10 Worst Popes of ALL TIME



10 Worst Popes of ALL TIME!!

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Terms:

Pope- the head of the Roman Catholic Church; believed to be infallible (incapable of making mistakes) and Christ’s representative on earth.

Papacy- the office of the Pope

Bishop- a person with authority in the Catholic Church

Cardinal- advise the Pope and elect new Popes

Deacon- a person who helps the priest

Indulgence- a paper, sold to people by the Catholic Church, that claimed to forgive them of their (or their dead loved ones) sins

Celibate- the act of rejecting marriage and sexual intercourse

Pope Stephen VI (896-897 AD): Had the previous Pope’s body dug up, put on trial, and mutilated!

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When Stephen VI became Pope in the year 896, all he wanted was revenge. The problem was that the guy he hated so much was Pope Formosus, the last Pope before him, and he was dead. But that didn’t stop Pope Stephen VI. Stephen had Formosus’ dead body dug up. He then put Formosus’ rotting corpse on “trial”, in the so-called “Cadaver Synod”, in January, 897.

During the trial, the corpse was propped up on a throne, and a Deacon was appointed to answer for the dead body. The dead Formosus was accused of acting like a Bishop (a high-ranking member of the Catholic Church) when he wasn’t one. He was found guilty.

After Formosus’ dead body was found guilty, Pope Stephen VI stripped him of all his honorable titles, cut off three fingers from his right hand (the fingers he used to bless people), removed all his fancy clothes and quickly re-buried him. Later his body was dug up again and throne into the Tiber River.

Talk about revenge! But maybe revenge isn’t so sweet… the trial upset a lot of people. Pope Stephen VI was imprisoned and strangled to death that next summer.

Pope Benedict IX (1032-1044, 1045, and 1047-1048 AD): the Pope who sold the Papacy!

Pope Benedict IX is the only Pope to be Pope three separate times. Why? Well, he got a better offer. Literally. In 1044, Benedict IX gave up being Pope in exchange for a lot of money. Then he came back in 1045 and kicked out the other Pope. He reigned for one month and stepped down again when his Godfather offered him 1500 lbs of gold! But wait… he’ll be back! Benedict IX became Pope again in 1047, reigning for one more year. He got kicked out after that, and even though he kept trying, he never again got to wear that awesome Pope hat.

Pope Benedict IX didn’t have very many fans. In fact, Peter Damian described him as “Feasting on immorality” and “a demon from hell in the disguise of a priest”. He was even accused of homosexuality and beastiality. Yuck.

Pope Sergius III (897-911 AD): ordered the murder of another Pope and started the “pornocracy”!

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Pope Sergius III is the only Pope known to have ordered the murder of another Pope, and to have fathered an illegitimate son who later became Pope himself! Sergius III’s time as Pope has been called “dismal and disgraceful”. During his time as Pope, many women became powerful, including Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian’s wife Theodora, who was a former exotic dancer. Since this was not the way many powerful men in the Church thought things should be, this time became known as the “pornocracy”, because it was seen as a reversal of the natural order of the world.

Pope John XII (955-964 AD): raped female pilgrims and prayed to pagan gods!

John XII was a bad boy. So bad, in fact, that Holy Roman Emperor Otto I got a bunch of guys together to put him on trial. Pope John XII was charged with making a 10-year-old boy Bishop of Todi, ordaining a deacon in a horse stable (these things are usually done in a formal setting), converting the Lateran Palace into a prostitution house, raping female pilgrims inside the Church of Saint Peter, stealing church money offerings, drinking toasts to the devil, and asking the pagan gods Jove, Venus, and others for luck while he was gambling! Talk about busy!

Pope John XII was found guilty of many of the charges, and he lost his title as Pope. However, after Emperor Otto I left Rome, John XII came back and became Pope again! He was so angry over how he’d been treated that he went after those who had opposed him, beating and mutilating as many as he could find. In 964, he was apparently beaten by the husband of a woman with whom he was having an affair. He died three days later with receiving confession or the sacraments, which was a big no-no for Catholics!

Pope Leo X (1513-1521): sold indulgences and killed Cardinals!

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When Leo X became Pope, he reportedly turned to his brother and said “Since God has given us the papacy, let us enjoy it!” And enjoy it he did. Leo X liked to spend money and enjoyed luxury. He decided to reconstruct the beautiful St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. In order to pay for this expensive project he began to sell little pieces of paper that claimed to excuse people from going to Purgatory. These papers were called “indulgences”. In other words, people believed that if they bought these “indulgences” for themselves or their dead loved ones they would go straight to heaven. The money poured in and Pope Leo X rebuilt St. Peter’s Basilica. But a guy in Germany named Martin Luther thought that the Catholic Church had gone too far with some of their practices, and he began to make a big stink about it.

