Is it historically known if a pope ever worked his way up to become pope through evil ways?

Status
Not open for further replies.
There is a guy who lives in his mom’s basement in NJ who thinks he’s the rightful pope–and people believe him.

There are false popes. But all true popes have been given to the Church by the Holy Spirit.
 
LOL.
Where do you get this stuff? “worked his way up”. 🤣🤣🤣
 
pianistclare said:
LOL.
Where do you get this stuff? “worked his way up”. 🤣🤣🤣
Click to expand...
Well, one thing that I was shocked to learn while fact verifying for some VII haters is that until VII the church allowed civil authorities to influence or even SELECT bishops. 😮
 
Yes! That was when the Church was an official arm of the European government. Emporers chimed in on Church governance. Henry XIII tried to tell the Pope he didn’t need his imput TYVM, LOL
But no one ever “worked their way up”. They were selected, no matter who did the selecting.
 
pianistclare said:
Yes! That was when the Church was an official arm of the European government. Emporers chimed in on Church governance. Henry XIII tried to tell the Pope he didn’t need his imput TYVM, LOL
But no one ever “worked their way up”. They were selected, no matter who did the selecting.
Click to expand...
Which I understand happened in the 1600’s…but it actually was allowed up until the mid-1900’s.

I’d always thought the practice ended sometime around the end of the Reformation era. Nope.

You’re totally right though, no matter how it happened God stepped in.
 
Centuries ago, when the Pope had more political power in Europe, there were political machinations involved in Pope selection. The Popes in those days often tended to come from a small handful of wealthy, privileged and powerful families. Some of them did some very questionable things, as this WaPo article indicates.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...rible-things-they-did/?utm_term=.e4373597eb40

I personally believe that the actions of certain Popes helped lead to the Protestant schism. I also believe that God protects His Church so “the gates of hell do not prevail against it” even in the dark old days when some Popes may have not lived up to their responsibilities.

The good news is that the quality and diversity of Popes seems to have improved over the last couple of centuries. One time a Lutheran was telling my aunt how the Lutherans left the Catholic Church because of a bad pope. My aunt said, “Well, we have a new Pope now, so why don’t you come back?”
 
Yup, people are people. They can choose to do heavenly things, or they can choose to do hellish things. They can even do both. Free will is a wonderful and terrible gift.

The main thing with studying papal history is that it pays to consult different sources. But there are a fair number of histories out there. On the whole, it’s amazing how good most of the popes were. There were a few bad apples – and yet, the Church survived them. And even the bad apples often did some helpful things. The same thing is true with bishops. Some of them thought it was just a job, some of them thought it was a way to grab money and power; but most bishops throughout the world have done a decent job and tried their best, and many have been holy saints. So the Holy Spirit is at work, but just not in a showy way.

The thing that is interesting is that, when there is a lack of holy clergy, there are often a lot of holy laypeople who step up to do God’s work. And when laypeople are being bad, there are often a lot of holy clergy. And when everybody is bad, there is often a sudden explosion of people getting sick of it and trying to do better.

Obviously, the best times are when everybody is trying to obey God and be holy, without the general wickedness first! But we have to help each other to get there.
 
Last edited:
The Borgias were a symptom. It was a time of tons of infighting among the Italian states, and against the Holy Roman Empire up north. There was tons of Italian wealth from trading, a new amount of free time, and people who had survived the Black Death were able to inherit or claim a lot of abandoned money and land. There were also tons of mercenary armies roaming around, selling their services to the highest bidder.

So yeah, the Borgias were up to no good, just like a lot of the other noble or rich Italian families. But we hear more historical rumors about them, because they were more conspicuously successful in a short time, and because they originally came from Spain. But yeah, Pope Alexander VI seems to have done a decent job as pope, on the business side, even if there were serious problems on the morals and nepotism side. All the poisoning stories seem to be the same level of believability as aliens and Bat-Boy visitiing the White House.

But… it’s hard to tell. We weren’t there with a forensics investigation team. There was a lot of poisoning in the Italian Renaissance, but there was also a lot of disease, and a lot of doctors prescribing poisonous substances. Women used arsenic, lead, and mercury as makeup.

Either way, the same family produced St. Francis Borgia, who was a model of morality and good judgment, and who gave up everything to serve the Lord. So it was an interesting family altogether.
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top