The Papacy Lead to Schism, it did not Protect the Church From It
In the last chapter, we covered how the Papacy was a prominent driver of the Great schism, which divided the Roman Catholic church from the Orthodox Churches, such as the Greek and Coptic Orthodoxies. However, after the split, the Papacy would still be the cause of a lot of internal conflict and tension.
In fact, the Papacy is widely regarded as one of the most tragic, comedic, and consistent abuses of political and theocratic power in history. Over the course of a millennium, the Papacy would be tainted by simony, succession by assassination, corpse desecration, mass killings, pillaging, demon worship, orgies, pedophilia, and political subterfuge.
An Exhaustive List of the Enduring Evil of the Papacy
Before we dig in, let’s take a little break for two PSA’s from Paul:
1 Timothy 6:3: If someone spreads false teachings and does not agree with sound words (that is, those of our Lord Jesus Christ) and with the teaching that accords with godliness, 4 he is conceited and understands nothing, but has an unhealthy interest in controversies and verbal disputes. This gives rise to envy, dissension, slanders, evil suspicions, 5 and constant bickering by people corrupted in their minds and deprived of the truth, who suppose that godliness is a way of making a profit.
1 Corinthians 6:9 Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, 10 nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.
And here is a quick word from his sponsor:
Matthew 17: 15 “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. 16 You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? 17 So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. 18 A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Thus you will recognize them by their fruits.
In short, Paul asserts that a false teacher can be known by their inability to stick to the teachings of Jesus, their hunger for conflict and controversy, and their inclination to pervert godliness as a way to acquire wealth. Paul also reminds us that the drunkards, sexually immoral, idolators, and thieves can not be of God and will not admitted to Heaven.
Jesus also explicitly states that we will know if men are good by the fruits they create, in short, their actions and those consequences. Jesus makes it clear that a good person cannot be a bearer of bad works and a bad person cannot be a bearer of good works. This is not good news for the Papacy.
The Papal Office is supposedly divinely protected and its Pope is the authoritative representative of Jesus Christ. By virtue of Ordination, the Pope is the vessel of Jesus and Peters power and authority, and is protected from failure and blemish:
“Indeed, their apostolic teaching was embraced by all the venerable fathers and reverenced and followed by all the holy orthodox doctors, for they knew very well that this See of St. Peter always remains unblemished by any error, in accordance with the divine promise of our Lord and Savior to the prince of his disciples: I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail; and when you have turned again, strengthen your brethren [60].
This gift of truth and never-failing faith was therefore divinely conferred on Peter and his successors in this See so that they might discharge their exalted office for the salvation of all, and so that the whole flock of Christ might be kept away by them from the poisonous food of error and be nourished with the sustenance of heavenly doctrine. Thus the tendency to schism is removed and the whole Church is preserved in unity, and, resting on its foundation, can stand firm against the gates of hell.” (The First Vatican Council, chapter 4)
So, if the Papacy was a true office, the Popes must be saved and they must act in accordance with Jesus and Peter, especially when exercising the power and authority of their divinely protected office, right?
Well, I have a thousand plus years of history speaking to the contrary. Let’s take a walk together through the obsfucatingly foolish, and evil, histories of the various failures of the Papacy:
The Hall of Shame
Pope Stephen VI: Stephen VI would become best known for digging up the body of his predecessor Formosus and putting him on trial in what would become later known as the Cadaver Synod. He dressed Formosus up in his ceremonial garments, placed him on a throne, and cut off the three fingers on his right hand (the one used to gesture the blessing of the Roman bishop).
After suspiciously failing to defend even a single one of the many accusations Stephen levied at him (you could say Formosus remained dead silent), Formosus’s corpse was condemned and beheaded. Depending on the source, either all or part of him was unceremoniously dumped in the river Tiber. Stephen’s actions, and a timely earthquake attributed to being vindication by God, led Roman mobs to murder him less than a month later.
