vatican for
reasons unknown except perhaps jealousy.
The accusation made by Gualdus (Leti) in
his "Vita di Donna Olimpia Maidalchini"
(1666), that Innocent's relations with her
were immoral remains on the books.
Perhaps ‘blameless’ was the wrong word.

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Pope Pius VI (1775-1799) … 251st

Pope Pius VI made his name by being
kidnapped by Napoleon and dying in
captivity en route for Paris.
After the French Revolution, Pope Pius VI
rejected the "Constitution civile du clergé"
which had been drawn up and in 1791 he
suspended the priests who had accepted it,
helped the banished clergy and protested
against the execution of Louis XVI. France
retaliated by annexing Avignon and
Venaissin. The Pope cooperated with the
enemies of the French Republic. It was this
and the murder of the French attaché, M.
Basseville, in Rome, that led Napoleon to
attack the Papal States. At the Truce of
Bologna in 1796 Napoleon dictated the
terms: twenty-one million francs, the release
of all political criminals, free access of
French ships into the papal harbors, the
occupation of the Romagna by French
troops and more.
At the Peace of Tolentino in 1797 Pope Pius
VI was compelled to surrender Avignon,
Venaissin, Ferrara, Bologna, and the
Romagna; and to pay fifteen million francs
and give up numerous costly works of art
and manuscripts/ In an attempt to
revolutionize Rome the French General
Duphot was shot and killed, whereupon the
French took Rome in early 1798, and
proclaimed the Roman Republic. Because

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the pope refused to submit, he was forcibly
kidnapped from Rome five days later and
taken first to Sienna and then to Florence. A
year later, though seriously ill, he was taken
to Parma, Turin, then over the Alps to
Briançon and Grenoble, and finally to
Valence, where he died before he could be
taken any further.
Who deserved this?
Giovanni Angelico Braschi was like many
others who reached the papal throne. He was
born into a noble but impoverished family
and was sent be educated at a Jesuit mission
and to study law at Ferrara. A Jesuit
connection wasn’t an ideal way to start a
connection with the Catholic Church of
Rome but after undertaking a diplomatic
mission he was appointed a papal secretary
and canon of St. Peter’s when he was 38.
Pope Clement XIII made him treasurer of
the Church 11 years later and Pope Clement
XIV appointed him Cardinal 9 years later
still. Then, he retired to become a
commendatory Abbot at Subiaco. Close on
fifty he had already had had a good career
and expected to live out his years in peace.
How often do we not achieve the simplest of
goals?
Braschi had no chance to savor the life at
Subiaco because he was elected Pope almost
immediately and his responsibilities were in
Rome.

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There, now as Pope Pius IV, Braschi was the

victim of international intrigue and double-
dealing.
At first France, Portugal and Spain had
opposed his election because of his Jesuit
connection. Thereafter, he had to be very
careful not to show too much allegiance to
that group, although he did liberate their
leader, General Ricci from Castle Sant’
Angelo and eventually revoked a papal bull
ordering the Jesuit’s suppression. He also
allowed the Jesuits in Prussia to retain their
schools.
… But that all took time.
His first difficulties involved the Emperor
Joseph II of Germany who forbade his
Austrian bishops from applying to Rome for
anything and he suppressed innumerable
monasteries. Pope Pius IV went to visit him
in Vienna but the Emperor only granted him
an audience with a minister. Still, when
Pope Pius returned to Rome the Emperor
accompanied him as far as the Monastery of
Maribrunn. However, as soon as the pope
had gone on, the Emperor confiscated the
monastery. Thereafter, he appointed his own
bishop to the See of Milan. However, by this
time Pius IV had had enough. He threatened
the Emperor with excommunication.
The Emperor traveled to Rome, nominally
to return the Pope’s visit but let drop the
information that he was about to separate the

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99
Church in Germany from Rome. He was
persuaded to avoid the subject and they
parted on good terms, the Pope having given
the Emperor the right to appoint bishops to
Milan and Mantua.
Now however, Emperor Joseph’s brother,
the Grand Duke Leopold II of Tuscany and
the Bishop Scipio Ricci of Pistoia, repeated
Joseph’s actions. They organized a synod at
which certain papal doctrines and papal
supremacy was eliminated. Pope Pius VI
had another rebellion on his hands.
The rebellions continued. In Germany,
ecclesiastical leaders in Mainz, Trier and
Cologne and the Archbishop of Salzburg
attempted to curtail papal authority. In
Spain, Sardinia and Venice, the authorities
followed in Joseph’s footsteps and in the
two Sicilies, Ferdinand IV refused to allow
the authority of papal decrees without royal
assent. The king refused to acknowledge
papal suzerainty and more than sixty Sees
were vacated. Seven years later Pope Pius
VI was allowed to fill them in a temporary
compromise.
The new lands in the Americas were, by
comparison, un-troublesome to the Pope.
The See of Baltimore was founded and filled
in 1788.
Then came the French Revolution and
Napoleon in which France too tried to
distance itself from Rome.

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Poor Pius VI never did get back to the peace

of the monastery of Subiaco.

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101
st
Pope Pius XII (1939 – 1958) … 261
Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli
must have been relieved to be known simply
as Pope Pius.
Eugenio Pacelli was born in Rome in 1876
as the third child of devout Catholics …
both lawyers. They had four children: a boy
and a girl before Eugenio and another girl
afterwards. Eugenio was a thin child who
suffered from stomach problems that
persisted through his life, forcing him
always to be careful of his diet.
The family lived in an apartment in central
Rome with Eugenio’s grandfather who had
been the legal advisor to Pope Pius IX. The
apartment must have felt much like the law
office of the Vatican. It certainly affected
Eugenio.
He sounds to good to be true. He was
modest and never appeared before his
brother and sisters without being fully
dressed with a jacket and tie. He always
came to the table with a book, carefully
asking his parent’s permission to read. He’s
was never part of a real family …
Catholicism and the papacy was his life.
He even used to act out the ritual of mass in
robes that his Mother provided when normal
boys might be playing ‘cops and robbers.’
As a youth he was pious. However, his mind
worked overtime with great subtlety and

