Badass Popes

I'm not into stealing other people's work, and Ryan Moore on Cracked.com actually made my job easier by writing about some dope popes in much less detail and with a lot more humor than I would have. You can read his article on the site:

The 5 Biggest Badass Popes

But I would like to point out a few things I disagree with.

First, the whole sitting in a chair with a hole in it to make sure a pope had male genitalia is no more than a rumor. You want proof? Fine. I'll give it to you when I finish writing that post (I know I know I'm terrible). Legend said it came about because of the alleged Female Pope, which I would also like to discuss the unlikelihood of in a later post. For now you can either take my word. Or Ryan's.

Did you know the Borgia mascot was a bull?

I think it’s an appropriate animal for that infamous family. Cesare Borgia apparently liked to display his physical finesse by competing in bull-fighting competitions where he could kill up to eight bulls. And Pope Alexander decorated his papal apartments by displaying the Borgia bull everywhere[1].

The term papal bull does not come from the Borgias, but since they are my current favorite malevolent family, I thought using them would make an excellent introduction. Plus, Alexander VI issued several papal bulls in order to take care of some dubious occurrences (such as that of Lucrezia’s first child).

Borgia coat of arms.[2]

Before the 15^th century, the term bull was used to describe many documents issued from the papacy. A bulla was originally a metallic circular plate. Afterwards, the term named a lead seal put on official documents. By the 1400s, a papal bull referred to an Apostolic letter (a document signed by a pope regarding less significant issues of church management) with a leaden (official) seal. They were very formal with many written rituals and long addresses, and the pope referred to himself in the third person.

Borgia crest on a wall [3]

---------------
Leaden seal of Gregory IX (1220s-40s)[4] --------------- Papal bull of Urban VII (1637)[5]

Papal decrees changed a little when Pope Eugenius IV (1431-1447) started using briefs, which are, as the name suggests, shorter. They are also much less formal than bulls and so came to replace less important papal bulls. For many years, it is unclear when one was used over the other. Who knows? It could have been up to the feelings of the pope.

Here are some examples of briefs and bulls before the 19^th century:

• Bulls used in canonizing a saint, nominating a bishop, granting a marriage dispensation, and promoting someone to a benefice (the privilege of profiting from a Church position or property)
• Julius II (**SPOILERS** formerly Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere) wrote a hasty brief so Henry VIII could marry his brother’s widow (Catherine of Aragon) and later issued a papal bull for the same act
• In 1850 (under Pope Pius IX) a brief was used to re-establish the Catholic hierarchy in England. In 1878, however, Leo XIII used a bull to install the Catholic episcopate (bishop-dom) in Scotland.
• In 1773, our friends the Jesuits were suppressed by a brief but then in 1818 were restored by a papal bull

If you can find make sense of those examples, good for you.

Papal bulls are still issued on occasion today, the most recent (according to Wikipedia) in 1998 by John Paul II. The Mystery of the Incarnation was issued for the Jubilee year 2000 and was addressed rather formally:

JOHN PAUL BISHOP
SERVANT OF THE SERVANTS OF GOD
TO ALL THE FAITHFUL
JOURNEYING TOWARDS
THE THIRD MILLENNIUM
HEALTH AND THE APOSTOLIC BLESSING

You can read the rest of the bull here. I am far too lazy to see what it’s actually about. Thus concludes a brief overview of papal bulls, which I hope will prove helpful for the next installment of Dope Popes (which should happen once I finish reading The Borgias and Everyone Else, I mean, The Borgias and Their Enemies by Christopher Hibbert).

~

Sources:

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03052b.htm

www.secondexodus.com

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_papal_bulls

http://www.vatican.va/jubilee_2000/docs/documents/hf_jp-ii_doc_30111998_bolla-jubilee_en.html

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[1] Hibbert, Christopher. The Borgias and Their Enemies. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2008.

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[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Coat_of_Arms_of_Pope_Alexander_VI_Borgia_-_Castel_Sant%27Angelo,_Rome.JPG

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[3] http://www.lynnerutter.com/labels/Vatican.html

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[4] http://www.papalencyclicals.net/bull6.html

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[5] http://www.bookdrum.com/books/elizabeth/9780099286578/bookmarks-226-250.html

On Marriage

With NY passing a marriage equality law, and various bishops and cardinals speaking against it, I thought I’d do a piece on the Catholic idea of the sacrament of marriage and then give a few examples of married popes.