Source: https://rsc.byu.edu/peter-popes/pontiffs-palaces-pornocracy-godless-age
Pope Sergius III: Speaking of murder, Pope Sergius allegedly inherited his office via murder at the turn of the tenth century. Not too keen on the mandate of clerical celibacy, Sergius would maintain an illicit relationship with the current senator of Rome, which would result in the birth of a future Pope, John XI. Not coincidentally, Sergius III was one of the presiding judges at the Cadaver synod. Fittingly, the Roman senator would continue sleeping around with powerful men after Sergius’ death, to ends of placing her son John XI in the Papacy.
Sources: https://amazingbeautifulworld.com/history/the-8-most-evil-popes-in-history/6/ and https://www.encyclopedia.com/women/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/theodora-rome-c-875-c-925
Pope John XII: Pope John XII, ordained at the tender age of eighteen, misinterpreted his role as chief shepherd pretty hard and became famous for plowing practically anything that moved. This would include his sisters, his niece, whores, widows, his father’s girlfriend, and allegedly someone else’s wife.
Not to be outdone his by murderous, pedophilic, or flat out insane contemporaries, John XII went the extra mile in making Protestant apologetics really easy by invoking demons, murdering his rivals, castrating at least one of his deacons, committing arson, and gambling.
It was so bad, that the church leaders were willing to threaten the false narrative of the Papacy being a divine institution by formally charging him and placing him on trial. John XII would be dishonorably discharged and replaced with Pope Leo VIII. Remember, the first Vatican Council proclaims that Popes are divinely imbued with unfailing faith.
Sources: https://gw.geneanet.org/comrade28?lang=en&n=church&oc=0&p=pope+john+xii+of+roman+catholic, https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-XII, https://rsc.byu.edu/peter-popes/pontiffs-palaces-pornocracy-godless-age, https://amazingbeautifulworld.com/history/the-8-most-evil-popes-in-history/7/, and https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/09/24/7-wicked-popes-and-the-terrible-things-they-did/
Pope Benedict IX: John XII was not the first Pope to be condemned by Roman Catholic leaders. Not even a century later Pope Benedict IX would usher in a new era of rape, murders, and orgies, quite a few of which would apparently involve bestiality. He was condemned both by Victor III and Saint Damian, the latter of which described him as: “feasting on immorality” and “a demon from hell in the disguise of a priest,” who sponsored orgies and routinely partook in bestiality, according to “The Spirit.” Benedict IX would top off his flagrant run of Papal protected evil by selling his office twice.
Source: https://www.livescience.com/8606-7-unholy-pope-scandals.html and https://rsc.byu.edu/peter-popes/pontiffs-palaces-pornocracy-godless-age
A fun aside on Simony: The papal office itself has a very amusing and tragic history of simony, which is quite ironic. Simony was likely named after the Simon, the infamous Magician in Samaria. Peter issues Simon one of his fiercest recorded rebukes in the scriptures after he attempts to buy the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Now under Benedict, the Office of the Papacy, supposedly tied to Peter’s sole apostolic line, would ordinate multiple Popes who purchased their position.
Pope Urban II: Pope Urban II is best known for initiating the First Crusade, where he invoked his Papal authority of the supreme care of men’s souls, to proclaim: “All who die by the way, whether by land or by sea, or in battle against the pagans, shall have immediate remission of sins. This I grant them through the power of God with which I am invested.”
Source: https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/pope-urban-ii-orders-first-crusade and https://amazingbeautifulworld.com/history/the-8-most-evil-popes-in-history/4/
By contrast, here is how Peter would handle such a situation:
1 Peter 3:8: Finally, all of you, be like-minded, be sympathetic, love one another, be compassionate and humble. 9 Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult. On the contrary, repay evil with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing. 10 For,
“Whoever would love life and see good days must keep their tongue from evil and their lips from deceitful speech.11 They must turn from evil and do good; they must seek peace and pursue it.
12 For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their prayer, but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.”
