Going to Rome

After forays into Anglicanism over the past several years, in the past three weeks I've begun attending a Catholic church here in Ottawa with my Catholic girl friend (she's really not going to like that I said it that way). This is a great irony because it turns out that a considerable number of Anglicans are considering crossing the floor. They're experimenting because the Anglicans are too liberal. I'm experimenting because the Anglicans are too conservative - though Catholicism can't really do much about resolving that.

As you can see from the pictures here, it's a rather impressive structure and no doubt the interior decorating costs could have fed a small island country for a year. It's also the first church I've gone to that had a real genuine organ, which was impressive to me, though perhaps less so for others.

I don't know what to think of Catholicism. I could actually keep up with 90% of the liturgy - it being fairly similar to the Anglican liturgy I'm more familiar with. The sermons - homilies, I guess I should say - are also quite recognizable. (Conservative, evangelically inclined speakers are apparently the same pretty much everywhere; so are liberal ones, though the lines are drawn a little differently than they were in Anglicanism.) The ceremonial aspects were more elaborate, though this might partially be because I was in a much larger and more established church than I'm used to. There was also less singing, which turned out to be okay - this meant not having to flip awkwardly between multiple songbooks the way the Anglicans do.

I doubt I would ever convert to Catholicism, partly for the same reason that I would not actually call myself an Anglican - I have no real interest in submitting to the structure of any church. It turns out there are Catholic anarchists - the Catholic Workers, for example - but I have no reason to use a label that means nothing to me. If the Catholic Church begins ordaining women and blessing gay couples, maybe I'll give some marginal thought to reconsidering. In a way this is a shame because there are a considerable variety of Catholic charity organizations, at least in the east, which would be interesting to work within. The evangelicals of my own past weren't very good at doing charity without preaching.

The fact that I'm formally excluded from communion is also irritating. The fact that this irritates me also interests me, because it's not as if I was ever particularly attracted to the formality of it in any church. Apparently I was only care-free on the subject so long as I had freedom of choice. Even today, when there's a real conflict, the refusal of communion takes on considerable symbolic significance. For this reason, during the gay marriage debates back in B.C., there were some churches whose members would refuse to take communion when visiting certain other churches. (Some conservatives in Vancouver, for example, would refuse to take communion in a church that was willing to bless gay couples.) Communion politics are an intriguing holdover of the religious conflicts of the past five hundred years. The Catholic Church isn't the only one which technically, at any rate, restricts baptism to its own membership, though most Protestants now offer communion to anyone who is baptized (in theory), or to everybody who wants it (in practice).

The decision to restrict communion only to baptized or converted Catholics is of course the Catholics' own prerogative. Formally, the Catholics and certain Protestant groups, I think including the Church of England, have formally recognized one another as Christians, but the Catholic church argues that this is a partial, "imperfect" communion, and therefore - in spiritual terms - apparently we cannot share fellowship before God. I suppose it's a start - in one of my Baptist churches, the question of whether Catholics could even be considered Christians would have been a very divisive one, and most of the congregation would have settled on the negative. Of course, the pope's idea of returning to full communion with Rome appears to be acceptance of his own authority as chief spokesman of God, so I have to say that the Catholic pronouncement of the goal of reconciliation rings somewhat hollow.

Still, I find it rather ridiculous. If we accept that we worship the same God, according to the same Apostles' Creed (though I do have some problems with that one, and this gets more complicated if you toss in the Orthodox, whose creeds are older and unedited), and we're willing to eat together as people (which we are, for the most part), then it seems rather silly to say that we cannot eat together before God. Of course, then there's the whole transubstantiation thing, but the Catholic church doesn't really exclude people based on doctrine, but rather based on baptism.

Ah, well. Yet another church I feel obligated not to join.
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Dave's Whirlwind Tour of the Papacy, Part 2

After discovering the fabulously preposterous Cadaver Synod last week, I resolved to find even more interesting events in the history of the papacy, but sadly, there don't seem to be any. After seeing one pope who fathered an unknown number of illegitimate children, ran the church like any other state but with more moral pretensions, and died under suspicious circumstances after getting caught with someone else's wife, you've pretty much seen them all.