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cunning on occasion when needed. He was

the perfect combination of a churchman and
a lawyer.
He was well educated, in a theoretical sense,
and he learnt to speak Latin, Italian,
German, English, French, Spanish,
Portuguese, Dutch, Slovakian, and
Hungarian. He had both a gift for languages
and an excellent memory. It was said later
that he learnt Portuguese well enough to be
able address the Brazilian Parliament in just
40 days.
Just a few years before his birth the Popes
had lost their lands to the emerging Italian
state formed from its disparate republics and
in 1870 the papacy even lost Rome and was
allotted a much smaller property, now the
Vatican. It was threatened that the Pope
might even be considered a normal Italian
citizen.
Both Pacelli’s father and grandfather
worked on the restoration of papal authority
through ecclesiastical and international law.
The first Vatican Council in 1870 declared
that the Pope was “dogmatically infallible in
matters of faith and morals” and “the
unchallenged primate of the faithful.” The
Council inferred that he was not to be an
ordinary Italian but that he held dominion
over the wider Church even without its
traditional lands across the Italian peninsula.
Pacelli entered the Vatican at the age of 24

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103
with this background of international affairs
and church law. He collaborated on the
reformulation of church law, the Code of
Canon Law, which was then distributed in
1917 to Catholic bishops and clergy
throughout the world.
The code gave the Pope full power over the
Church: all bishops would be nominated by
the Pope; doctrinal error would be
considered heresy; priest’s writings were
subject to censorship; papal letters to the
faithful were infallible and all candidates for
priesthood would have to take an oath to
submit to the strict wording of doctrine as
laid down by the Pope.
In 1917 and already an archbishop, Pacelli
became papal nuncio, or ambassador, to
eliminate all existing legal challenges to the
new papal doctrine. At the same time, in
Munich, he was to reach a treaty between
the papacy and Germany, which would
supersede all other agreements and be a
model of Catholic church-state relations. A
Reich Concordat would mean recognition by
the German government of the Pope's right
to impose the new Code of Canon Law on
Germany's Catholics. It would also
recognize certain powers of the State.
Pacelli was well aware of Germany’s
political conditions and the relevance of
Munich.
Pacelli was elected Pope in 1939, in a very

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difficult time, the war already having started

with Hitler’s invasion of Austria and
Czechoslovakia and Mussolini’s invasion of
Abyssinia. Britain would enter the war that
year when Hitler invaded Poland with whom
Britain had a defensive treaty. France
followed soon after.
Before the war Archbishop Pacelli had tried
to appease the Nazi’s and had even called
for a Peace Conference, which never took
place. However, he condemned neither
Hitler’s policy of “Lebensraum” and his
military expansion across Europe, nor the
persecution of the Jews. Vatican history says
that he was being careful and trying to
protect the Roman Catholics of German-
occupied territories, but it also meant that
they were provided no authoritative voice of
support. His actions, or lack of action, were
not strange for a careful lawyer.
His first “Summi Ponitifactus,” or papal
sermon, was an evasive masterpiece of legal
words hidden in church-speak. The
document reminds one of a later President of
the United States, also a lawyer, who
answered a direct question at his
impeachment hearings by saying, “It
depends what you mean by ‘is’.”
(Fortunately Clinton’s legal evasion was
ineffective. He was impeached.)
The closest Pacelli got to speaking about the
horror that had already encompassed the

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105
Jews and would soon encompass the world
was to say:
“As, with a heart full of confidence and
hope, We place this first Encyclical of
Our Pontificate under the Seal of Christ
the King, We feel entirely assured of the
unanimous and enthusiastic approval of
the whole flock of Christ. The difficulties,
anxieties and trials of the present hour
arouse, intensify and refine, to a degree
rarely attained, the sense of solidarity in
the Catholic family. They make all
believers in God and in Christ share the
consciousness of a common threat from a
common danger.”
There was no condemnation of those
responsible for the “common threat.”
“The hour when this Our first Encyclical
reaches you is in many respects a real
"Hour of Darkness" in which the spirit of
violence and of discord brings
indescribable suffering on mankind. Do
We need to give assurance that Our
paternal heart is close to all Our
children in compassionate love, and
especially to the afflicted, the oppressed,
and the persecuted? The nations swept
into the tragic whirlpool of war are
perhaps as yet only at the "beginnings of
sorrows" but even now there reigns in
thousands of families, death and
desolation, lamentation and misery. The

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blood of countless human beings, even

noncombatants, raises a piteous dirge
over a nation such as Our dear Poland,
which, for its fidelity to the Church, for
its services in the defense of Christian
civilization, written in indelible
characters in the annals of history, has a
right to the generous and brotherly
sympathy of the whole world, while it
awaits, relying on the powerful
intercession of Mary, Help of Christians,
the hour of a resurrection in harmony
with the principles of justice and true
peace.
These words, without a single negative word
about the Nazi regime, would hardly bring
solace or support to people being transported
in cattle trucks to concentration camps
across Germany and then being herded into
gas chambers.
Even as things got worse, the Pope refused
to condemn atrocities, For example, while
Jews and Serbs were being massacred in
Croatia, Pius XII was corresponding in a
friendly manner with Hitler’s man-in-
charge, Ante Pavilec and ignoring the deaths
that Pavilec was ordering.
Of course, the Pope also had a dictator of his
own living in the same city. Benito
Mussolini carefully courted the Pope and
declared Italian policies (that woman should
work only in the home; that divorce and