Pope Paul III: In the 16th century, Pope Paul III was responsible for reinforcing the outlawing of printing, distribution, and ownership of translated Bibles as the presiding authority over the Council of Trent. Paul III would also continue the trend of abusing his Papal position toward the end of nepotism by having 4 children and granting them each positions in Papal states.
Pope Julius III: The Roman Catholic Church and pedophilia scandals are pretty much par for the course these days, but believe it or not, the thousands of child molestation cases swept under the rug in the last century was actually the continuation of a precedent stretching back hundreds of years.
Pope Julius was a proud pedophile, he took on several underage boys as his lovers and wiped out a significant portion of the Vatican’s treasury commissioning statues of prepubescent boys committing various sex acts, which he would place around his residencies. Recently, he has received the honor of being a “Gay Man of Influence” in multiple LGBTQ sites, how progressive.
Source: https://historycollection.com/10-of-historys-most-scandalous-popes/10/, http://gayinfluence.blogspot.com/2012/03/pope-julius-iii.html (this one has pictures!), https://www.advocate.com/religion/2018/2/02/21-gay-popes-cardinals-and-assorted-catholic-leaders , and http://queerhistory.blogspot.com/2010/08/gay-popes-julius-iii.html
Pope Alexander VI: The office of the Papacy would be further defined by orgies, nepotism, illegitimate children, and murder. Alexander would become particularly notorious for holding his own courts, where he would indict and confiscate the wealth of influential rival families. Not only that, but as he had developed a reputation for assassinating his political opponents, the Church leaders kept their peace for over a decade. This lead to Alexander VI reigning for eleven years before he was assassinated.
Sources: https://sites.psu.edu/historicalcharacters/2016/09/30/beyond-the-borgias-orgies/ and https://www.nndb.com/people/159/000092880/
Pope Pius XII: During World War II, the Roman Catholic Church offered to shelter displaced Jewish children. Roman Catholics had a history of persecuting Jews and the Roman Church had refused to take a hard stance against the Third Reich, so Pius would attempt to smooth over these tensions by making a public and formal promise to ensure the return of all sheltered children to their surviving families. Of course, that never happened.
By the direction of Roman Catholic dogma, those who are baptized are now forever Roman Catholic. So, it was now the church’s prerogative to keep the children from returning to their Jewish families at any cost. While Pius’s promise to return the Jewish children was made very public, he secretly passed an internal memo detailing the opposite, leading to an enduring crisis that would cement the divide between Roman Catholics and Jews to this very day.
Sources: A really wordy link containing the transcribed internal memos and https://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/09/world/saving-jewish-children-but-at-what-cost.html
A Pope Cannot Be Evil in His Personal Life and Infallibly Good in His Office, Both Aspects are Governed by the Same Evil Heart
Now, I do want to address the tired and convenient assertion of the differences between infallibility and impeccability to excuse the evils of clergymen. The idea that the character of the Pope does not stain the legitimacy of his position was pretty much eliminated when the Pope succeeded the Christ as chief shepherd.
But, let’s pretend that the 1st Vatican Council never made those bold claims of Papal faith and character. Let’s say that the Pope was truly only in sync with God when exercising his Papal office in doctrinal matters. In that regard, I would like to offer this Papal Bull from Pope Innocent IV outlining protocols for torture, imprisonment, and seizure of property from other Christians.
A Papal Bull is an apostolic letter with a leaden seal. The Pope (in this case, Innocent IV) is invoking his apostolic authority when he issues these. I thought it was interesting that something as sacred as apostolic letters are more often than not kept hidden and untranslated in the Vatican, well removed from the eyes of the laity. After finding one translated, it’s obvious to see why. Let’s take a look at the Papal Bull of Ad Extirpanda:
“To root up from the midst of Christian people the weed of heretical wickedness, which infests the healthy plants more than it formerly did, pouring out licentiousness through the offices of the enemy of mankind in this age the more eagerly (as we address ourselves to the sweated labour of the task assigned us) the more dangerously we overlook the manner in which this weed runs riot among the Catholic growth. Desiring, then, that the sons of the Church, and fervent adherents of the orthodox faith, rise up and make their stand against the artificers of this kind of evildoing, we hereby bring forth to be followed by you as by the loyal defenders of the faith, with exact care, these regulations, contained serially in the following document, for the rooting-up of the plague of heresy.”