Every once in a while, someone truly worthwhile comes along, like Celestine V, a Cincinnatus-like ascetic monk who was picked as a surprise "compromise" candidate during the 13th century. By all accounts Celestine was comletely out of his league running an enormous institution in a large city, accustomed as he was to leading a tiny Benedictine community in the Abruzzi mountains. (This later became the Celestine monastic order.) Celestine is supposed to have made a series of bad decisions as pope, which is not impossible, though so far the standard for being a competent pope seems to be pretty low. Celestine evidently realized this and, with a humility totally uncharacteristic of the papacy, made some new rules regulating the conclave to force future papal elections to run more quickly and with less outside interference. He then summoned some cardinals and proclaimed his intention to resign. It was an unusual, if not completely unprecedented decision, under the circumstances, and people didn't seem quite sure how to react. Celestine returned to his little community, but his successor, Benedict VIII, was suspicious of his predecessor's unusual popularity in Rome. To cut off any chance at a palace revolt, he had Celestine arrested and imprisoned, where he later died. On his way to his jail, Celestine quipped, "I wanted nothing but a cell, and a cell you have given me."

There are still a few more interesting stories left, even if I can't beat the Cadaver Synod. Alexander VI, for example, was pope from 1492 to 1503, and is widely regarded as one of the most corrupt popes in the history of the papacy. He owed his initial promotions in the church - from bishop to cardinal and vice-chancellor - to his uncle, Pope Calixtus III. He then served Calixtus's successors until 1492, the same year, coincidentally, that Christopher Columbus got lost on his way to India and accidentally on purpose found the Americas.

Alexander, then named Rodrigo Borja, was one of several noble Romans who might be in line for the Papacy. Earlier, it had become tradition for the belongings of the pope-elect's palace to be given to the poor. By this time, it was therefore also common practice for papabiles like Alexander to pre-empt the poor by moving all their possessions to the country. From these riches, Alexander took four mule-loads of silver and delivered them to one of his competitors, who promptly withdrew from the election. This competitor also got a bishopric, a vice-chancellorship, and a castle. (These bishoprics, incidentally, were basically revenue sources at the time; by this time in the Middle Ages, virtually no one was even bothering to pretend anymore that there was some sort of religious qualification or significance to the position.) Alexander paid several more by promising them towns, bishoprics, and abbeys once he became pope; discovering even with these promises that he couldn't win a 2/3 vote, he simply offered cash payments to the remaining cardinals until enough of them gave in. Alexander's bank could barely keep up with the withdrawals being demanded and nearly went bust shortly after the conclave. The open corruption became so ludicrous that Alexander's successor, Pope Julius II, immediately outlawed the buying or selling of religious property as papal bribes again, with the penalty that both buyer and seller be immediately excommunicated and the results of any corrupt election be cancelled.

Alexander saw no need to stop his sell-off of church resources once pope. In theory, the church had enforced celibacy for centuries now, but he already had at least four children with one of his mistresses. Alexander arranged for appropriate senior positions to be rewarded to his children and arranged marriages with various Italian royals. His daughter he actually married off to several men, one after another, each of increasing political influence.

Even better, though Alexander held a series of orges at the Vatican, culminating in the ludicrous Banquet of Chestnuts on Halloween, 1501. Several dozen prostitutes and courtesans were in attendance as chestnuts were strewn about the ground and a massive feast was held. After eating, Alexander auctioned off the clothing worn by the women, then had them crawl around the floor gathering up the chestnuts. The clergy and other noble guests were then encouraged to have sex with the prostitutes. Alexander's master of ceremonies, priest Johann Burchard, wrote in his memoirs that "prizes were offered - silken doublets, pairs of shoes, hats and other garments - for those men who were most successful with the prostitutes."