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107
contraception should be banned) that were in
accord with those of the Pope. As a result
the Pope never objected to Mussolini’s
adventure in Abyssinia although he did write
a mild letter of protest when, at the start of
his papacy, Jews were deprived of all right
of Italian citizenship. They were henceforth
not allowed to marry non-Jews, and could
not work in state offices or in any banking
establishment. Transport to Auschwitz-
Birkenau may have been in the offing.
After the war, the Vatican, while keeping
it’s own official papers secret, sought to
whitewash the Pope’s image. Several
catholic writers have claimed that
denunciations of Hitler by Catholic Bishops
in war-torn Europe were the words of Pope
Pius XII even though they did not come with
the authority of his voice. John Cornwell
revealed what Pacelli had done in his book
“Hitler’s Pope,” and naturally came under
severe Vatican censure.
Pope Pius XII’s life in the Vatican was
comfortable throughout the war. Sister Mary
Pascalina looked after him for forty years.
She was his woman and very protective of
all his wishes, protecting him from
unannounced visits and the like. She was
therefore thoroughly disliked by the papal
staff and ecclesiastical visitors. Her diaries
were published as a biography 'La Popesa.’
One must make whatever one likes of the

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title.
Viewing all the evidence, it seems that while
Pope Pius XII was not a deliberate and
outright Nazi collaborator, his actions prior
to the war made it easy for the Nazis to gain
power and the fact that he did not denounce
the Nazi’s or their genocide is inconsistent
with his role as Pope. The Nazis could and
did ignore him.
Cornwell’s book’s title remains his true
legacy.

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rd
Pope Paul VI (1963 – 1978) … 263
Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria
Montini was a churchman through and
through.
Born in 1897, in Lombardy, into an Italian
family of nobility (at least on his mother’s
side), he entered a seminary at 19 after
school and was ordained a priest at 23. He
was then educated at the Gregorian
University, the University of Rome and a
Church Academy. There is no evidence that
Giovanni mixed with anyone but church
people after high school.
He entered the Vatican civil service,
working for Cardinal Pacelli who was then
Vatican Secretary of State. When Pacelli
became Pope Pius XII, Montini’s position
was confirmed under a new Secretary of
State and then when he died, Montini
worked directly for Pope Pius XII who
assumed the work of the Secretary of State.
Thus, Montini is tarred with the same brush
that tars Pope Pius XII. There is no
suggestion that they directly conspired with
Hitler but no condemnation was issued of
either Hitler’s invasions of other countries or
of his policy of genocide and murder. If
Pope Pius XII was ‘Hitler’s Pope” then
Montini was his willing aide and diplomat.
Montini’s repeated contacts with Count
Galeazzo Ciano, Italian fascist Minister of

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Foreign affairs and son-in-law of Mussolini,

remains a criticism of his Vatican behavior.
Montini is suspected of having obtained
from the Fascists, at the beginning of the
war, promises of advantages for the Vatican,
in exchange of the Church’s support of
Mussolini’s fascist regime.
The idea would not have been strange to
Montini since his uncle, an Admiral, was a
co-founder of the Italian fascist party.
Fascism must have been applauded at home.
Montini was an important man dealing with
both sides: it seems that on one hand he
amassed large sums of money to assist
European Jews (although no word is
provided of what happened to it) and on the
other hand he assisted Nazi officers to
escape the collapse of the Third Reich. He
was even said that he tried to arrange a
separate peace for Italy with the United
States.
In 1954 Montini became Archbishop of
Milan, although not a Cardinal on the next
possible occasion. Because of this he was
not a candidate for Pope when his
benefactor Pope Pius XII died. However, the
next pope, Pope John XXIII did shortly
appoint him as a Cardinal and this made him
a favorite for election when the pope died of
stomach cancer.
Finally, in 1963, he was elected. He took the
name Pope Paul VI.

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His career in the church would merely have
been a footnote to the work of ‘Hitler’s
Pope’ except for one thing.
The Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord
Ramsey, the head of the Anglican Church,
visited Rome in 1965 and the two heads of
separate Christian religions met. Associated
Press reported the event:
“In March 1966, Archbishop Ramsey
and Pope Paul VI met in Rome. It was
the first official visit to a Pope by a head
of the Anglican Church in 400 years.
Both noted the historic nature of the
occasion. ‘The world observes, history
will remember,’ the Pope said.”
“In their conversations they discussed
the practical obstacles to unity between
the churches. Speaking of ''formidable
difficulties of doctrine,'' the Archbishop
expressed the hope that there would be
increasing dialogue between
theologians.”
No pope has ever visited the head of the
Anglican Church. The initiator of this
meeting was Archbishop Ramsey (the
Anglican Pope) who knew full well that
religious observance was declining
throughout Europe and that both Churches
needed help. An alliance between these two
religions would strengthen Christianity
everywhere. Ramsey had made earlier visits
to the United States with the same message

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of unity to Protestant groups.

However, the Pope saw the offer only
through a Roman-Catholic filter and apart
from a promise to think about it, discussions
got nowhere. Pope Paul VI missed the
opportunity handed to him of a monumental
alliance that might also, one day, have
included the Protestant communities.
In the 16th Century, the Popes Leo X and
Clement VII had been guilty of allowing the
Catholic Church to fracture by ignoring
Martin Luther and by underestimating King
Henry VIII. Now Pope Paul VI couldn’t see
the wood for the trees. He certainly didn’t
grasp the opportunity of renewal.
Maybe it is because of this, that the Roman
Catholic Church in Europe in 2008 has
steadily declined. It has difficulty in even
finding candidates for priesthood while the
congregations of its churches have dropped
to miniscule numbers of a few old people.
The churches are being increasingly
converted into art galleries.

