Atheist Popes

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Does anyone know of any atheist popes? This person I’m in an argument with keeps on bringing up some “atheist popes” and I don’t know of any. I’m going to just say that he’s wrong and there aren’t any, but could someone give me anything from which one could even get such an idea?
 
Corpus Cristi:
Does anyone know of any atheist popes? This person I’m in an argument with keeps on bringing up some “atheist popes” and I don’t know of any. I’m going to just say that he’s wrong and there aren’t any, but could someone give me anything from which one could even get such an idea?
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That is not an argument I have ever heard:confused: Is that what the are ruducing their arguments to?What I would do if I would do is call them on it.If they want to make the accusation they need to back it up with evidence.God Bless
 
Make him prove his statements by showing you his sources. I had a buddy of mine make some idiotic statements and allegations in a phone call and when I pinned him down he had to admit that it was all just hearsay, so I just said, "Ever hear the term “Urban Legend”? He shut up and we barely talk now. Tell him that you want names and dates and the whole bit before you’ll believe it and if he can’t deliver tell him that you suspect that’s because they don’t exist. This is a common anti-Catholic stunt that really jacks my jaws because it’s slanderously dishonest. To my knowlege, no such pope ever existed. Most times such people are a waste of time to even talk to…
Pax vobiscum,
 
As they say, let the accuser bring out his facts.

There is simply no use arguing a point based on an unsubstantiated accusation.

Gerry 🙂
 
I think it would be amazing if there were atheistic popes, but what I would find even MORE amazing is the fact that no pope has ever taught anything contrary to the other popes. Deo gratias.
 
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JLove:
I think it would be amazing if there were atheistic popes, but what I would find even MORE amazing is the fact that no pope has ever taught anything contrary to the other popes. Deo gratias.
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If there were “atheistic” Popes, they would only be “atheistic” in a certain sense only, that is, they would be “atheistic” by living an immoral, dissolute life in stark contrast to the principles and teachings they claim to serve, and there were a few Popes in the medieval period especially who were known to have been a disgrace to the Chair of Peter.

Gerry 🙂
 
Being a sinner doesn’t make one an atheist.

Actually some of our midevil popes where actually very orthodox in the faith. They may have lived imperfect lives but they did not teach anything contrary to the faith.
 
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Maccabees:
Being a sinner doesn’t make one an atheist.
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I was not using the term “atheist” in such a narrow, literal sense, but only in a figurative sense, since serious sin widens the chasm between the person and God, just as patent unbelief separates one from Him as well. This is the reason why I modified my use of the term “atheist” in that post with the phrase “in a sense”.

Gerry 🙂
 
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RobedWithLight:
If there were “atheistic” Popes, they would only be “atheistic” in a certain sense only, that is, they would be “atheistic” by living an immoral, dissolute life in stark contrast to the principles and teachings they claim to serve, and there were a few Popes in the medieval period especially who were known to have been a disgrace to the Chair of Peter.

Gerry 🙂
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I’m well aware of that, but I think the term atheist is being used here in it’s primary meaning.
 
Is it possible that the OP’s friend mixed up “atheist” pope with “antipope?”
 
I know of 2, maybe 3 medieval Popes who lead sinfull lives, buy not one atheist among them.

Stop and think, IF an atheist did pursue that office and became Pope he would have to be the most stupid man alive.
 
Here’s a gruesome excerpt from “Holiness!” by Vittorio Russo, Minerva Press, Chippenham, Wiltshire, 1996

“Infallibility to popes means the sins, vices and crimes you have continually soiled the earth with. Infallible is used to describe atheist popes like yourself, simoniacs, sadists, libertines, priests married with children, murderers, poisoners, sodomites, heretics, followers of Satan, fornicators and mass murderers. And what about all those popes who were poisoned, stabbed, who drowned, died of VD or were strangled in their beds with their lovers,” He went on heatedly, counting them off on the fingers of both hands, which did not suffice. “And those whose blood, or the blood that they shed and poured into the Tiber, which for centuries was an open cess-pit, as bad as the Ganges!”

“Well, some popes were not really up to it, I suppose…”

“Some popes? Just some of them?”

“No doubt You are going to accuse me of the awful things Boniface VIII and Alexander VI did… Crimes of arrogance and simony… But You have to take the times in which these men lived into consideration…”

“Boniface VIII had a lot of faults,” He replied after a brief pause, "but the worst of all was to have lived. As for arrogance, he not only gave form to it but face as well. It shone through his words, which are the banner of the church: We declare, announce and decree that it is necessary that every living creature be subject to the pontiff of Rome if he is to be saved. That’s what he said. He meant that they could be saved from him, and only by blind obedience. He could not have been referring to any kind of salvation, because he knew nothing of it. He devoted his entire existence to this theme.
 
Now that’s an objective sources. What next Jack Chick?
Peter De La Rosa? James Carrol? Lorraine Bettner?

The sins of the popes are exagerrated to no end in these books.
LEt’s see Pope Alexander was guilty of the sensual sins he is accused of but is all but ignored for the orthodox refroms he made within the church. There is noting he taught that was not Orthodox there is no controversy over his teachings. He alos worked hard to get the best artist like Michelangelo to work for the church.
He cared about the church and its orthodoxy. He was a big time sinner who could not resist sensuality but he was not an athiest nor indifferent to the church’s orthodoxy and health.
I wonder how many american presidents will be accused of being fallen after 2000 years of history. Heck we have had Clinton and JFK and FDR fall in their sensuality but they were largely effective as presidents in other ways. I think many of our midevil popes have been miscast and histroy redux as failures in orthodoxy and in caring for the church when their only sins might have been personal sins of sensuality.
 
Corpus Cristi:
Does anyone know of any atheist popes? This person I’m in an argument with keeps on bringing up some “atheist popes” and I don’t know of any. I’m going to just say that he’s wrong and there aren’t any, but could someone give me anything from which one could even get such an idea?
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As many others have mentioned, ask for the source. What I do not recommend is stating as fact something you do not know. If you state that there was never an atheist pope and were somehow proved wrong, it would be damaging to any future discussion. (I am not suggesting he is actually right, just saying that if you don’t know, don’t say it…)

The much better approach is to make him prove it. There’s a 99.9% chance that nothing of substance can be found, and that person will - whether they admit it or not - realize upon some research that it’s a ludicrous statement.

However, it may be worth the exercise of saying “OK, so what if there was?”

If your claim is that the Holy Spirit guides the Church and keeps her free from error - and that men can’t undo that - then is that person suggesting that some atheist guy can undo that? Does he think that these Popes undid any teachings of the Church (which you can definitely show did not happen)? The very argument is ludicrous, but the ramifications of the consistent teachings of the Church in that case is - if anything - bolstered.
 
JLove said:
I think it would be amazing if there were atheistic popes, but what I would find even MORE amazing is the fact that no pope has ever taught anything contrary to the other popes. Deo gratias.
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That is incorrect. Many Popes in the past would change things that previous popes stated. That is the real reason Pope Pius IX wanted to be infallible: so any future Pope could not change what he said. You can check all of this out in Catholic history.
 
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