Alexander's death was as unseemly as his reign. He and a dining companion fell ill in 1503 - the circumstances would seem to suggest either food poisoning or deliberate poisoning, although the official explanation is malaria. He died after a week of extreme pain, in which his skin peeled and his stomach swelled. The body was eventually displayed to the public, prompting the ambassador of Venice to report home that Alexander's body was "the ugliest, most monstrous and horrible dead body that was ever seen." The priests at St. Peter's Basilica initially refused to accept the body for burial, only a sparse handful of clergy attended the funeral, and his immediate successor, Pius III (who croaked after only a few months), promptly forbade further official mourning and prayers for Alexander VI, saying it was "blasphemous to pray for the damned."

I think that concludes my tour of the papacy. I'm off to read something more spiritually uplifting, like the book of Judges.
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The Medieval Papacy - Now, THERE was a Quality Religious Institution

Libraries are evil. This is my conclusion after a traumatizing trip which began with me needing to sign out a book my students had written reviews of, and ended with me signing out two dozen books on religious history, alphabetically everything from Ellul's Subversion of Christianity to Weber's Protestant Work Ethic. It's going to take me weeks to get through this material - weeks I should be spending writing my damned thesis. Normally I'd say goddamned thesis but on this particular project, I think I could actually use his help, which would conflict with the whole damnation thing.

Anyways, I've been reading about the medieval Catholic church, and between the odd reference in high school history and the more frequent doses of anti-Catholicism from my evangelical days, I've realized I basically know almost nothing about the medieval papacy, at least relative to most other aspects of European history. (So much for my degree in history.) I thought reading about popes would be more boring than reading about other European dynasties, but actually it's way more exciting, what with popes selling the papacy for gold, dying from STDs, getting murdered, and even murdering other, rival popes. Among other things, this has led me to discover the most awesome trial in the history of everything ever: the Cadaver Synod.

If you thought the Catholic Church was corrupt and fractured by the late Middle Ages and then the Protestant Reformation, wait till you start reading up on the 9th century. In 882, when John VIII died, the church lost a fairly decent pope - a reformist who'd defended holding services in Slavonic languages, re-recognized the Eastern churches, and (a little more questionably, I admit) fought with Muslim forces in Italy. For these deeds, John was rewarded by being the first pope ever assassinated, and one of very few human beings ever to be assassinated by two enemies simultaneously: one with poison, and then another with a hammer to the skull while he lay dying. John was replaced by Marinus I (for two years), Adrian III (one year), Stephen V (six years), and finally Formosus (five years, 1891-1896).

This is where things get interesting. Formosus had been exiled by John but invited back by John's successors. When Formosus died, Boniface VI won power in the midst of massive riots in Rome, but lasted only two weeks before dying under suspicious circumstances (Wikipedia charitably suggests that Boniface was "forcibly ejected" from life). Even under the circumstances, this was a bizarre choice, and Boniface is now known as the only man to become pope after having been stripped of holy orders on two previous occasions for immoral behaviour. For his many sins, Boniface VI was retroactively deleted from the papacy afterwards when a successor determined the election was inappropriate. Next up was Stephen VI, who was backed by powerful Roman noble families.

In January 897, Stephen determined that Formosus had been guilty of some indiscretions while in office. Today, when we find out former prime minister Brian Mulroney accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribe money from German crooks, we hold a "public inquiry." Well, that's what they did in the 9th century too.

The similarities don't end there, mind you. Today, Mulroney argues that the discovery of his fraud occurred post-statute of limitations for tax fraud, so he's home free. Back then, Formosus opted (we may presume) for a very similar argument: his charges were laid post-being alive. Normally this would probably have worked, but Formosus had been a particularly bad boy (among other things, he'd backed the wrong side in a royal succession dispute), and besides, never let it be said that mere death could stand in the way of the justice of the eternal church.

Stephen organized a trial court consisting of himself, a panel of judges drawn from the clergy, and the defendant Formosus, whose corpse was removed from its tomb, dressed in formal clothing, and carried to a chair in the courtroom. Next, Stephen formally read out the charges: perjury, envy, and violation of church laws. Stephen conducts most of the prosecution's case himself, giving numerous extensive speeches directed towards Formosus. Dead bodies can't answer charges, of course, so a junior deacon is ordered to stand behind the dead man's chair and give "answers" on the dead pope's behalf.