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Celibacy
The Catholic Church requires that its priests
be celibate … an unnatural condition for any
man. This may have arisen from the idea
that Christ (Yeshua bin Yosef) and his
disciples were celibate, carefully omitting
the presence of Mary Magdalene, a probable
prostitute, in their midst. Moreover, Peter
had a wife and children.
There is good reason to believe that Paul
was homosexual. He said, “I would that all
men were even as myself; but every one
hath his proper gift from God.” He preached
abstinence from marriage in case you spent
more time thinking about your wife than
about the cause.
Unfortunately, forcing human beings into an
unnatural state results in unnatural
consequences. Priests forced to live with
only other men resort to homosexuality just
as those in jail or the army do. Throughout
the years priests and popes have been
accused, and rightly so, of sodomy and
worse. Other priests have not been above
abusing nuns and children in their care.
The most enlightened Catholic communities
turned a blind eye to their heterosexual
priest having a faithful live-in housekeeper,
who appears to be more than a cleaning
maid. Indeed, she herself might employ
cleaning maids. France in particular seems
never to have had a problem with

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homosexuality amongst the clergy, perhaps

because of this blind eye.
The celibacy restriction also makes it much
more probable that new priests are not only
celibate but also active homosexuals before
they even come to the priesthood. The
Church is a haven for men like this.
Even though this state of affairs has been
going on since the Catholic Church was
founded, the latter half of the 20th Century
and early 21st Century has seen a raft of
exposed cases of paedophilia and sex abuse
in the Roman Catholic churches and their
institutions. Cases abound across the world
but principally in Canada, the United States,
Ireland, Germany and Belgium. In most of
these cases, when a priest was accused in the
past, the bishop simply moved him on to a
new parish … and if it happened again, to
new victims. They continually put new
parishioners in danger. The church, with the
acquiescence of the Vatican, took care of its
own.
However, between 1960 and 1980, 4,392
U.S. priests (4% of those in employment)
were accused of sex abuse and civil suits
have resulted in fines and penalties in the
millions of dollars. The initial response of
the Church was that “it didn’t happen” even
though the Church’s own paperwork showed
that Bishops knew and simply hid the facts.
Indeed, the Vatican swore them to secrecy.

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What is new is that times have changed and
the harassed are willing to sue even many
years later with the help of activist lawyers.
In the United States some dioceses have
been bankrupted by the financial penalties
that have been exacted from them … the
Boston and Los Angeles dioceses in
particular.
In late 2007, a $50 million dollar judgement
was decreed against the Catholic order of
Jesuits for systematic abuse in Alaska. “In
some villages,” it was reported, “it is
difficult to find an adult who was not
sexually violated by men who used religion
and power to rape, shame and then silence
hundreds of Alaska Native children. Despite
all this, no Catholic religious leader yet
admits that problem priests were dumped in
Alaska.”
So, the church has been forced to
acknowledge the sex abuse cases. However,
the papacy still does not seem to see a
problem in forcing their priests to be
‘celibate’ and thus endangering children.

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Papal proclamations

Papal proclamations come in many forms:

bulls, proclamations, encyclicals, and
meditations and, in today’s age, even radio
messages, txt messages and blogs.

A Papal Bull is recognized for its leaden

seals or bullae, which attest to its
authenticity. It provides strict religious
guidance for the faithful. This guidance is
not advisory … the faithful are expected to
follow the words of an infallible pope.

Papal Proclamations are announcements of

the actions of the church … that this person
is now a saint and so on. They are not of
concern outside of church members.

A Papal Encyclical is, in the strictest sense,

is a letter, usually treating some aspect of
Catholic doctrine, sent by the Pope and
addressed either to the Catholic bishops of a
particular area or, more normally, to the
bishops of the world. It’s a management
directive.

Today, however, things are different. The

world is open … if you don’t have a
publicity arm to your program you are
doomed to oblivion. The Roman Catholic
Church knows that.

The church therefore encourages church

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websites and blogs … at least those with
their aegis and who propagate their message.

Recognizing that Papal speechwriters are

bound by convention extending over 2,000
years, they have very little opportunity to be
either current or honest.
For example, sentences like: “Placing our
hand in that of Christ, leaning on him, we
have now been lifted up to steer that ship
which is the Church; it is safe and secure,
though in the midst of storms, because the
comforting, dominant presence of the Son of
God is with it,” are merely Roman Catholic
church boiler-plate.
This particular speaker had decided not to
rock the boat. His programs: “We wish to
continue … or to remind … or to pursue the
same programs … or preserve the integrity
of …” define his whole program. They took
a page. Paying tribute to the various levels
of church workers from Cardinals of the
Sacred College on down took twice as long
with twice as meaningless words.
Take, for example, this exhortation: “My
brothers and sisters – all people of the
world! We are all obliged to work to raise
the world to a condition of greater justice,
more stable peace, more sincere
cooperation. Therefore, we ask and beg all –
from the humblest who are the connective
fibers of nations to heads of state

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responsible for each nation – to work for a

new order, one more just and honest.”
It sounds very like the beauty contestant
who stands and proclaims that, “I will work
for World Peace.”
Unfortunately the quotations are from the
“Urbi et Orbi, radio message of His Holiness
John Paul I on accession.
We do not condemn the Church of Rome …
it does a far better job of condemnation by
itself.

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119
Pope John Paul II (1978 – 2005) … 265th
Karol Jozef Wojtyla was born in 1920, the
second son of a retired army officer and
tailor, Karol, and his schoolteacher wife,
Emilia, who had a Lithuanian background.
They and his friends called Karol Jozef,
Lolek.
Wadowice, where he was born, was a town
of 8,000 Catholics and 2,000 Jews 35 miles
southwest of Krakow. The Wojtylas were
strict Catholics, but did not share the anti-
Semitic views of many Poles. They knew
Jews. One of Lolek's playmates was Jerzy
Kluger, a Jew who many years later would
play a key role as a negotiator between the
papacy and Israeli officials, when the
Vatican extended long-overdue diplomatic
recognition to Israel.
Lolek’s youth was very active. He skied,
hiked, kayaked and swam. Unfortunately,
two accidents, one with a truck and one with
a streetcar left him with back problems that
gave him a severe stoop when he was tired.
During the war he first studied in an
underground seminary and then, when the
Germans were rounding up Poles, he took
refuge in the Archbishop’s palace. He was
ordained immediately after the war when he
was 26 and he took up priestly duties three
years later when his formal education
leading to two master’s degrees and a
doctorate was complete.