“Those who are thus appointed may and should seize the heretical men and women and carry off their possessions and cause these to be carried off by others, and take the heretics, or cause them to be taken, into the custody of the Diocesan bishop or his surrogates, and see to it that these things are fully accomplished as well in the diocese as in its entire jurisdiction and district.”
“The utterances of the aforementioned officials are to be faithfully accepted in every matter that regards their office, specially in the aforementioned oath; arguments tending to the contrary are not allowed, where two, three, or more of those present are such officials.”
“The head of state or ruler must force all the heretics whom he has in custody, provided he does so without killing them or breaking their arms or legs, as actual robbers and murderers of souls and thieves of the sacraments of God and Christian faith, to confess their errors and accuse other heretics whom they know, and specify their motives, and those whom they have seduced, and those who have lodged them and defended them, as thieves and robbers of material goods are made to accuse their accomplices and confess the crimes they have committed.”
“And the house, in which a male or female heretic shall be discovered, shall be levelled with the ground, never to be rebuilt; unless it is the master of the house who shall have arranged the discovery of the heretics. And if the master of the house owns other houses in the same neighbourhood, all of the other houses shall in like manner be destroyed, and the goods that shall be found in the house and the others related to it shall be dispersed to the populace, and shall belong to whoever carries them off, unless the removers shall be appointed by law.
Above all, the master of the house, besides incurring eternal infamy, must pay the government or locality fifty pounds Imperial in coin; if unable to pay, he shall suffer life imprisonment. The borough where the heretics are arrested or discovered shall pay the government of the state a hundred pounds; and a manor shall pay fifty, and the regions adjoining manors and states, fifty.”
Source: http://www.cathar.info/121295_ad_extirpanda.htm
Here are the teachings of Peter, Paul, and Jesus again for comparison:
1 Peter 3:8: Finally, all of you, be like-minded, be sympathetic, love one another, be compassionate and humble. 9 Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult. On the contrary, repay evil with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing. 10 For, “Whoever would love life and see good days must keep their tongue from evil and their lips from deceitful speech.11 They must turn from evil and do good; they must seek peace and pursue it.
1 Timothy 6:3: If someone spreads false teachings and does not agree with sound words (that is, those of our Lord Jesus Christ) and with the teaching that accords with godliness, 4 he is conceited and understands nothing, but has an unhealthy interest in controversies and verbal disputes. This gives rise to envy, dissension, slanders, evil suspicions, 5 and constant bickering by people corrupted in their minds and deprived of the truth, who suppose that godliness is a way of making a profit.
Matthew 17:15: “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. 16 You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? 17 So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. 18 A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Thus you will recognize them by their fruits.
Look at the clear difference in theology and character expressed in the papal bull verses the scriptures. You cannot intellectually or ethically assert that Pope Innocent IV received the same Holy Spirit as Peter and Paul. Tell me that he had actual knowledge and devotion to the teachings of Jesus Christ and was not doing this to aggregate wealth and power for him and the Catholic church.
Did Jesus not say that a good vine would not bear bad fruit? Did He not say to His disciples that people would recognize them by their love for each other? Did Paul not state you would be able to discern who the real and fake apostles are by their actions, in spite of their convincing words?
I have literally centuries worth of evidence, some of which even admitted to by the Roman Catholic Church itself, detailing the abject evil of these Popes. The Papacy was never an office instated by Jesus, just as the Roman Catholic church was never divinely instated as the pre-eminent church. It’s all just lies from men. Lies that minimize the mercy, grace, and sufficiency of God, to the ends of establishing control over the laity and to aggregate wealth and power for the Church.
