Naughty Popes

The Most Controversial Popes.

The Roman Catholic Popes in general have been as much politicians as religious leaders ...... so perhaps its not surprising that violent times produced violent Pontiffs. More modern times have led to more philosophical disputes, but through out history the Popes have always been controversial.

The Mediaeval Believe Was That Hell
Was For Emperors, Popes, and Princes.

Here's a listing of the some of those controversies and some of those more violent Popes.

1. Benedict XVI: At his annual address to senior Vatican staff in December last year, Pope Benedict XVI suggested that the creation of a theory on the origins of gender could lead to the “self destruction” of the human race. Many commentators believe that he was openly condemning homosexuality. He has also upset Muslims (not hard) and Jews (fairly easy) by suggesting they are following the wrong religion......

2. Gregory XVI: So frightened was Gregory of the burgeoning middle-class power that in 1831, he condemned railways as 'chemins d’enfer' (“ways of hell”), because they led to commerce and greater wealth for all, which would undermine papal power.

3. Clement VII: Clement tried to soothe European tensions in 1523 by supporting both France and Papal Rome, who were at war with each other at the time, but all this did was anger the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V of Spain, who, as a result of Clement’s bungled politics, sacked Rome in 1527.

4. Leo X: Leo spent eight years as Pope until his death in 1521, in which time his bad behaviour had managed to so offend the leading theologian of the day, Martin Luther that he split with Rome and, according to reports, also to kill a whole host of cardinals via “food poisoning”.

5. Alexander VI aka Mr Borgia, and father of Lucrezia and Cesare: Pope from 1492, Alexander took over most of Italy by force, had twelve illegitimate children, regularly engaged in orgies, and murdered more than 200 people. He was a very naughty boy!

6. Urban VI: Soon after he became Pope in 1378, his followers had a sneaking suspicion he’d gone mad. He was labelled ‘The Antichrist’ by Catherine of Sienna, before he went on to butcher large numbers of his cardinals for questioning his authority.

7. Innocent IV: Although his name implied he was nice, he was in fact the first Pope to endorse torture in order to extract confessions of heresy in 1252. His most famous victim was Galileo Galilei.

8. Benedict IX: The only Pope to be anointed three times, Benedict sold his first papacy in 1044, sold his second to his godfather in 1045 and was forced out of his third in 1048. St Peter Damian described him as “feasting on immorality”.

9. John XII: Holy Roman (which comprised of Germany and North Italy) Emperor Otto I charged John with taking advantage of offerings in 963. He was deposed, but returned as a Bishop after Otto left Rome, to then mutilate all his opponents in that city.

10. Stephen VI: Stephen wasn’t the biggest fan of predecessor, Formosus, so much so that, in 897, he exhumed his corpse, put him on trial (at which he was found guilty), pulled off three of his fingers, ripped off his holy clothes and tossed him into the Tiber. However Stephen himself was later imprisoned and strangled.

11. Urban II: had any priest who was secretly married, imprisoned and their 'wives and children' sold into slavery. Oh and he started the first Crusade.

12. Gregory IX: He started the inquisition of heretics (anyone not a strict and observant Catholic, or who couldn't prove it) in 1231. Around 10,000 people (not millions) were probably killed in the four main inquisitions e.g. In the period 1560–1700AD, the Spanish Inquisition held a total of 49,092 trials, and executed between 3,000 and 5,000 people. All the trials were recorded in the archive of the Council of the Supreme and General Inquisition (generally abbreviated as "Council of the Suprema"), but many many thousands more were interrogated or even tortured.

13. Sixtus IV: Made two of his nephews Cardinals and showered titles on his relatives. Sold licenses for brothels in Rome, instituted a tax on priests who had mistresses, and sold papal indulgences (passports to heaven), for the deceased to their grieving families.

14. Innocent VIII: Openly acknowledged his mistress and illegitimate children. Married them off to wealthy families and bestowed money, titles, and land on them. His papal bull Summis desiderantes of 1484 allowed him start the Inquisition against witches. Over the 160 years from 1500 to 1660, Europe saw between 50,000 and 80,000 suspected witches executed. About 80% of those killed were women.

The Fear Of Being Hell Bound Was
Never Far Away In The Middle Ages.

15. Lets not forget the "legendary Pope Joan - a mythic figure of a female pope" ..... she doesn't exist, but urban legend means the story appears regularly on mystery sites.

16. Pious XII aka "Hitler's Pope." In his quest to insure papal absolutism in Italy and special considerations for German Catholics, he was less than forthright with condemnations of Herr Hitler and Mussolini. Pious was possibly an anti-Semite, and so he failed to use his political power at the time to condemn Mussolini or Hitler, and possibly changed the course of history.

Oddly, even producing this list can be considered 'controversial' amongst Catholics even though the facts are true .....