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He was appointed Cardinal in 1967. They

were difficult times for a Catholic in
Communist governed Poland but Lolek was
astute enough not show distaste of
Communism, as Pope Pius XII had shown
no distaste of the Nazis or the Fascists.
Cardinal John Paul II gave the impression
that he was different from the prior Polish
church leaders who were openly against
Communism.
He was elected Pope John Paul II in 1978
and immediately gained a reputation as a
traveller. He travelled everywhere across the
globe. He made 104 trips in 25 years
covering 740,000 miles to most countries of
the world … other than China. One cannot
blame him for travelling and speaking across
the world … except for the messages that he
left.
Despite his upbringing under the Nazis and
his youth under a Communist regime and his
extensive visits to other societies since
becoming Pope, John Paul lived more in the
distant past than anyone would have
guessed. He was a very conservative and
backward-looking Pope.
He first determined that females had no part
in Catholic services. It sounded as though he
had uttered his deliberation in the 10th
Century. Fortunately, enlightened Catholic
dioceses continued using girls and boys
equally in their services. However, it did

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show that John Paul was not only ‘celibate’
but thought women to be inferior creatures
even in the 21st Century.
Several of his edicts make no sense in a
modern world. It was as if he had lost his
way or was never on any path in the first
place.
Between 1987 and 2001, Pope John Paul II
recognized 470 people as martyrs in Spain.
They were all on the side of Franco’s
nationalists during the civil war in which
both nationalists and republicans committed
an almost equal number of atrocities and
executions. Yet, the Pope refused to see this
mass beatification as a provocation arguing
that it had nothing to do with politics. It is
difficult to see whether the Pope was blind
or was ignorant for the Spanish Bishops
were deep in politics opposing government
reforms on such matters as civil marriages.
However, the greatest damage done by Pope
John Paul II was his strict adherence to the
idea that, at all costs, procreation was a duty
of men and women and that nothing should
stand in the way. The use of condoms he
declared to be evil.
Unfortunately, at the time of John Paul’s
papacy, Africa in particular was rife with the
human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and
acquired immunodeficiency syndrome
(AIDS) diseases, which were passed from
one person to another through unprotected

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sexual activity including rape. The

prevention of the spread of these diseases
was imperative lest whole societies be
eradicated. However Benedict refused to
recognize existing reality and stated that the
protection against AIDS is only obtainable
through abstinence. Of course, at the same
time he urged that men and women not
abstain from procreation.
Moreover, being celibate, he didn’t
recognize the human compulsion towards
sex.

The cartoon by Ann Telnaes published in

“Women’s eNews” tells it all.
The papacy under Pope John Paul II was
"flatly dismissive that the Vatican (was)
about to release a document that will
condone any condom use.” John Paul was
content to see AIDS deaths in Africa rise to

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unprecedented levels … whole families and
communities having been wiped out.
He did not recognize change or that he was
administering an organization in a different
society from that which existed in the 1st
Century.
It is easy to see Pope John Paul II as a
murderer.

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Pope Benedict XVI (2005 - ) … 266th

It was said that Joseph Alois Ratzinger was
elected (in 2005) as an interim Pope because
of his advanced age. The College of
Cardinals expected the opportunity to
consider a successor more carefully fairly
soon. To date, 2010, they are still waiting
while Ratzinger travels around at 82.
Ratzinger was not an obvious choice for a
leader of a church’s moral path. His adopted
name of Benedict hides the worst of his
upbringing as a prior member of the Hitler
Youth. The Church announced that his
membership was unavoidable, but this
statement carefully ignores the fact that
Catholic youth groups were allowed in Nazi
Germany. It was not mandatory for a
Catholic to join the ultra-right Hitler Youth.
This tolerance of Catholic youth groups may
have been because the Catholic Church had
a special place in Germany because of Pope
Pius XII’s earlier Reich Concordant and his
tacit acceptance of the Nazis.
Ratzinger was born in 1927 in Marktl am
Inn in Bavaria, the son of a police officer. In
1932 the family moved first closer to the
Swiss border since his father at least was
opposed to the Nazis. Then they moved to
the neighborhood of Traunstein when his
father retired in 1937.
At 14 Ratzinger voluntarily joined the Hitler
Youth. He tried to evade military service by

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125
reason of sickness but at 16 he was
conscripted into the army to serve in the
anti-aircraft corps guarding Munich
(defending the BMW factory). From there
he was sent to serve in Hungary in anti-tank
defense. When the allies arrived in 1945, he
deserted and went home.
Ratzinger, as a soldier, was put into a
Prisoner-of-War camp and made to attend
de-Nazification classes. After going through
those he was allowed to enter a seminary
from which he was ordained in 1951.
After the war, every effort was made to
whitewash the Pope’s membership in the
Nazi Hitler Youth and the story goes that he
selected the religious path for himself at a
very early age based on having seen a
Cardinal in his robes. Now he has a website
called “The Ratzinger Fan Club” that carries
the mythology forward.
The sum result however is that Ratzinger
gained his Papacy with a past that many,
inside and outside of the Church, consider,
at best, dubious.
On the plus side, he was educated at the
University of Bonn and has a presentable
academic theological background and was
well grounded in the idealistic bases of the
Catholic Church … so much so that like his
immediate predecessor he seemed to have
forgotten that the world had moved on apace
even though he had experienced reality in

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the army. His ideas and views were firmly

grounded in the theories of the past.
For example, as Pope, he immediately
confirmed the policies and canons of Pope
John Paul II, thereby becoming a
collaborator in the increasing number of
AIDS deaths in Africa.
In 2007, he continued the “non-political”
intervention in Spain started by his
predecessor, Pope John Paul II, by
conducting a mass beatification of 498
martyrs of the civil war that ran from 1936
to 1939. They were all politically Franco’s
nationalists. Even many Catholics call the
mass beatification “inappropriate and
discriminatory, demonstrating the inability
of the Church hierarchy to review positions
unchanged for 70 years.”
Unfortunately, the Papacy is incapable of
reviewing positions unchanged for two
thousand years. A Pope usually takes the
easy way not to muddy waters however
dank they may be.
The revelations of pedophilia rife in the
celibate Catholic Church in this 21st Century
has also revealed that Ratzinger, prior to
becoming Pope, as Cardinal, was part and
parcel of the policy of moving pedophiles,
once revealed, to other dioceses where they
could continue the victimization of young
boys. He was also part and parcel of the
policy and practice of demanding silence of