For those who don’t know, a sacrament is how you get holy. Okay okay it’s basically a rite of the Church, said to be instituted by Christ, where the recipient receives special grace. There are seven sacraments and a good Catholic should receive at least 5, preferably 6, and in some special circumstances 7. Receiving them all only happens when someone is married and then becomes a widow or widower and takes Holy Orders, vowing to be a priest/brother or nun, respectively. I’ve also heard that sometimes a nun and a priest meet, fall in love, and leave their orders and get married (actually I’ve only heard of this happening once, but hey it did happen).

A person cannot be married and receive holy orders, or vice versa, at the same time. Occasionally a married priest from the Anglican Church can convert and if he’s married bring his wife, but a Catholic priest cannot marry and a married man cannot be a priest. A deacon may have a wife, although there’s no instance where a religious woman can have a husband.

As I mentioned earlier, marriage in the Catholic Church is considered a sacrament, or a holy rite where grace is bestowed on the man and woman getting married. Catholics also believe that God not only instituted marriage, but is also part of the marriage partnership because God created Adam and Eve out of love and designed them to love each other; marriage is the expression of that love (Stanford, 118-9)*. Marriage has a large place in the Catholic tradition as well: The covenant between God and the people of Israel in the Hebrew Scriptures is described as a nuptial bond; in John’s Gospel, Jesus’ first miracle is at the wedding feast at Cana, the famous turning water into wine (John 2:1-11); and nuns are described as the brides of Christ (commentary on this point at a later date). According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, marriage is preferred to remaining single. It is the antidote to 'self-absorption, egoism, pursuit of one's own pleasure, and [an opportunity] to open oneself to the other, to mutual aid and to self-giving.'** Also, it’s the proper context for sex and raising children (hence the belief that sex outside of marriage or for any other purpose than procreating is a sin).

Not all Catholics agree with the definition of marriage in the Catechism. In his introduction, Peter Stanford says, "...approaches to sex and sexuality have become more nuanced and accepting of the reality of people's lives. Marriage remains an ideal, for instance, but is no longer seen simply as the correct forum for sexual activity but also as a covenant of life and love between two heterosexual adults" (13)*. The point he’s trying to make, I believe, is that marriage is no longer viewed as a way to fix people’s sexual transgressions, making the act of sex less sinful because it’s with one person and children are produced. There’s an old idea that the Catholic Church wants people to get married and have lots of babies to repopulate the world with more Catholics (hence why contraception is banned). Stanford thinks that view is outdated and indeed more recent writings talk of marriage in positive terms – as a union that involves love, companionship, etc. Today there is more of a hope than a requirement that if a Catholic person marries a non-Catholic, he/she will promise to have the children raised and baptized as Catholic (Stanford, 118-9)*. The part that stuck out for me in his quote was his use of the term heterosexual. He does not just say two adults or a man and a woman, but two heterosexual adults. Could he make his point more clear?

Given the Church’s views on homosexuality (the acts of which are akin to homicide, oppressing widows and orphans, and basically enslaving people), it makes theological sense that marriage as a sacrament in the Catholic Church is only between a man and a woman. It does not make sense to me though why church leaders are mixing something holy and very Catholic with the secular. The Catechism states, “Marriage is not a purely human institution despite the many variations it may have undergone through the centuries in different cultures, social structures, and spiritual attitudes” (1603)**. I’m glad the Church hasn’t gone on a campaign to call what most people say is marriage (the affording of legal and civil rights to couples) something else because it would be a big waste of time. Given that it isn’t going t change the term, however, I don’t see the Church’s need to go against a specific use of the phrase, as it is doing now during the marriage equality debates. The Church prides itself on being separate from the secular world, even to the point where only Catholics, and only those in good moral standing, can participate in the sacraments. So why take this idea of holy matrimony and try to apply it to the secular world?

In 2003, Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) said that state recognition of homosexual relationships was “the legislation of evil" (72)*. Recently some NY bishops have expressed their concerns because of the state passing marriage equality. I wonder if they were also concerned when other, less holy forms of marriage came into existence: people getting drunk in Vegas and needing two witnesses to be married, or marriage in the civil court without a priest or other religious leader present. And since the Church believes marriage is a holy union between two consenting adults, where is all the indignation about the thousands of young girls around the world who are forced into child marriages?

Doing a history of marriage would take way too long, but I want to point out that besides marriage being considered a sacrament, certain families, even popes, have used marriage to gain political means. In fact, this usage is still prominent today. So when someone says that marriage is a holy union between a man and a woman and tries to apply it not just to Catholics but to everyone, he is forgetting about all the places in the world where women are traded (sold?) with dowries, oftentimes when they are very young and possibly against their wills. If the bride- and husband-to-be’s desires are even considered. Granted, at this point in time, to get married in a Catholic church both parties have to be consenting, which I guess is a small consolation.