The Papacy Turned their Congregation to Sin
For my final point, I would like to address the effect these Popes had on their church. You see, the Popes, while certainly not shepherds of Jesus’ flock, did have a profound influence on the souls of their congregations. Under Pope Urban II, thousands of criminals and wayward souls would devote themselves to slaughter and pillaging in the Holy War under the belief that they were doing the work of God and that they would attain salvation should they die during their bloody conflict.
Under the Pope Innocent IV, thousands of Catholics would be roused to pillage, imprison, and torture Protestants by Papal decree. Not too long after came the two hundred year span of the Spanish Inquisition, where Catholics would leverage their political power to slaughter thousands of Protestants, Jews, and Muslims. The corruption of the Papacy was not benign, over the years it spread deep into the clergy, where it still resides today.
Source: https://www.history.com/topics/religion/inquisition
Failures of the Modern Popes: John-Paul II, Benedict XVI, and Francis:
This corruption is actually rather easy to see in the modern church, in light of the more progressive modern-day Popes. While these popes would become further removed from the obvious sins of their predecessors, they would go on to become some of the strongest enablers of the inner corruption that had grown within the clergy over the years.
Rwandan Genocide: Under John-Paul II, several major Catholic parishes in Rwanda committed open genocide against the Tutsi people, a move stemming from the Catholic church’s meddling in Rwanda’s government affairs stemming back to WWII. Thousands of people were murdered by ordained Catholic clergymen over a multitude of years. John-Paul II purposefully ignored this war for as long as he could. After the damage became large enough to receive international attention, he wrote this to the Rwandans:
“The Church… cannot be held responsible for the guilt of its members that have acted against the evangelic law; they will be called to render account of their own actions. All Church members that have sinned during the genocide must have the courage to assume the consequences of their deeds they have done against God and fellow men.”
Benedict would avoid addressing the Rwandans entirely, and when Francis was corralled into a meeting with the Rwandan King, he apologized profusely, but made none of the King’s suggested efforts to identify and punish the involved parties. Such hollow conduct ultimately lead their king to rebuke the Roman Catholic church on the whole for their lack of accountability and repentance.
Pedophilia Crises: In the last few decades, literally thousands of cases of priests molesting children were being uncovered around the world. In fact, in the U.S. alone, 4000 priests had been allegedly involved in sexual abuse of a total of over 10,000 children. The term allegedly would actually be to the detriment of the Roman Catholic church, as John-Paul, Benedict, and Francis all strongly continued the practice of protecting priests from government laws and handling their investigation internally.
Just as how Paul and Francis dealt with Rwanda, they actively protected the Church from any kind of liability by running largely fruitless internal investigations and smoothing over public condemnation with empty apologies. They had no intention of repentance, their appearance was more important than the spiritual health and integrity of their church.
Of course, this didn’t work out too well as people became fed up and started involving police and private investigators. While the Vatican initially tried to condemn the outside investigations and ensuing raids, the evidence of confirmed abuses piled up devastatingly fast. Just a few years ago, Philadelphia PD uncovered irrefutable evidence of a massive coverup of systemic child abuse involving three hundred priests and over a 1,000 children, who were raped and beaten.
One of the better-known cases these confirmed indictments is the case of a girl who was impregnated and subsequently forced into an abortion by the same priest. Many clergymen involved in this cover-up were either still practicing or actively promoted at the time of their conviction.
Most notably, external investigators confiscated internal documents from the eight involved dioceses that showed evidence of the involved priests being shuffled around parishes, sometimes even out of state. The head investigator traced some of these cases all the way back to the Vatican. The Philadelphia cases would be only one of eleven harrowing investigations successfully completed on U.S. grounds. Similar situations would also occur in Ireland, Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Austria, even in the Vatican specifically.
Eventually, Benedict would speak up on the matter several years after he stepped down as Pope. He practically threw the entire Roman Catholic church under the bus. Benedict opened his 6,000 word essay by claiming that pedophilia in the church began to grow out of the sexual revolution in the 60s and that an absence of God pervaded the priesthood. He then faulted the Vatican laws concerning clergy accountability and investigations as “so broad as to make conviction nearly impossible.” Not to be outdone in this contest of putting one’s foot in their own mouth, Francis weighed in and blamed the clerical culture in the church that elevates priests above the laity. The Papacy did not protect the church from evil, the enabled it.
