Wicked popes

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Jubilarian

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Does it trouble you as a Catholic (of which I am) that there were wicked popes?
 
All men are sinners. One of Christ’s own Apostles betrayed him. Why would you be surprised that bishops and popes sin?
 
PaulfromIowa said:
All men are sinners. One of Christ’s own Apostles betrayed him. Why would you be surprised that bishops and popes sin?
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Yes all men sin, I’m not surprised. I think what I try to overcome is the office held in connection with the deeds done. In addition, there is not a church named St. Judas.
 
Jubilarian said:
Does it trouble you as a Catholic (of which I am) that there were wicked popes?
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Actually, it reinforces my faith as it shows that even if we have bad, bad men in charge of the Church it doesn’t result in Church teachings changing. None of the “wicked popes” actually changed what the Church taught in order to justify their wickedness or make their wickedness ok.
 
Well I’ve never had to worry about a wicked pope because all the popes in my lifetime have been good, not perfect but good. The popes are humans like the rest of us, so they could commit sins just like us. No matter what damage a pope did do to the Church, God always made sure the Church returned to the truth eventually. So there is nothing to worry about.
 
oldcatholicguy said:
Actually, it reinforces my faith as it shows that even if we have bad, bad men in charge of the Church it doesn’t result in Church teachings changing. None of the “wicked popes” actually changed what the Church taught in order to justify their wickedness or make their wickedness ok.
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I realize teaching wasn’t compromised but if you lived under those popes you might have a different outlook. My problem is how could such wickedness inhabit Christs representative on earth? Yes, sin affects all but it tough to know that it happened.
 
I, too, have always been taught that the Pope is Christ’s representative on Earth, and the the Holy Spirit guides the Cardinals who vote for him. It’s hard to reconcile those facts (or more accurately, beliefs) with the fact that some of them were evil and corrupt.
 
BettyBoop416 said:
I, too, have always been taught that the Pope is Christ’s representative on Earth, and the the Holy Spirit guides the Cardinals who vote for him. It’s hard to reconcile those facts (or more accurately, beliefs) with the fact that some of them were evil and corrupt.
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Thank you for understanding my point and speaking to it better than I did. It really is a tough swallow. Some write as if it just a little human nature kicking in. I find it more powerful than that.
 
Nope. None of them taught infallibly or said “this is how to live your life.”
 
ServusHumilis said:
Nope. None of them taught infallibly or said “this is how to live your life.”
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So. That doesn’t diminish their wickedness as the head of Gods true church. Christianity is more than not changing doctrines.
 
I’d be curious who OP thinks was a wicked pope. The reason I ask is, in part, because this seems like an awfully subjective area. For example, I remember sinead o’connor tearing up JPIIs picture on national tv. She probably thought he was wicked, but her thinking it doesn’t make it so.
 
Jubilarian said:
So. That doesn’t diminish their wickedness as the head of Gods true church. Christianity is more than not changing doctrines.
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What’s your point? Have you allowed the Protestants to worry you on this one? Christ said His Church would remain to the end and that the gates of hell would not prevail against it. No wicked pope can change that.
 
ServusHumilis said:
What’s your point? Have you allowed the Protestants to worry you on this one? Christ said His Church would remain to the end and that the gates of hell would not prevail against it. No wicked pope can change that.
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My point has nothing to do with Protestant thought, it has to do with normal human contemplation. I have a more difficult time picturing such wickedness as the supreme representative of the church on earth.
 
BettyBoop416 said:
I, too, have always been taught that the Pope is Christ’s representative on Earth, and the the Holy Spirit guides the Cardinals who vote for him. It’s hard to reconcile those facts (or more accurately, beliefs) with the fact that some of them were evil and corrupt.
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Does the Holy Spirit pick the pope? Ratzinger didn’t think so.
I would not say so, in the sense that the Holy Spirit picks out the Pope. … I would say that the Spirit does not exactly take control of the affair, but rather like a good educator, as it were, leaves us much space, much freedom, without entirely abandoning us. Thus the Spirit’s role should be understood in a much more elastic sense, not that he dictates the candidate for whom one must vote. Probably the only assurance he offers is that the thing cannot be totally ruined.
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I don’t think it is even necessary to invoke the Holy Spirit in regards to the pope. No pope should ever have been evil, period. There have even been more than one. It seems incomprehensible, yet it happened. Even if doctrine was not changed, it greatly mars the church from the outside looking in to know such evil took place in our hallow haven.
 
Jubilarian said:
I don’t think it is even necessary to invoke the Holy Spirit in regards to the pope. No pope should ever have been evil, period. There have even been more than one. It seems incomprehensible, yet it happened. Even if doctrine was not changed, it greatly mars the church from the outside looking in to know such evil took place in our hallow haven.
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Are you proposing a new doctrine of impeccability? Do you have an example of an organization of which no leader has ever done evil? Anyway, who cares what the “outside looking in” sees anyway?
John 15:
[18] If the world hate you, know ye, that it hath hated me before you. [19] If you had been of the world, the world would love its own: but because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. [20] Remember my word that I said to you: The servant is not greater than his master. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you: if they have kept my word, they will keep yours also.

[21] But all these things they will do to you for my name’ s sake: because they know not him who sent me. [22] If I had not come, and spoken to them, they would not have sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin. [23] He that hateth me, hateth my Father also. [24] If I had not done among them the works that no other man hath done, they would not have sin; but now they have both seen and hated both me and my Father. [25] But that the word may be fulfilled which is written in their law: They hated me without cause.
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I don’t use the word “leader” as loosely as you might. We are talking about a man that speaks for Holy Mother Church. No one else fits that description. To align a pope with just another organizational leader is fool hearty . Wickedness is not just a word, it means demonic activity. I love the church, and because I do I am hurt by what occurred and have trouble coming to terms with this issue. I wondered if others did. So far, one person sees things as I do.
 
We are all guided by the Holy Spirit, but we all have a free will too. That includes popes, priest, nuns, all of us, etc., etc. Peter was a pope and denied God 3 times. Just to say although he was a good and Holy man and is now a saint, and was chosen by God himself to run the church, he sinned and was not perfect. As far as evil popes, or people in general, they will be judged by God just as the rest of us. Pray for the repose of their souls as you would anybody esle. Brenda
Have a blessed day all.
 
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