Dark Mysteries of the Vatican (5 page)

T
he archives of the Vatican contain evidence that being pope has been one of history’s most dangerous jobs. Through the centuries many have been murdered or assassinated. The first was Pope John VIII. In 882, he was poisoned and then clubbed to death by scheming members of the papal court. According to Matthew Brunson’s
The Pope Encyclopedia: An A to Z of the Holy See
most murders of pontiffs occurred in the Middle Ages, especially in a period described by Cardinal Cesare Baronius in
Annales ecclesiastici
as “the Iron Age of the Papacy,” from 867 to 964, when powerful families had popes elected, deposed, and murdered to advance political ambitions, or as vengeance. Of the twenty-six popes during this era, sixteen died by violence.

The most tantalizing of the murders was that of John XII (955–964). “Just 18 years old when he was elected pontiff, John was a notorious womanizer and the papal palace came to be described as a brothel during his reign. He died of injuries after he was caught in bed by the husband of one of his mistresses. Some legends say that he died of a stroke while in the act of love.”

Theories and claims of murderous cabals blossomed following the death of Pope Clement XIV in 1771. He “was reportedly so racked with guilt over disbanding the Jesuits that he spent his last years terrified of being poisoned.” Following his death, there were so many stories about his possible murder that a postmortem was conducted. It found nothing to implicate the Jesuits.

The following is a list of murdered pontiffs and the manner in which they are thought to have been removed from
The Pope Encyclopedia
:

The most bizarre story of a pope is that of Stephen VII. In “896, [he] set in motion the trial of his rival, who had been dead for 9 months.” Author Mark Owen noted in an article on the notorious pontiffs that the body of Pope Formosus was dragged from its tomb and placed on a throne. Wrapped in a hair shirt, the corpse was provided with legal counsel, who remained silent while Pope Stephen raved and screamed.

“The crime of Formosus,” Owen recorded, “was that he had crowned emperor one of the numerous illegitimate heirs of Charlemagne after first having performed the same office for a candidate favored by Stephen.

“After Stephen’s rant, the corpse was stripped of its clothes and its fingers were chopped off. It was then dragged through the palace and hurled from a balcony to a howling mob below, who threw it into the Tiber River. The body was rescued by people sympathetic to Formosus and given a quiet burial. Stephen was strangled a few years later.

“In 964 Pope Benedict V raped a young girl and absconded to Constantinople with the papal treasury, only to reappear when the money ran out.” A church historian called Benedict “the most iniquitous of all the monsters of ungodliness.” He was also “slain by a jealous husband. His corpse, bearing a hundred dagger wounds, was dragged through the streets before being tossed into a cesspit….

“In October 1032, the papal miter was purchased for eleven-year-old Benedict IX. Upon reaching his 14th year, a chronicler wrote that Benedict had surpassed in wantonness and profligacy all who had preceded him.”

According to historian Peter de Rosa in his book
Vicars of Christ
, popes had mistresses as young as fifteen years of age, were guilty of incest and perversions of every sort, had innumerable children, [and] “were murdered in the very act of adultery.”

Pope Alexander VI (formerly Rodrigo Borgia) reigned from 1492–1503. He committed his first murder at the age of twelve. “Upon assuming the Papal miter, he cried, ‘I am Pope, Vicar of Christ!’ Like his predecessor, Innocent VIII, Alexander sired many children, baptized them personally, and officiated at their weddings in the Vatican. He had ten known illegitimate children (including the notorious Cesare and Lucrezia Borgia), by his favorite mistress Vannoza Catanei. When she faded in allure, Borgia took fifteen-year-old Giulia Farnese. Farnese obtained a Cardinal’s red hat for her brother, who later became Paul III. Alexander was followed by Julius II who purchased the papacy with his own private fortune…. A notorious womanizer, Julius was so eaten away with syphilis that he couldn’t expose his foot to be kissed.”

“Pope Sixtus IV charged Roman brothels a Church tax. According to historian Will Durant, in 1490 there were 6,800 registered prostitutes in Rome. Pope Pius II declared that Rome was the only city run by…the sons of popes and cardinals.

