Continuing on from our series titled “The Roman Catholic Church and Other Christian Faith Based Systems,” we are going to observe 5 of the most popular Popes in the past and their less than spiritual attitude and action towards God and Christiandom.
1) Pope John XII
The 16-year-old John XII was accused of sleeping with his two sisters and inventing a catalog of disgusting new sins. Described by a church historian as “the very dregs,” he was killed at age 27 when the husband of one of his mistresses burst into his bedroom, discovered him in flagrante, and battered his skull in with a hammer.
2) Pope John XXIII
Thirty-seven of his own clergy members witnessed and professed against John XXIII on charges of; fornication, adultery, incest, sodomy, simony, theft, and murder. He also had a harem of mistresses in Boulogne numbering two-hundred consisting mostly, if not entirely of nuns.
3) Pope Innocent VIII
The Rule of Innocent VIII is remembered as the Golden Age of Bastards: He acknowledged eight illegitimate sons and was known to have many more, although he found time between love affairs to start up the Inquisition. On his death bed, he ordered a comely wet nurse to supply him with milk fresh from the breast.
4) Pope Alexander VI
The vicious Rodrigo Borgia, who took the name Alexander VI, presided over more orgies than masses, wrote Edward Gibbon. A career highlight was the 1501 “Joust of the Whores,” when 50 dancers were invited to slowly strip around the pope’s table. Alexander and his family gleefully threw chestnuts on the floor, forcing the women to grovel around their feet like swine; they then offered prizes of fine clothes and jewelry for the man who could fornicate with the most women.
5) Pope Julius II
Julius II is remembered for commissioning Michelangelo to paint the Sistene Chapel’s ceiling. He was also the first pope to contract “the French disease,” syphilis, from Rome’s male prostitutes. On Good Friday of 1508, he was unable to allow his foot to be kissed by the faithful as it was completely covered with syphilitic sores.