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those priests and bishops who knew what
was happening. No one was allowed to
speak to civil authorities. There’s no
evidence that Ratzinger was a pedophile but
he might as well have been one. He was as
guilty as those priests that he helped to
protect when they sodomized children and
were moved on to sodomize more.
Now, in 2010, he wants to apologize
publicly for Catholic pedophilia just as on
the Day of Pardon in March 2000 Pope John
Paul II apologized for the Inquisition. But
these apologies are not acts of contrition so
much as attempts to counteract the
worldwide disillusionment with the Catholic
Church and to protect the church’s funds
from the courts.
“Can the Pope, the living embodiment of the
ancient Gospel and absolute spiritual leader
of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics, publicly
atone for his sins and yet preserve the
theological impregnability of the papacy?”
asked Jeff Israely and Howard Chua-Eoan in
TIME magazine in May 2010.
We suspect that he cannot … since the myth
of theological impregnability has long been
dispelled by circumstances. Ratzinger is
fully implicated with church pedophilia.
Not that Pope Benedict XVI neglects the
poor. In 2007 he pledged $2.2 million per
year to support an Italian third-division
soccer club, Ancona, which is renowned, not

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for its play, but for its poverty and criminal

behavior. Twice the club has lost a chairman
to a prison cell. In return for the millions of
dollars, players will have to spend 2 hours a
week doing social work.
Meanwhile in Africa, 500,000 women die of
pregnancy each year where contraception is
not available and abortions are heavily
restricted.
G-o-a-l! G-o-a-l!

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129

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10 things that the faithful would

prefer not to know about Popes and
the Papacy

Summarizing what the lives of the Popes tell

us, we can say immediately that their list of
sins is much longer and more serious than
their list of human virtues.
1. Most Popes have been overly
ambitious to reach the highest post in
their profession, so much so that they
have used cunning, bribery, and often
direct force to attain the papal throne.
There have been a few, very few, Popes
who were elected against their will.
2. Popes live entirely in the past …
usually having spent years studying
ancient ideas and out-of-date canons.
Since Cardinals and prelates, who have
the same limited background, surround
them, the problem is compounded. The
idea that society develops, changes and
needs revised ideas is strange to them.
Sometimes change is visited upon them,
close and personally, such as the loss of
Rome in 1870 to the new Italian State,
and the media’s 20th Century exposure
of the church’s support of pedophilia.
However, relegation of the Church to
150 acres of the Vatican produced no
change in Papal arrogance and it is

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131
st
unlikely that 21 Century court
decisions will have much effect either.
3. Popes think more of the tenets of the
Church than they do of human life. This
is reflected in their application of age-
old ideas to societies in which they do
not apply and often result in disaster.
The condemnation of condoms is such a
recent prescription. Even before this, in
medieval times, the Popes waged war to
protect their property at the total neglect
of peasants who were conscripted as
battle fodder in papal armies.
4. Popes are men, but unnatural men,
since they are required to be celibate.
This colors their ideas about what is
natural between men and, worse,
between men and boys. However, some,
in opposition to the church they
governed, ignored celibacy. Some sired
families, albeit secretly.
5. Popes consider women inferior
creatures not worthy of service in the
Church other than in procreation. (Many
dictators, from Adolf Hitler to the Dalai
Lama, have held the same philosophy.)
6. Popes protect their own … in the
face of all that is immoral and even
criminal in the societies in which they
operate … they hide their sinners. More
than just a blind eye, Church procedures
require the protection of church officers

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from secular justice whatever their sin.

Pedophiles, for example, were merely
moved to other posts while their
superiors were sworn to secrecy.
7. The pope’s term of office usually is
‘until death.’ Thus, the Catholic Church
is faced with the senility and the inane
proclamations of older popes. Pope John
Paul II was 85 when he died and his
senility was clear in his later years. In
contrast, the English ‘Pope’, the Lord
Archbishop of Canterbury, head of the
Anglican Church, must retire at a certain
age while he is still capable of clear
thought.
8. The tenets of the Catholic Church are
all presented without doubt, whereas, in
reality doubt exists in almost every
deliberation. Moreover, this practice,
and the “absolute power and
infallibility”, conferred upon an elected
Pope inevitably had made the Pope, his
Cardinals and the church arrogant.
9. Popes consider that the protection of
the institution of the Catholic Church is
of greater priority than truth or the relief
of human suffering.
10.No Pope has tried to change the
archaic teachings of the Church. Indeed,
many have censored new ideas at places
of learning, especially those that look on
religious matters from a logical or

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rational aspect. At best, a few popes
have tried to reform the sinful behavior
of priests and their leaning towards
luxury and sloth.

And what good things can one ascribe to

Popes?
Some have been, individually, caring
persons. However, that is faint praise to be
ascribed to the highest class of Roman
Catholic Church dignitaries. I leave it to the
reader to discover general virtues.