Unfortunately for Benedict, the seizure and investigations into the Vatican’s internal documents traced a continuous trend of child molestation all the back to the fourth century, meaning that Julius III did not actually set the precedence of pedophilia, but was merely following it. Unfortunately for Francis, the elevation of the priesthood over the laity was a tradition dating back over a millennium, likely originating as a product of the Novatian schism or Constantine’s reform.
Sources: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/14/us/catholic-church-sex-abuse-pennsylvania.html, https://www.bbc.com/news/10407559, https://www.ncronline.org/news/accountability/distinctly-catholic/conservatives-must-face-john-paul-iis-legacy-sex-abuse, and https://apnews.com/c98a296cd9be4da4aabbbd626403d7a4
Systematic Nun Abuse: The Roman Catholic clergy has no problem preying on their own kind either. For the last thirty years, stories of nuns being physically and sexually abused have been piling up against the Catholic church. Much like the child molestation, the Vatican was aware of it, and they routinely buried the allegations and took minimal actions against the offending priests.
As the systemic abuse of nuns became an increasingly outspoken and international affair, nuns became progressively more emboldened and reach out to the media. Collectively, the detailed being routinely subjected to rape, forced abortion, emotional abuse, and labor exploitation.
Pope Francis made a point not to mention it, leading him to become rather unprepared for being ambushed with these accusations during his tour of the Middle East. Francis not only admitted that this problem was well known by the Vatican, but then admitted that the problem had preceded well into Benedict’s reign.
This led to Francis eventually holding a sex abuse council at the Vatican, where he boldly addressed the levy of horror stories by reinforcing the precedent of the Church conducting internal investigations. By continuing to refuse the accountability from external authorities, Francis has continued the precedent of enabling the widespread corruption in the Roman Catholic clergy. Even to this day, priests confirmed to have been rapists are still serving at their same congregations.
So, this is just equal parts foolish and evil:
“Let everyone revere the deacons as Jesus Christ, the bishop as the image of the Father, and the presbyters as the senate of God and the assembly of the apostles. For without them one cannot speak of the Church. 33” (1554, CCC)
Sources: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/abused-nuns-reveal-stories-of-rape-forced-abortions, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-47134033, and https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/05/world/europe/pope-nuns-sexual-abuse.html
The Evils of the Clergy and Papacy Cannot Be Reconciled with the Protection and Lordship of Jesus
The power aggregated by the Roman Catholic Church over the centuries has tainted the institution to its core. The Papacy has repeatedly led their congregations astray and has actively enabled dozens of the most abominable offenses against both men and God throughout history. So, I have several questions to those who have been conditioned to believe in the Pope as being the image of Christ, the Chief Shepherd, and having supreme care over the men’s souls:
- Do you believe that submission to these men is truly necessary for salvation?
- Do you believe that Jesus has confined Himself to solely residing in and working through the Roman Catholic church, an institution that has been tainted by murder, rape, and political subterfuge over a millennium?
- More specifically, do you believe the sacraments the Church deems necessary for salvation are still valid if they’re performed by a pedophilic or murderous priest, but are not valid if they had been delivered by a pious Orthodox or Protestant Christian?
- Do you believe the Roman Catholics who murdered Protestants and Jews under the Spanish Inquisition were saved Christians who were led to Heaven by the very Popes who ordered the slaughter?
The sovereignty of the Roman Catholic church does not hold up as a reasonable assertion under any remote form of historical, ethical, or doctrinal scrutiny. Jesus may have protected the Christian church from failing, but the Roman Catholic Church has failed a long time ago. Speaking of failures, I would like to invite to read my next chapter, detailing how the Roman Catholic church tried (and failed) to keep bibles out the hands of the Laity for literal centuries.