Thursday, March 28, AD 2024 7:57pm

Papal Errors

of the past.

I found it really interesting; some examples are this:

Pope Benedict IX (1032-44; 1045; 1047-8): Benedict IX was elected through bribes paid by his father. Kelly tells us that “his personal life, even allowing for exaggerated reports, was scandalously violent and dissolute.” The Catholic Encyclopedia judges: “He was a disgrace to the Chair of Peter.”

and

Pope Leo X (1513-21): Leo X is the pope who is famously said to have remarked: “Let us enjoy the papacy since God has given it to us.” Says the Catholic Encyclopedia:

[T]he phrase illustrates fairly the pope’s pleasure-loving nature and the lack of seriousness that characterized him. He paid no attention to the dangers threatening the papacy, and gave himself up unrestrainedly to amusements, that were provided in lavish abundance. He was possessed by an insatiable love of pleasure, that distinctive trait of his family. Music, the theatre, art, and poetry appealed to him as to any pampered worldling.

I do think it opens a bit weak, since Peter wasn’t the Pope before Christ was even crucified… but it’s justifiable.

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