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Chronological List of Popes

1. St. Peter (32-67)
2. St. Linus (67-76)
3. St. Anacletus (Cletus) (76-88)
4. St. Clement I (88-97)
5. St. Evaristus (97-105)
6. St. Alexander I (105-115)
7. St. Sixtus I (115-125)
8. St. Telesphorus (125-136)
9. St. Hyginus (136-140)
10. St. Pius I (140-155)
11. St. Anicetus (155-166)
12. St. Soter (166-175)
13. St. Eleutherius (175-189)
14. St. Victor I (189-199)
15. St. Zephyrinus (199-217)
16. St. Callistus I (217-22)
17. St. Urban I (222-30)
18. St. Pontain (230-35)
19. St. Anterus (235-36)
20. St. Fabian (236-50)
21. St. Cornelius (251-53)
22. St. Lucius I (253-54)
23. St. Stephen I (254-257)
24. St. Sixtus II (257-258)
25. St. Dionysius (260-268)
26. St. Felix I (269-274)
27. St. Eutychian (275-283)
28. St. Caius (283-296)
29. St. Marcellinus (296-304)
30. St. Marcellus I (308-309)
31. St. Eusebius (309 or 310)
32. St. Miltiades (311-14)
33. St. Sylvester I (314-35)
34. St. Marcus (336)
35. St. Julius I (337-52)

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135
36. Liberius (352-66)
37. St. Damasus I (366-83)
38. St. Siricius (384-99)
39. St. Anastasius I (399-401)
40. St. Innocent I (401-17)
41. St. Zosimus (417-18)
42. St. Boniface I (418-22)
43. St. Celestine I (422-32)
44. St. Sixtus III (432-40)
45. St. Leo I (the Great) (440-61)
46. St. Hilarius (461-68)
47. St. Simplicius (468-83)
48. St. Felix III (II) (483-92)
49. St. Gelasius I (492-96)
50. Anastasius II (496-98)
51. St. Symmachus (498-514)
52. St. Hormisdas (514-23)
53. St. John I (523-26)
54. St. Felix IV (III) (526-30)
55. Boniface II (530-32)
56. John II (533-35)
57. St. Agapetus I (535-36)
58. St. Silverius (536-37)
59. Vigilius (537-55)
60. Pelagius I (556-61)
61. John III (561-74)
62. Benedict I (575-79)
63. Pelagius II (579-90)
64. St. Gregory I (the Great) (590-604)
65. Sabinian (604-606)
66. Boniface III (607)
67. St. Boniface IV (608-15)
68. St. Deusdedit (Adeodatus I) (615-18)
69. Boniface V (619-25)
70. Honorius I (625-38)
71. Severinus (640)

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72. John IV (640-42)

73. Theodore I (642-49)
74. St. Martin I (649-55)
75. St. Eugene I (655-57)
76. St. Vitalian (657-72)
77. Adeodatus (II) (672-76)
78. Donus (676-78)
79. St. Agatho (678-81)
80. St. Leo II (682-83)
81. St. Benedict II (684-85)
82. John V (685-86)
83. Conon (686-87)
84. St. Sergius I (687-701)
85. John VI (701-05)
86. John VII (705-07)
87. Sisinnius (708)
88. Constantine (708-15)
89. St. Gregory II (715-31)
90. St. Gregory III (731-41)
91. St. Zachary (741-52)
92. Stephen II (752)
93. Stephen III (752-57)
94. St. Paul I (757-67)
95. Stephen IV (767-72)
96. Adrian I (772-95)
97. St. Leo III (795-816)
98. Stephen V (816-17)
99. St. Paschal I (817-24)
100. Eugene II (824-27)
101. Valentine (827)
102. Gregory IV (827-44)
103. Sergius II (844-47)
104. St. Leo IV (847-55)
105. Benedict III (855-58)
106. St. Nicholas I (the Great) (858-67)
107. Adrian II (867-72)

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108. John VIII (872-82)
109. Marinus I (882-84)
110. St. Adrian III (884-85)
111. Stephen VI (885-91)
112. Formosus (891-96)
113. Boniface VI (896)
114. Stephen VII (896-97)
115. Romanus (897)
116. Theodore II (897)
117. John IX (898-900)
118. Benedict IV (900-03)
119. Leo V (903)
120. Sergius III (904-11)
121. Anastasius III (911-13)
122. Lando (913-14)
123. John X (914-28)
124. Leo VI (928)
125. Stephen VIII (929-31)
126. John XI (931-35)
127. Leo VII (936-39)
128. Stephen IX (939-42)
129. Marinus II (942-46)
130. Agapetus II (946-55)
131. John XII (955-63)
132. Leo VIII (963-64)
133. Benedict V (964)
134. John XIII (965-72)
135. Benedict VI (973-74)
136. Benedict VII (974-83)
137. John XIV (983-84)
138. John XV (985-96)
139. Gregory V (996-99)
140. Sylvester II (999-1003)
141. John XVII (1003)
142. John XVIII (1003-09)
143. Sergius IV (1009-12)

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144. Benedict VIII (1012-24)

145. John XIX (1024-32)
146. Benedict IX (1032-45) removed twice
147. Sylvester III (1045)
148. Benedict IX (1045)
149. Gregory VI (1045-46)
150. Clement II (1046-47)
151. Benedict IX (1047-48)
152. Damasus II (1048)
153. St. Leo IX (1049-54)
154. Victor II (1055-57)
155. Stephen X (1057-58)
156. Nicholas II (1058-61)
157. Alexander II (1061-73)
158. St. Gregory VII (1073-85)
159. Blessed Victor III (1086-87)
160. Blessed Urban II (1088-99)
161. Paschal II (1099-1118)
162. Gelasius II (1118-19)
163. Callistus II (1119-24)
164. Honorius II (1124-30)
165. Innocent II (1130-43)
166. Celestine II (1143-44)
167. Lucius II (1144-45)
168. Blessed Eugene III (1145-53)
169. Anastasius IV (1153-54)
170. Adrian IV (1154-59)
171. Alexander III (1159-81)
172. Lucius III (1181-85)
173. Urban III (1185-87)
174. Gregory VIII (1187)
175. Clement III (1187-91)
176. Celestine III (1191-98)
177. Innocent III (1198-1216)
178. Honorius III (1216-27)
179. Gregory IX (1227-41)