Unsurprisingly, Formosus is found guilty of all charges. He can't be executed, obviously, so instead Stephen orders the body stripped of its religious clothing and cuts off three fingers from the right hand (the ones used for performing blessings), after which Formosus is re-buried in a less honourable plot in a foreigners' graveyard. Even this is too good for Formosus, of course, so Stephen later has him exhumed again and dumped into the Tiber river. The remains were subsequently pulled out by a solitary monastic who presumably gave him another, more private burial.

And things didn't even end there. Formosus had been a popular leader in Rome, and rumours spread of him returning from the dead to perform miracles. Stephen VI was deposed by a popular revolution, and strangled to death in 897. Stephen was replaced by Romanus, a monk who by all accounts was quite a fair leader. Fair leaders tend not to do well in politics, though, and Romanus lasted only a few months before the Roman nobility managed to oust him.

At this point, the Eastern Christians decided they'd had enough of this nonsense, and Theodore II, the son of the Patriarch of Constantinople, was sent over to restore order in Rome. Theodore cancelled some purges of the clergy performed by Stephen VI, officially pardoned Formosus, and ordered a new funeral held for the dead Pope so that his remains - or a reasonable facsimile, anyways - could be returned to the papal tomb. Unfortunately, Theodore lasted for less than a month in office, but his own successor, John IX, agreed to keep Formosus buried with honour.

I'm still not finished, though. Medieval Rome was kind of like today's Canadian politics - a continuing succession of minority governments. A few years later, in 904, the anti-Formosus group was back in office, led by Sergius III. Sergius had been angling for power ever since Formosus died the previous decade. He'd even won a contested election for the Papacy in 897, but been exiled from Rome before he could take office. Afterwards, he'd been excommunicated by the new winner, John IX.

This double hit from the banhammer didn't work, though. John died in 900, and was replaced by Benedict IV. He also only survived a couple of years, and was replaced by Leo V in 903. Leo V lived thirty days before ousted by an otherwise unknown priest, Christopher. Christopher threw Leo into prison and tried to rule as pope for about thirty days. At this point, the anti-Formosan nobles invited Sergius back to Rome to straighten things out. Sergius did just that, winning the papacy and ordering both Christopher and Leo strangled in prison (probably, anyways; there's some dispute). Sergius had actually been one of the judges at the original Cadaver Synod so, for good measure, he cancelled the pardon on Formosus and re-established the guilty verdict. He even had poor Formosus exhumed again and, by some accounts, beheaded.

So ends the story of the Cadaver Synod, though not the troubles of the medieval papacy. Sergius set several records as pope, some of which have stood the test of time: for example, he's the only pope to order the murder of another pope, and the only pope to father an illegitimate son who also became a pope. You may have begun to suspect that the Chair of St. Peter seems to be moving around a lot more quickly than it does nowadays, and you'd be right: between 896 and 904, there was a new pope, on average, about once per year. Between 872 and 965, there were 24 popes, and somewhere between five and seven of them were murdered. The fifty years after Sergius became known to papal historians as the "pornocracy", which I guess is what you get when you combine rigidly patriarchal church historians with a period of Roman politics controlled by leading noblewomen.

After Sergius came Anastasius III, one of Sergius's rumoured bastard sons. Next came Lando, a six-month wonder who was the last pope to use his birthname in more than a thousand years. Then John X, who came to power through his connections to a wealthy noblewoman named Theodora, and lost power through the connections of Theodora's daughter Marozia, who had John deposed, imprisoned, and eventually smothered with a pillow. Marozia also seized power in Rome through a coup d'etat, which allowed her to handpick the next two popes, Leo VI (seven months) and Stephen VII (three years). By this time (931 AD, for those keeping count), her own son John XI had turned 21, so next she had him "elected" as Pope. (Incidentally, Marozia had been sleeping with Sergius III as a teenager, and John was the illegitimate son of that relationship.) Marozia herself was ousted from power in the 930s and her successor, Alberic II, oversaw a similar succession of popes.

