Saturday, March 26, 2011

Popes behaving badly

The priest sex scandals have hit the Catholic Church very hard indeed, both in treasure and in reputation. Some people think that the present Bishop of  Rome should resign for not handling this issue better.

They should consider a little history.

The wild behavior of the Renaissance popes is well known. But do you know about the Synod of the Cadaver?

In the late 800's --pretty definitely Dark Ages in my opinion-- Pope Stephen VI had his predecessor Pope Formosus dug up, set the corpse on this throne in his robes, and put the cadaver on trial. Unsurprisingly, Formosus lost. They declared all his ordinations, appointments and judgments invalid, cut off some of his fingers and threw his body into the cemetery for foreigners.


The whole story makes your head spin.

So, as unfeeling as it may be, --and given my own history, maybe a bit incongruent-- I say to these dissatisfied folks: Have a little perspective; it could be so much worse.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The trial of Pope Formosus, its methods and aftermath must have caused quite a chill in the theological discussion forums of that era!

Anonymous said...

At least he didnt turn out to have been an anti-pope all along, though.

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...