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180. Celestine IV (1241)
181. Innocent IV (1243-54)
182. Alexander IV (1254-61)
183. Urban IV (1261-64)
184. Clement IV (1265-68)
185. Blessed Gregory X (1271-76)
186. Blessed Innocent V (1276)
187. Adrian V (1276)
188. John XXI (1276-77)
189. Nicholas III (1277-80)
190. Martin IV (1281-85)
191. Honorius IV (1285-87)
192. Nicholas IV (1288-92)
193. St. Celestine V (1294)
194. Boniface VIII (1294-1303)
195. Blessed Benedict XI (1303-04)
196. Clement V (1305-14)
197. John XXII (1316-34)
198. Benedict XII (1334-42)
199. Clement VI (1342-52)
200. Innocent VI (1352-62)
201. Blessed Urban V (1362-70)
202. Gregory XI (1370-78)
203. Urban VI (1378-89)
204. Boniface IX (1389-1404)
205. Innocent VII (1404-06)
206. Gregory XII (1406-15)
207. Martin V (1417-31)
208. Eugene IV (1431-47)
209. Nicholas V (1447-55)
210. Callistus III (1455-58)
211. Pius II (1458-64)
212. Paul II (1464-71)
213. Sixtus IV (1471-84)
214. Innocent VIII (1484-92)
215. Alexander VI (1492-1503)

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216. Pius III (1503)

217. Julius II (1503-13)
218. Leo X (1513-21)
219. Adrian VI (1522-23)
220. Clement VII (1523-34)
221. Paul III (1534-49)
222. Julius III (1550-55)
223. Marcellus II (1555)
224. Paul IV (1555-59)
225. Pius IV (1559-65)
226. St. Pius V (1566-72)
227. Gregory XIII (1572-85)
228. Sixtus V (1585-90)
229. Urban VII (1590)
230. Gregory XIV (1590-91)
231. Innocent IX (1591)
232. Clement VIII (1592-1605)
233. Leo XI (1605)
234. Paul V (1605-21)
235. Gregory XV (1621-23)
236. Urban VIII (1623-44)
237. Innocent X (1644-55)
238. Alexander VII (1655-67)
239. Clement IX (1667-69)
240. Clement X (1670-76)
241. Blessed Innocent XI (1676-89)
242. Alexander VIII (1689-91)
243. Innocent XII (1691-1700)
244. Clement XI (1700-21)
245. Innocent XIII (1721-24)
246. Benedict XIII (1724-30)
247. Clement XII (1730-40)
248. Benedict XIV (1740-58)
249. Clement XIII (1758-69)
250. Clement XIV (1769-74)
251. Pius VI (1775-99)

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141
252. Pius VII (1800-23)
253. Leo XII (1823-29)
254. Pius VIII (1829-30)
255. Gregory XVI (1831-46)
256. Blessed Pius IX (1846-78)
257. Leo XIII (1878-1903)
258. St. Pius X (1903-14)
259. Benedict XV (1914-22)
260. Pius XI (1922-39)
261. Pius XII (1939-58)
262. Blessed John XXIII (1958-63)
263. Paul VI (1963-78)
264. John Paul I (1978)
265. John Paul II (1978-2005)
266. Benedict XVI (2005-)

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References
1. Cupidity (noun) avarice,
avariciousness, covetousness,
(extreme greed for material wealth or
power)
2.New Advent: Catholic Encyclopedia,
2007
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12260a.ht
m
3.“Chronological list of 266 Popes
with links to their biographies”, New
Advent: Catholic Encyclopedia,
2007
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12272b.ht
m
4. “The Bad Popes,” E. R. Chamberlin,
Sutton Press, 2003
5. “Yeshua bin Yosef … the tale of an
evangelist,” John Graham, “Shapers
of our Age,” The Copper Beech,
Denver, Colorado, 2008
6. “Antioch on the Orontes,”
information regarding Peter’s work
in Antioch, 47-54 A.D.
http://www.bibleplaces.com/antiocho
rontes.htm 2007
7. “The Middle Ages,” Morris Bishop,
Mariner Books, Houghton-Mifflin,
1968
8. “Pompeii, The History, Life and Art

142
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143
of the Buried City,” Edited by
Marisa Ranieri Panetta, White Star
Publishers, Vercelli, Italy, 2004
9. “The Divine Comedy,” Dante
Alighieri, 1600
10. “Crusades, The Illustrated History,”
edited by Thomas F. Madden, The
University of Michigan Press, Ann
Arbor, 2004
11. “Medici Money,” Tim Parks, W.W.
Norton and Company, 2005
12. “Europe in the Sixteenth Century,”
H.G. Koenigsberger and George L.
Mosse, Longman, 1968
13. “Julius II”, The Web Gallery of Art,
Emil Kren and Daniel Marx, 2007
http://www.wga.hu/database/glossar
y/popes/julius2.html
14. “Over the Edge of the World,”
Laurence Bergreen, Harper Collins,
2003
15. “Hitler’s Pope,” John Cornwall,
Viking Penguin, 1999
16. “A Righteous Gentile: Pope Pius XII
and the Jews,” Rabbi David Dalin,
Catholic League, 2007
http://www.catholicleague.org/pius/d
alinframe.htm
17. “Jesuits to pay $50 million in Alaska

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abuse cases,” Michael Conlon,

Religion Writer, Reuters News
Agency, November 19, 2007
18. Wikipedia, Pope Benedict XV1,
2007
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benedict
_XVI
19. Lord Ramsey, Personal Interview
with the Lord Archbishop of all
England and leader of the Anglican
Church (the English ‘Pope’), 1967
20. “Lord
Ramsey, 83, Dies in England;
Former Archbishop of Canterbury,”
AP news release, April 1988
21. RatzingerFan Club … the
whitewashed biography of a sinner,
2007
http://www.ratzingerfanclub.com
22. “Church bid to save soul of Italian
football,” The Guardian Weekly,
p.45 October 19, 2007
23. “Pro-Francoclergy beatified,” The
Guardian Weekly, p.6 November 2,
2007
24. “The Trial of Benedict XVI”, Jeff
Israely & Howard Chua-Eoan, TIME
Magazine, May 27, 2010
25. “Urbi et Orbi, radio message of His
Holiness John Paul I
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_pau

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145
l_i/messages/documents/hf_jp-i_mes_urbi-
et-orbi_27081978_en.html

145