By this time, the popes were getting a little bit too independent, and a few of them, like Agapetus II and John XII, actually asked other countries to intervene in Rome and get rid of some of the troublesome noble families. Eventually the Germans did this, and in return their king (Otto I) was awarded the title "Holy Roman Emperor," something the German noble family would keep for most of the next thousand years. John didn't much like the Germans either, though, and fled the city. Otto, who wanted to get back to Germany, simply "elected" a new Pope, Leo VIII. Furious, John re-invaded Rome, prompting Leo to head for the hills. A furious Otto resolved to return to Rome and set things aright, but by this time John XII had already been murdered, allegedly by the jealous husband of one of his mistresses. John was replaced by Benedict V, but Leo and Otto would have none of this, so Benedict was stripped in council, demoted to deacon of Hamburg, and carted off to live out his days in Germany.

Leo also lasted less than a year, by which time the Theophactyl noble family was truly out of favour and the Crescenzi family was able to put one of their own favourites, John XIII, onto the chair. The Crescenzis had made peace with Otto, but not with the other Romans, who banished the pope from Rome just two months into his reign. John XIII, too, is rumoured to have been murdered. Otto came back to install a new pope, Benedict VI, who turned out to be another six-month wonder. This time, though, it was through no fault of his own: just after he'd seized power, Rome learned that king Otto had died. Without Otto's support, Benedict was imprisoned and eventually strangled by one of the sons of Theodora (mentioned earlier). One of the conspirators, Boniface VII, tried to seize the papacy but was forced to flee to the relative safety of Constantinople, though not before pilfering the treasury.

The new Holy Roman Emperor, Otto II, appointed a reformist, Benedict VII, who lasted a surprising nine years. Then Otto II died, too, leaving the German throne in the hands of his three-year-old son. Boniface hurried back from Constantinople and led a popular uprising against John XIV, who he had killed (either by starvation or poison). Boniface became pope himself, but was assassinated the following year.

Next came John XV, who lasted ten years and might have re-established some stability if he hadn't been so ludicrously corrupt. He died of a fever in 996, and the Germans tried to install Gregory V as the new pope. (Speaking of corruption, Gregory V was the cousin of the German then-king, Otto III.) Unfortunately, Gregory V was unpopular with the Roman nobles, so he was violently ousted and replaced by John XVI. In response, Otto III ordered the church to excommunicate the pope. He actually got his way at a council of bishops, but when John showed no signs of budging, Otto re-invaded Rome, captured John, and had him tortured - in the process of which John lost his nose, ears, tongue, and apparently some of his fingers. He was then imprisoned until his death a few years later.

Mercifully, Gregory V died a peaceful death in 999. He was replaced by Sylvester II, who introduced the study of Arabic mathematics and astronomy, which at the time made its European counterparts look childish by comparison. He'd been Otto III's tutor, once upon a time. Not surprisingly, the Romans didn't like him either, and revolted in 1001 A.D. Sylvester was chased from the city and made four separate attempts to return before his death. The Romans chose one of their own, John XVII, as the next pope, but he died after just five months in office. Next up was another Roman, John XVIII, who not only survived for years but retired from office to return to the less exciting life of his monastic order.

Then the papacy falls off the wagon again. The Crescentis, who control Rome at this point, appoint one of very few working-class popes in history, Sergius IV, the son of a shoe-maker. Sergius seems to do well but dies, probably of foul play, just days after the death of his leading Crescenti patron. The Theophylae family promptly "elect" their own pope, Gregory VI, but he's banished from the city and ends up as a refugee in Germany. Benedict VIII takes the chair, assisted by German king Henry II, and eventually passes the papacy to his brother, John XIX.

Normally, passing your titles to your kin was acceptable practice in Europe, but normally that's not the way the papacy works. At the time, John XIX wasn't even a priest. So he was hastily ordained as a bishop, after which he could legally become pope. Amongst other things, John went on to accept an enormous bribe in exchange for new titles for the Patriarch of Constantinople. (Which was fitting, because, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica, John had also handed around a few bribes on his way to becoming pope.) The deal turned out to be quite unpopular, so John backtracked, though it's unclear whether or not he refunded the money.