Pope Leo I (440–461) asserted that it did not matter how immoral or inept a pope was as long as he was deemed the rightful successor to St. Peter.” There is no official list of popes, but the
Annuario Pontificio
[Papal Yearbook], published every year by the Vatican, contains a list that is generally considered the most authoritative. It cites Benedict XVI as the 265th pope of Rome.

Number 263, John Paul I, received the designation on August 26, 1978. The first pontiff to choose two names (in honor of his predecessors, John XXIII and Paul VI), he was born Albino Luciani on October 17, 1912, in Forno di Canale (now called Canale d’Agordo), Italy. He differed from his predecessors in having never held a major position in the Vatican’s internal government or diplomatic corps. Despite being prominent within Italy, he was largely unknown to the wider world.

Ordained on July 7, 1935, “he studied at Rome’s Gregorian University before a brief period as curate in his childhood parish. After he was appointed to a deputy position at Belluno seminary in 1937, he spent years teaching, during which time he became vicar-general to the Bishop at Belluno. Toward the end of 1958, Pope John XXIII appointed Luciani as bishop of Vittorio Veneto, and after a slow start at the Vatican Council (1962–65), he soon became an active voice in doctrinal matters.” Named archbishop of Venice (1969) and a cardinal in 1973, he rejected many of Catholicism’s more opulent aspects and encouraged richer churches to give to poorer ones.

After his election to the papacy by the College of Cardinals,
Time
magazine reported, “The Cardinals knew what they wanted: a warm and humble man. Seated at a table in front of the Sistine Chapel altar, the Cardinal solemnly intoned the name written on each ballot. ‘Luciani…Luciani…Luciani…’ Beside him sat two other Cardinal scrutatores (vote counters) who carefully plucked the ballots from a silver chalice, unfolded them and passed them to their colleague. It was the fourth and final ballot of the astonishing one-day conclave that gave the Catholic world its 263rd Pope.”

Succeeding in penetrating “the wall of secrecy that attends such conclaves, and the vows of silence taken by the Cardinals as they enter and are sealed from the outside world,
Time
’s reporters Jordan Bonfante and Roland Flamini pieced together much of the story of the proceedings in the Sistine Chapel. It was clear that Luciani came to power through no accident, but as a result of a spontaneous consensus that evolved from three agreements reached in a lengthy pre-conclave period that followed the death of Pope Paul VI on Aug. 6 [1978].

“Probably half of the 111 Cardinal-electors went into the conclave undecided. Most were fairly convinced that the Pope would have to be an Italian….

“The second consensus, resisted to the end by some members of the Curia, was that the Church, whatever its far-flung political and administrative problems, needed a pastoral Pope. ‘It is one thing to interpret the faith and another to convey it to the people in the parishes,’ said one ranking Curia prelate. ‘That is something that the bishops—whatever their theology—understand better than the Curialists at their little desks.’”

Another Cardinal said, “I think all of us had agreed in our own minds before the conclave that we needed to go back to a humble, pastoral man, although we did not really consult each other about it. And then, when we went in, it became clear to us that this was what we wanted.”

One participant said there was a consensus that the new Pope be “not obvious, and not controversial.”

As the balloting produced no obvious leading candidate, Luciani was a man “not actively disliked by anyone, and actively liked by everyone who really knew him.”

“At noon,” the
Time
reporters wrote, “the two sets of ballots, skewered on a long needle and strung like a kind of combined ecclesiastical shish kebab and necklace, were thrust into the chapel stove along with black chemical flares to send up a dark ‘no Pope’ signal to the waiting crowds in St. Peter’s Square. But the flue above the stove was broken, and black smoke seeped through the chapel, partially obscuring Michelangelo’s famous frescoes. For a quarter of an hour, the assembled Cardinals coughed, covered their mouths and rubbed their eyes until two windows were opened to clear the air.

“As the Cardinals broke for lunch, walking to the Pontifical Hall in the palace’s Borgia apartments, intense discussions were under way. On the third ballot, at 4:30…Luciani burst to the fore, falling just short of a majority.