In The Borgias (my go-to inspiration) Alexander VI weds his children for political reasons. He sets up his daughter with a much older, ugly, and mean man to ensure that another family is on his side. He even tells his son to kill someone to collect ransom to make sure he has enough money for his daughter’s dowry. When the husband’s family does not do what the pope wants, however, Alexander orchestrates it so he can annul the marriage. In the coming seasons, I expect to see Lucrezia married off to someone else. Similarly, Alexander arranges a marriage for his youngest son, who is 12 or some really way too young age. The wife Alexander picks, a duchess of some unheard of Italian town, aptly says that it is her fate to marry whomever she is told.

While Showtime may have taken some creative license, the historical Borgia pope, like many others, used Catholic sacramental marriage to his own ends. In Saints and Sinners, Eamon Duffy says, “As pope, [Alexander VI] systematically used his children’s dynastic marriages to form alliances with a succession of princes” (189) x. Although Alexander himself was not married, a few other popes were.

You might be wondering how it came to be that some popes were married. Aren’t Catholic priests supposed to be celibate? Well, now they are, but that might not have always been the case.

The Roman Catholic Church traces its papal roots back to St. Peter, the “rock” Christ’s church is founded on. He is considered the First Pope. He also had a wife and family that he refused to give up when leading the early church. Peter, like Jesus, was Jewish, and in that time and place it was rare for a Jewish man not to marry and have children. Why, then, would bishops and church leaders after Peter not do the same?

Peter’s not the only example. In the early church, celibacy was a practice for monks, brothers, hermits etc., not necessarily a requirement of the priesthood. In the Middle Ages, the asceticism of monastic life was adopted as a norm. This change was due in part to another sacrament: Reconciliation.

Before there were private confessions, reconciliation and absolution were public. A bishop would absolve a large crowd at once; each person there was expected to be sorry for his or her sins. When private confessions because popular, there wasn't at first a uniform code of sins and their levels of wickedness. For brothers in monastic life, however, there was. During the 11^th century, a confession manual from a monastery came into the hands of some priests doing private confessions. Among actions considered sinful were masturbation and other sexual deviations from celibacy. For monks who had promised abstinence, these sins made sense. For other people who made no such vows, they might have been a bit confused when something that was for a thousand years thought to be acceptable was suddenly a grave offense to God. The monastic manual proved a convenient way to systematize confession for both priests and lay people Â.

According to Bob Curan, priestly celibacy was proposed in 11th century by Pope Gregory VII as a way to ensure that Church property would not be lost due to inheritance (23)+. Before and since then, there have been about 39 popes who were married or had been married at one time. Let’s take a look at some of them.

Married popes+:
-Pope Hormisdas (514-523), a widower when he was elected Pontiff, was the father of one of his successors, Pope Silverius (536-537).

-Silverius is sometimes believed to have been married. He resided in the Lateran Palace with a woman named Antonia, but we do not know if she was his wife. Either way, it didn’t seem to have affected his canonization… apparently Saints can have mistresses too.
-Gregory the Great (590-604) is rumored to be the great-grandson of Felix III (II?) (483-492).

-Clement IV (1265-1268) was married, although perhaps his wife died before he was in office.

-Boniface IX (1389-1404) is rumored to have married while in office. He was pope during the Great Western Schism and apparently he annulled all doctrine relating to celibacy in order to marry his mistress. He was also an autocrat, so no one really questioned him.

-Felix V (1439-1449), now known as an antipope after being deposed by Nicholas V, had a wife when he was elected. He’s the last of the antipopes and the last known married pope.

The longest papal marriage saga I encountered was that of Adrian II (867-872), who was offered the papacy twice before accepting it a third time. He brought his wife and daughter to the Lateran Palace where special rooms were made for them. Adrian's political enemies, especially the Duke of Spoleto, used his marital status as fire to feed their criticisms.

The Duke used another man, Anastasius, to try to bring Adrian down. In 855, Pope Leo IV died and a group within the Church elected Anastasius, then Vatican Librarian, to the papacy. Many believed this election was incorrect, however, so Anastasius was deposed and Benedict III put in his place. Anastasius was still allowed to be the librarian and continued as one through Nicholas I (858-867). He still wanted to be pope though so when Adrian was elected, with the help of the Duke, Anastasius talked up how bad it was that Adrian was a married pope.