Speaking of bribes, up next is Benedict IX, the only man to ever sell the papacy. Benedict was John IX's nephew, and became pope while still a teenager. He was later accused of a grand litany of sins, ranging from rape and murder to bestiality. For his lechery and his general incompetence, Benedict was ejected from the city in 1036, but German emperor Conrad II forced him back into office. He was beaten out again in 1044, at which point Sylvester III won a heavily contested election but was then charged with bribing opponents. Benedict IX retaliated by excommunicating Sylvester III and retaking the papacy. In 1045, Benedict IX left office again, this time after accepting approximately one metric tonne of gold in payments for his title. The purchaser was Gregory VI, allegedly Benedict's godfather, and despite the rather dubious method of ascension, reformists and critics of corruption like Peter Damian praised him for at least getting Benedict out of the way. Together with his advisor, fellow reformist Hildebrand (the future pope Gregory VII), Gregory VI tried to re-establish some semblance of religious order.

The litany continues, however. By this time, the Vatican was almost bankrupt, and both of the previous popes, Sylvester III and Benedict IX, were trying to regain the city. Gregory VI managed to convince German king Henry III to come to Italy, summon a religious council, and arbitrate the case. The price was high: Gregory agreed to resign from the papacy if, in exchange, Benedict's claims were dismissed and Sylvester was demoted and banished to a monastery. In the ensuing hearing, Gregory freely confessed to buying the Papacy but argued that this was justified under the circumstances. The council of bishops disagred and Gregory agreed to resign. Henry also chose the new Pope, Clement II, in a move which pissed off reformists. It turned out to be a mixed blessing, however; Clement II compromised with the reform movements through new restrictions on buying church offices (known in the Middle Ages as "simony"). Clement died the next year of lead poisoning, which means either he was assassinated or died of treatment for a sexually transmitted disease (lead sugar being the medicine of choice for such illnesses during the Middle Ages). I'm not sure which of the two options reflects better upon the church, but after the disasters of the last two centuries, I suppose it hardly matters.

Then, unbelievably, Benedict IX comes back into the picture. Benedict had never formally accepted the verdict from Henry's council of bishops, and seized the pope's palace in 1047. He held the palace - and thus claimed the title of Pope - for an additional eight months, before an incensed Henry III sent Poppo of Brixen to evict him. Benedict refused to appear on charges, so he was formally excommunicated by the church. Poppo became the new pope, changing his name to Damasus II. But he lived only 23 days after kicking out Benedict, before dying - either of poison or of malaria, depending on what source you trust.

Finally, after a period of almost two hundred years, we come to a fucking hero of a pope. (It normally takes a lot for me to say that, being an anarchist, but I've gotten so depressed over the last few paragraphs that even my trusty bottle of Smirnoff's isn't taking the edge off my emotions anymore.) Leo IX is another German nobleman-become-bishop, and he's appointed to the Papacy on those conditions, but then makes a stunning declaration: he won't accept the papacy unless and until he is escorted to Rome and receives the consent of the bishops and populace of the city of Rome. Democracy, in the church, you ask? Perhaps. Leo meets Hildebrand, the reformist advisor of Gregory VI, and together they travel to Rome, dressed as pilgrims. At the Easter Council in 1049, Leo orders all clerical orders of the church to actually obey the conditions of celibacy and officially (if not effectively) bans all purchasing of church titles (i.e. simony). Leo also travels about Europe holding councils with regional clergy. More dubiously, he also excommunicates the Patriarch of Constantinople, thus provoking the Great Schism between the Roman Catholic Church of Western Europe and the Orthodox Churches of Eastern Europe. He also helps start a war with the Normans in 1053, which Rome loses badly. On the bright side, Leo surrenders in person to prevent further death or destruction. He dies the following year.

This has gone on a lot longer than I thought it would. I think the Great Schism is an appropriate place to leave off, though it does have the downside of skipping over Celestine V, my personal favorite, who willingly renounced his office on the grounds that it was interfering with his desire for tranquillity and humility.

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A brief history of the Cadaver Synod can be found on Wikipedia here. And you thought history was all about boring dates and stuff. Medieval papal elections are even cooler than the 2000 Bush-Gore debacle, I've discovered.
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