Second Issue: The Papacy

The papacy has been surrounded by numerous legends. Among the most famous are the claims that the papal tiara bears the Number of the Beast inscriptions, that a woman was once elected pope, or that the current pope will be the last Pope. The latter claim has been shown to be false for every known pope barring the incumbent; but it remains theoretically possible.

That last phrase makes me so happy. I love the way that Wikipedia is written, such dry deadpan humor sneaking up in the least expected places. Aside from this section however, the legends surrounding the papacy does not hold much interest for me. Other parts of the papacy are fascinating though!
I remember how in AP Modern European History class in tenth grade, we learned about the papal Schism. I love that word. Schism. It's so dramatic. Three men wanted to be pope, and they all claimed they were, so for a little while we had three Popes! What to do! It reminds me of the time shortly after the Pope abdicated but before we got a new Pope just a few years ago, when someone reworded Rihanna's 'We Found Love in a Hopeless Place' to 'We Found Love in a Popeless Place'. Speaking of pope-less, if there's a Pope and then there's another Pope who is like no, I'M the Pope, that second Pope is called an antipope. There are fictional popes called Space Pope and Battle Pope.
My favorite article about popes is Wikipedia's list of sexually active popes. For a while, celibacy was optional for Popes, so a lot of them were married and had kids. Those popes are not the most interesting ones, though. If you start learning about the Popes you kind of begin to understand why Martin Luther led a Reformation to break away from the Church. Those Popes were RIDICULOUS!!

A bunch of them had illegitimate children, a bunch more appointed those children to high positions of power in the Church, one of them was accused of being a 'sodomite' (but there was a Schism at the time so who knows if this was true or just a rumor), and one poor Pope probably died from indigestion from eating a bad melon but his enemies claimed that he died while 'sodomizing' a pageboy. Here are some Popes who had interesting legacies:

• Pope Leo X: A Medici who was pope in the mid 1500s, he was a patron of the arts and granted a lot of indulgences (basically a piece of paper you could buy that forgave you of a sin). Supposedly he said, ""Since God has given us the papacy, let us enjoy it", which okay, fair, I guess. Basically history is divided on whether he was a fun cool guy who liked arts and the theater, or a debauched awful person who just wanted to make money. Probably he was a little of both. They say he "loved music to the pitch of fanaticism". He liked to joke and make fun, but that was again, interpreted differently depending on who you asked. There were also rumors about Leo's sexuality. One historian said: "the pope's familiar banter with his chamberlains - handsome young men from noble families - and the advantage he was said to take of them" was an issue, and Martin Luther said that "Leo had vetoed a measure that cardinals should restrict the number of boys they kept for their pleasure, "otherwise it would have been spread throughout the world how openly and shamelessly the pope and the cardinals in Rome practice sodomy"". In conclusion, was Leo a bad pope? A good pope? WHO KNOWS, NOT ME!

OH SIDENOTE: Pope Leo X had a pet elephant named Hanno! He loved Hanno so much that when he died he wrote a poetic epitaph for him that you can read here. Hanno died when to treat his constipation, they gave him a gold enriched laxative. Poor Hanno.

• Pope Alexander VI: This was the pope from the Borgias. I never saw that show but there's lots of sex and violence and incest I hear. You can probably watch that show if you want to know more about him, but he was controversial because he had lots of mistresses and lots of children with said mistresses.
• Pope Julius III: Julius had a ton of scandals surrounding his papacy but the most famous one was one concerning his nephew, Innocenzo. Innocenzo was a teenage beggar that the pope's brother adopted, and Julius immediately took on as a personal favorite of his. They said at the time that Julius "showed the impatience of a lover awaiting a mistress when awaiting Innocenzo's arrival in Rome" but others surmized that maybe Innocenzo was Julius' illegitimate son. Not much happened to Innocenzo while Julius lived, but after his death he murdered two men who insulted him and raped two women, and was eventually banished for his crimes.
• Pope Benedict IX: This pope was not only the youngest person to ever become pope (at 20 years old!), he was also the first man to be pope more than once, and first man to sell the papacy. First of all, he became Pope because his dad bribed people to make it happen. A bunch of historians have said pretty awful things about him, calling him a "demon from hell", a "disgrace to the Chair of Peter", and referring to his "rapes, murders, and other unspeakable acts". Who knows if these were true stories or not, but either way he doesn't seem to have been qualified for his position at all. Anyway, after a while Benedict was like I wanna get married and not be Pope anymore so he gave up his position to his godfather if his godfather reimbursed him, so he did, and became new Pope. A little while later though, Benedict was like shit never mind I wanna go be Pope again, so he went and took back Rome and hung out on the throne even though his godfather was recognized as true pope. Some other guy named Sylvester also said he was Pope at this time. There was a small war/some battles to sort this all out, but eventually Benedict was taken away and order was restored.

I hope you've enjoyed learning about some weird Popes! See you next week, and if you have any cool historical ideas, facts, stories, etc, reply to this email and let me know! I'll put them in another issue of this newsletter.