“At that point,” Luciani explained later with a grin that would earn him the nickname “the smiling pope,” the situation “began to get dangerous for me.”

“Cardinals Willebrands of the Netherlands and Ribeiro of Portugal, sitting on either side of him, leaned toward him. Whispered one: ‘Courage. If the Lord gives a burden, he also gives the strength to carry it.’ Whispered the other: ‘The whole world prays for the new Pope.’”

On the fourth vote, “no other name but Luciani’s was read out. There were a number of blank ballots…. But roughly ninety votes went to Luciani.” Ringing applause echoed in the chapel. “The chapel door was opened and eight conclave aides entered to accompany Jean Cardinal Villot, the church’s ‘Camerlengo,’ or chamberlain, to the flustered Luciani, who was still seated in his place under a fresco of the baptism of Christ. The Camerlengo, his face wreathed in smiles, asked the ritual question, ‘Do you accept your canonical election as Supreme Pontiff?’

“Luciani at first replied, ‘May God forgive you for what you have done in my regard.’ Then he gave his assent, ‘Accepto.’”

Burning ballots and chemically treated straw in a stove sent a puff of white smoke up a chimney, signaling to a throng in St. Peter’s Square that the Church had a new pope. Inside, Luciani announced the name he had chosen for himself as the new pope. He would be “loannes Paulus.” The crowd outside was told the name of their new pope was “John Paul.”

“After the singing of the ‘Te Deum’ of thanksgiving, the pontiff was escorted to the sacristy to don his temporary papal robes. He reappeared in a white cassock with a shoulder-length cape and a high white sash. Grinning happily, he took the throne that had been erected in front of the altar, and joyful Cardinals approached one by one to embrace him and to kiss the papal ring.”

“Rome did not get its first real look at John Paul until the next day, when 200,000 people filled St. Peter’s Square for the weekly Sunday noon blessing. John Paul spoke for seven minutes.…Let us ‘understand each other,’ he told the crowd. ‘I do not have the wisdom of heart of Pope John, nor the preparation and culture of Pope Paul. However, now I am in their place and must try to help the church. I hope you will help me with your prayers.’…

“The new pope, John Paul, gave a glimpse of his personal style with the plans for his Sept. 3 open-air accession ceremonies. At his direction it was not called a ‘coronation’ or ‘enthronement,’ but a ‘solemn Mass to mark the start of his ministry as Supreme Pastor.’ John Paul asked not to be carried on the usual portable throne but to walk in procession. Most significant, he did not wish to be crowned with the triple-decked, bee hive-shaped tiara. Instead, a pallium, the white woolen stole symbolizing his title of Patriarch of the West, would be placed on his shoulders….

“In his inaugural address to the Cardinals, John Paul pledged to carry forward the work of the Second Vatican Council, convened by Pope John XXIII in 1962 and concluded by Paul VI in 1965. He would, he said, put a ‘priority’ on a revision of the canon law codes.” It was immediately recognized that John Paul intended “a new style of papacy, more simple and less formal than many at the Vatican were used to. His first speech to the world, delivered from the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica, was personal and direct…. He asked Catholics to ‘have mercy on the poor new pope who never really expected to rise to this post.’ He joked about having to pick up the Vatican’s thick yearbook, the
Annuario Pontificio
, to study how the Roman Curia worked.”

“The new pope made no secret of the fact that he felt a bit intimidated by the church structure he was supposed to be running.…In public events he made connections with everyday Catholics by adopting a storytelling manner of preaching and bringing a parish atmosphere to the Vatican. He explained the concept of free will with a metaphor about prudent automobile maintenance. He spoke sympathetically about those who could not bring themselves to believe in God. He jokingly compared marriage to a gilded birdcage. ‘Those on the outside are dying to get in,’ he said, ‘while those on the inside are dying to get out.’”

He shocked many Catholics by saying that God “is a father, but even more, a mother’” in the way He loves humanity. He quoted the Old Testament prophet Isaiah: “Could a mother forget her child? But even if that were to happen, God will never forget his people.”