I Read: Sex Lives of the Popes

I Read: Sex Lives of the Popes

Relax! I'm not here to assault you, or anyone alive. I'm here to talk about history. Facts.  This book is about the realities of history, not about faith.  So relax a bit, and let's get into a dark bit of history with this one.  For all fans of history and intrigue, read this one.

Sex Lives of the Popes by

Illustration: The Groping Chair
Holy Sh!t! This was a fascinating read. At times amusing, this book sets out to focus on papal history in a way that is very different from the history I received in 12 years of Catholic education.  In short, the pope wasn't always an old man with a few things to say about theology, sociology, and political theory.  For much of the past 2000 years, he was an extremely influential presence in the western world who was quite often a sadistic, ambitious, and corrupt villain.  The book takes the story of the papacy from St. Peter to John Paul II, and explores the political, social, and sexual crimes of the holy see. Most of the accounts come from memoirs, letters, and contemporaries.  So while you won't find much of these vicious acts listed under some of these Saint's deeds, the accusations are as attested as the positive claims by the pope's themselves. So, equally credible and incredulous.
There are too many things in this book that are vile and evil to list off here, so I will shorten my list significantly by telling to read about 1 pope in particular to give you the idea of the kind of men the Holy Spirit selects for the job. Look up Rodrigo de Borgia, AKA Pope Alexander VI.  He is the most notorious of the already infamous Renaissance popes.
So, aside from that Spaniard, I'd like to pull out some of the interesting tidbits I learned in the course of my reading.

• Pretty much every Pope named 'Innocent' was responsible for atrocities. 
• Pope Innocent I fled Rome and let the Goth's rape and pillage, something he was accused of himself.  
• Innocent III loved jewels more than people. he oversaw the sacking of Santa Sophia with indifference along with Constantinople. He also persecuted the Cathars, who were forced to confess to sodomy by being lowered naked onto a red hot spike. (Chambre chauffe).
• Innocent IV approved torture to obtain confessions in the Inquisition. In the Black Book (penned by popes and cardinals) it says that you are guilty if you confess in part or not at all, and you can’t know what you’re accused of (if you ask you get tortured). If you confess to part of it, you are thought guilty of it all. Dominicans were the worst as they flaggelated themselves.  they loved the screams of the tortured. as it meant they were getting closer to god, for they believed torture leads to spiritual repentance, which inspired them to torture to the fullest reach of their ability. Prosecutions often began with threats or offers of leniency to torture,in this way parents were ordered to betray their children and vice versa.
• Innocent VIII released a papal bull that condoned, and even requested, the massacre of 'witches.' His Papal Bull acts as the Preface to the Malleus Maleficarum (Witches Hammer), one of the most disgusting and horrible books ever written.  Written by Dominican Monks Heinrich Krammer and James Sprenger, it outlined a militantly anti-woman worldview that required men of faith to torture and kill all who are suspected witches.  They would promise leniency in order to expose more people. they would lie and kill them all.
• Many of the popes were the sons or fathers of other popes.  That's mostly because priestly celibacy wasn't a mandate until 
• Convents oftentimes in the middle ages were simply discreet brothels where unwanted babies were killed and buried to avoid exposure. In Frace they were refered to as "Palaces of Pleasure."
• “Groping Chair,” The bottomless seat where the pope’s balls dangled down to be felt so he can be confirmed a man.They usually had a younger cardinal do this.
• Pope John XII, after a papacy full of brothels, depravity, violence, and mutilation, he was found in bed with a man’s wife and was bludgeoned to death.
• The Council of Piacenza in 1095 outlawed Priestly marriages, and they took the priests’ wives and sold them into slavery. Also they introduced the cullagium, or sex tax for keeping a concubine that was paid annually.
• Priests were feared for much of the middle ages by the women of their church, for it was widely known that many confessors were raping parishioners.
• Celestine II was a sadist, strapping a count to a red hot iron chair naked while a hot iron crown was nailed to his head.
• Gregory IX founded the inquisition in 1231. His chief lietenant was a freak named conrad. Conrad converted Elizabeth, the young widow of Thuringia. the 18 year old was forced to abandoned her 3 babies, then stripped and beaten until she was covered in blood. “If I fear a man like this, what must god be like?” and in strousburg he burned 80 men women and children to save their souls.  At first mutilation was not allowed. Instead, penitants were stripped naked and tied to a trestle, told “tell the truth for the love of god, as the inquisitors do not wish to see you suffer,” cords were tied around the arms and thighs, tightened until they told the truth, whatever that was. Then they used a winch and lifted the arms above their head behind their back. Another method involved stuffing cloth down their throat and dumping water over them.
• Sixtus IV installed Torquemada as grand inquisitor. He burnt 2000 heretics in one city. look up the trial of Elvira del Campo as an example of what they would do. The Inquisition lasted for 3 centuries and didn’t end until the mid 1800s.  Napoleon's troops were eventually the ones who set the last of those tortured free.
•  And don't even get me started on Popes named 'Pius.' (Pius V destroyed historical landmarks around rome, had prostitutes, Jews, and heretics burned to death, and had blasphemers' tongues burned out with a hot poker. Pius IX was an anti-intellectual book-burner who was the first to institute Papal Infallibility in the 1870s. Pius XII supported Hitler and Mussolini.)

Not a great collection of people, is it? These are just a few highlights.  Sure, popes don't strut like they did back then, but this book does bring up an excellent point: By looking at history, does it even remotely look like the Holy Spirit has been working through the Pope?
If so, then I am horrified to live in this universe.