Pope Leo X’s extravagance also offended some of his own Cardinals, who plotted an assassination attempt. Eventually Pope Leo X found out about the plot, and had the conspirators followed. The conspirators died of “food poisoning” (nudge nudge, wink wink). Some people argue that Leo X and his followers simply made up the assassination plot so that he could collect fines from the various wealthy Cardinals that he didn’t like.

Pope Alexander VI (1491-1503): family favoritism, orgies and the rise of the Borgia family!

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This guy knew how to party. No, really. He liked to throw over-the-top parties, practically orgies, which often featured little naked boys jumping out of large cakes. Yep.

He also took over much of Italy by force with the help of his son Cesare (wait… I thought that Popes were supposed to be celibate!?), and had a racy relationship with his daughter Lucrezia (some say her son was his). Pope Alexander VI was originally Cardinal Borgia from Spain, and the power he collected while Pope remained in his family for generations.

Pope Innocent IV (1243-1254 AD): Introduced torture during the Inquisition!

When Martin Luther began protesting against the Catholic Church, he gained many followers (called Protestants). As this Protestant movement got bigger and bigger, the Catholic Church had to work harder and harder to maintain their power and influence. One of the ways they tried to maintain power was to launch the Inquisition, during which they would investigate people who were suspected of heresy (teaching “lies” about God… “lies” being anything that the Catholic Church didn’t agree with). One of the ways they investigated people was to torture them until they confessed. Thus enters Pope Innocent IV.

Certainly the Inquisition represents the darkest hour of Roman Catholic Church history, and it was Innocent IV who approved the use of torture to get people to confess to heresy. It is shocking to learn about the deranged methods of torture that were used on so many innocent people, many of whom confessed even though they were innocent. The torture would then stop and they would be put to death, usually by burning or hanging.

Pope Urban VI (1378-1389 AD): complained that he did not hear enough screaming when his Cardinals were tortured!

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This Pope was known for his temper tantrums. Once he was elected as Pope, he became prone to outbursts of rage. The Cardinals who elected him decided that they had made the wrong decision (ya think?) and they elected a new Pope in Urban VI’s place. But Urban liked wearing that Pope hat, and he wouldn’t give it up. So he set up his own papacy in France. So now there were two Popes, both legitimately elected by all the right people. Europe became divided, giving their allegiance to either the Pope in Rome or the Pope in France.

Eventually Pope Urban VI became so angry at the situation that he launched a program of violence against all those he thought had conspired against him and elected the second Pope, imprisoning people at will and mistreating them brutally. He claimed that he didn’t hear enough screaming from the torture chambers and demanded brutality toward the Cardinals who had turned on him. Later historians have seriously considered that Pope Urban VI might have been insane.

Pope Innocent III (1198-1216 AD.): inspired Adolf Hitler with his “Jew Badge”!

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You might have thought that Hitler came up with a lot of the crazy stuff that he did on his own, but unfortunately he got a lot of his ideas from the Catholic Church! One of the most infamous ideas was the “Jew Badge”, or the yellow star that he forced Jews to wear on their clothing so that they could be easily identified.

Pope Innocent III hosted a big meeting in 1215 A.D. called the Fourth Lateran Council. One of the things that the council decided was that, “Jews and Saracens [Muslims] of both sexes in every Christian province and at all times shall be marked off in the eyes of the public from other peoples through the character of their dress” (Canon 68). In other words, Jews had to wear a gold circle on their clothing so that they could be identified as non-Christians. This helped increase the persecution of the Jews during the Middle Ages. Hitler would have been proud!

Pope Clement VII (1523-1534 AD): his power plays with France, Spain, and Germany got Rome sacked!

As a member of the powerful Italian Medici family, Pope Clement VII should have known better than to be nasty to powerful people. Clement was a talented political leader and diplomat, but he couldn’t figure out how to effectively deal with all the political and religious changes of the time. He messed up so badly in his relationship with Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, that in May 1527 Charles led an army into Italy and completely ransacked Rome, stealing, burning and pillaging anything that he could get his hands on.

Imprisoned, Clement was forced into a humiliating compromise in which he was forced to give up much of his political and religious power. He eventually became ill and never quite recovered, dying in 1534, hated by the people of Rome, who never forgave him for the destruction of 1527.

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