While the Spoleto army attacked Rome, Anastasius’ brother managed to capture Adrian’s wife and daughter. The two women were tortured and eventually killed. Adrian enlisted the help of King Louis II of France, and together they found the kidnappers. The Roman people were also on Adrian’s side, helping him to defeat the rebels.

Anastasius was fired, excommunicated, and banished. In an intelligent move, a year later Adrian brought Anastasius back and reinstated him in a different position.

A Couple Famous Adulterous Popes+:

-John XII (955-964) is rumored to have had a fatal stroke while in bed with a married woman. We’ll be discussing John later as he is the infamous Promiscuous Pope (Curan, 77).

-Alexander VI (1942-1503), the Roderigo Borgia, lived openly with Giulia Farnese, a young woman, after he became pope when he was in his sixties. Throughout his life he fathered at least nine children, from at least three different women, one of whom was married to someone else (Duffy, 189).

~

*Stanford, Peter. "Teach Yourself Catholicism." U.S.: The McGraw Hill Companies, Inc., 2008.

**Catechism of the Catholic Church. http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p2s2c3a7.htm.

I am generally loath to use the Catechism as a proper source, considering Catholics are not required to believe its contents. Cardinal Ratzinger (remember him? He’s the current pope) wrote the one that is most often quoted. He was known for his conservativism, and his work is such an ordered outline that it is easy to teach, which is why it is so often taught in schools. Contrary to popular belief, it is not required to believe everything in the Catechism to consider yourself Catholic and many of the theological insights in the work are outdated and have never been updated. Despite these reasons, I quote from the Catechism because so many people have used it as a basis for teaching Catholic doctrine and it has become a large part of Catholic tradition due to its widespread appealÂ.

xDuffy, Eamon. Saints and Sinners: A History of the Popes. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.

 Source: my memory. If you don’t believe what I have stated here, you are free to look it up yourselves. If I am wrong, please don’t hesitate to correct me.

+Curan, Bob. Unholy Popes. United States: Fall River Press, 2006.

Can You Excommunicate Yourself?

My first instinct to answer this question was: No. Excommunication, to me, seemed to be a power trip by a Pope or other Church authority figure. In fact, in the 16th century, so many people were excommunicated that there had to be new rules.

While seemingly commonsensical, they were apparently not, and as stated in the Council of Trent (15435-63) the rules are as follows*:

• [excommunication] is to be used with sobriety and great circumspection (seeing that experience teaches that if it be wielded rashly or for slight causes, it is more despised than feared, and works more evil than good)
  
• it is to be used for the purpose of provoking a revelation on account of things lost or stolen
• it shall be issued by no one whomsoever but the bishop
• not then, on account of some uncommon circumstance which moves the bishop thereunto
• and after the matter has been diligently and very maturely weighed

Good to know bishops shouldn't just go around excommunicating people for the hell of it. The few excommunications there are now are for public figures, usually who oppose papal teaching or Council decisions. (Though I am thinking of the nun in Phoenix who approved an abortion at a Catholic hospital to save the mother of the child. If you don't know the story, you can read an article here: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126985072 . A famous female theologian from BC is quoted, and although I look up to her, she unfortunately once told me she didn't think I could handle her class; le sigh). The point of excommunication, or "exclusion from communion" is to forbid someone who has done something grievous to partake in Catholics' highest sacrament. The action is meant to make people repent, and since baptism cannot be undone, no one can be excommunicated forever and can be welcomed back.

While bishops, popes, and cardinals have the power to excommunicate, they are not the only ones. My initial answer to this question was wrong: the Code of Cannon Law** allows for latae sententiae, or automatic excommunication. A person can excommunicate herself when engaging in the following:

• apostasy (formally renouncing your religion)
  
• heresy (rejecting religious beliefs or dogma) [Or in Medieval Times, being confused, illiterate, and unable to distinguish your Catholic from your traditional pagan beliefs... if this was your case, you would probably be burned thanks to the Inquisition]
  
• schism (separation from the Church body) [though if you're schisming, I doubt excommunication would matter. With the Avignon popes, which I will get to at a later date, I wonder if they all excommunicated each other?]
  
• desecration of the Eucharist [how often did this happen?]
  
• physical violence against the Pope [why only against him?]
• ordination of the bishop without papal approval [this is more for when monarchs and not the pope named bishops, but if I were to be excommunicated for anything, I would want it to be for this]
• procurement of a completed abortion [what's an incomplete abortion? If you try and fail, does it still count?]

But don't worry, there's good news: an individual who excommunicates himself can seek repentance and rejoin the Church.

The last instance of automatic excommunication is interesting: can a man procure a complete abortion? In the case from Phoenix stated above, if the mother is Catholic, is she too excommunicated? And why out of all things, is procuring an abortion excommunication-worthy? Why not completely killing anyone? Or sexually abusing someone? Or physical violence against a regular priest, not just the Pope? Or physical violence against women? Etc. Etc. Do I agree that killing an innocent life is bad? Of course. From the Catholic perspective, however, everyone is born with Original Sin (hence, baptism). So why is killing someone with that Sin worse than killing one who's been baptized without it? Or does a person have to be born in order to have the stain of Sin, but in the womb is without and completely innocent?

I just... don't get it.There seems to be something missing, like logic, or, perhaps, the voice of women in the Church Hierarchy.

~

*Stanford, Peter. "Teach Yourself Catholicism." U.S.: The McGraw Hill Companies, Inc., 2008.

** http://www.intratext.com/IXT/ENG0017/_P50.HTM ; http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG1104/_INDEX.HTM

Holy Anorexia

Tomorrow is Good Friday, which for Catholics has traditionally meant fasting. Although previously Catholics were encouraged to abstain from meat on all Fridays (a sacrifice of their own to remember Jesus' sacrifice of himself), in the 1960s, Paul VI suggested alternatives: those who were between the ages of 18-60 should fast (eat one meal a day) on Good Friday OR find some other sacrifice as befitting their consciences . In some places, this sacrifice could be refraining from an activity and giving that money to the poor, or spending a part of that day doing community service.

For some people, especially girls in high school, Lent and the fasting days are an excuse to diet - give up something fatty, or don't eat as much with the excuse of religion. Women and the connection to food and religion goes back a long time. Eve eats fruit and gets expelled from Paradise (but don't get me started on what Catholic tradition has done to that story), and some pretty famous women saints have fasted themselves to death.

In "Teach Yourself Catholicism" Peter Stanford discusses a few instances where, what he calls "the link between women's sinfulness and food" has led to disastrous consequences (127). Apparently religious starvation reached its peak in medieval times (but really, are we surprised by that?) when religious women refused food except at the Eucharist. Here are a few examples of the extremes:

• Saint Margaret of Cortona (1247-97) wanted to "die of starvation to satiate the poor" while she worked with the destitute of Cortona, Italy
  
• Saint Catherine of Siena (1347-80) would only drink water and eat bread and raw herbs, which led to her untimely demise (or perhaps she did it on purpose? She died at age 33, the same age Jesus supposedly died)
• Saint Veronica Giuliani (1660-1727) reportedly acquired marks like a crown of thorns on her head (in Catholic terms, stigmata) while she refused to eat
• Mary Magdalen de'Pazzi (1566-1607) denied herself food to be one with the poor.

So the reasons for fasting seem mixed: either as a penance (i.e. Catherine) or to be in solidarity with the poor (Margaret and Mary). I wonder among Catholic lay people if fasting is still prevalent today? In the U.S. you don't hear about a lot of people suddenly flocking to homeless shelters on Good Friday to do service, so do you think people are giving up food or doing something else? Or perhaps "the day my God died" (for dramatic effect) isn't as important as it used to be.

Do you ever fast? If so, what are your reasons?

Until next time,
The Unfasting Theologian (when medicine says take 4 times a day before meals, I'm not going to mess with it)

~

Work Cited:
Stanford, Peter. "Teach Yourself Catholicism." U.S.: The McGraw Hill Companies, Inc., 2008.

Have any popes ever been assassinated?

The answer is: Yes.

Several for sure, many more died under shady conditions.

I suspect there are some juicy stories out there, but for now I will leave you with this:

In her book, Saints and Sinners, Eamon Duffy says, "A THIRD* of the popes elected between 872 and 1012 died in suspicious circumstances...

• John VIII (872-82) - bludgeoned to death by his own entourage
  
• Stephen VI (896-7) - strangled
• Leo V (903) - murdered by his successor, Sergius III (904-11)
• John X (914-28) - suffocated
• Stephen VII (939-42) horribly mutilated, a fate shared by the Greek antipope John XVI (997-8), who, unfortunately for him, did not die from the removal of his eyes, nose, lips, tongue, and hands

"Most of these men were maneuvered into power by a succession of powerful families... John X, one of the few popes of this period to make a stand against aristocratic domination, was deposed and then murdered by [those] who had appointed him in the first place" (104).

If I find out any more bloody details, I will be sure to share them.

Until the next question arises,
Your Unemployed Theologian with way too many books

~

Duffy, Eamon. Saints and Sinners: A History of the Popes. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.

*formatting added for emphasis