By the mid-fourth century, Christianity had become the official religion of the empire. This put Pope Liberius in a difficult position. When the emperor interfered in Church matters and condemned Bishop Athanasius of Alexandria a staunch opponent of Arianism , Liberius refused to sign the condemnation.
Some scholars believe that the installation of Felix was made possible only by the abdication of his predecessor; but Liberius was soon back in the picture, signing papers negating the Nicene Creed which condemned Arianism and submitting to the authority of the emperor before returning to the papal chair.
Constantius insisted Felix continue, however, and so the two popes co-ruled the Church until the death of Felix in In the ninth and tenth centuries, powerful Roman families became instrumental in getting many of the popes elected. One such family were the Crescentii, who engineered the election of several popes at the end of the s. In , they maneuvered a man named Fasano onto the papal chair.
John is something of a mystery. There is no record of his abdication, and many scholars believe he never stepped down; and yet it is recorded in one catalog of popes that he died as a monk at the monastery of St. Paul, near Rome.
If he did choose to give up the papal chair, when and why he did so remains unknown. The numbering of popes named John is uncertain because of an antipope that took the name in the 10th century. Clearly not suited for a career in the clergy, Benedict enjoyed a life of licentiousness and debauchery for more than a decade. At last the disgusted Roman citizens revolted, and Benedict had to run for his life.
While he was gone, the Romans elected Pope Sylvester III; but Benedict's brothers drove him out a few short months later, and Benedict returned to take up the office again. However, now Benedict grew tired of being a pope; he decided to step down, possibly so that he might marry. In May of , Benedict resigned in favor of his godfather, Giovanni Graziano, who paid him a hefty sum. You read that right: Benedict sold the papacy. And yet, this would not be the last of Benedict, the Despicable Pope.
Elected: May Resigned: December 20, Died: or Giovanni Graziano may have paid for the papacy, but most scholars agree he had a sincere desire to rid Rome of the abominable Benedict. For about a year Gregory tried to clean up after his predecessor. Then, deciding he'd made a mistake and possibly unable to win the heart of his beloved , Benedict returned to Rome -- and so did Sylvester III.
The resulting chaos was too much for several high-ranking members of the clergy and citizens of Rome. Henry agreed with alacrity and traveled to Italy, where he presided at a council in Sutri.
The council deemed Sylvester a false claimant and imprisoned him, then officially deposed Benedict in absentia. More embarrassing leaks, this time with claims of a network of gay priests exerting "inappropriate influence" inside the Vatican.
The headaches continued to mount for the German Pope. In many journalistic endeavours, "follow the money" is good advice for getting to grips with what is really going on, and it applies to the Vatican too.
One of the most eyebrow-raising stories we encountered involved an annual Nativity scene in St Peter's Square. For years, deals were struck in which the Vatican paid several times the market rate.
When a whistleblower tried to reform the system, officials in the papal court persuaded a hapless Pope Benedict to promote him to a role 4, miles from Rome. Similar antics occurred at the Vatican Bank, for years a source of unwelcome headlines for the Catholic Church. It was set up to help religious orders and foundations transfer much-needed money to far-flung parts of the world.
But when a sizeable proportion of the transactions are in cash and are being sent to politically unstable parts of the planet, it does not take a genius to see what might go wrong.
It appears that bank officials took key decisions without always informing the Pope. When the board ousted its reforming president, Ettore Gotti Tedeschi conveniently, on the day that the news of the Gabriele's arrest was getting saturation news coverage , the Pope did not find out until it was too late.
He was "very surprised" in the later words of his private secretary. Gotti Tedeschi was an Opus Dei member and thought to be close to the Pope, but in the end this did not protect him.
In the interview, the pope thanked a male nurse at the Vatican for convincing him to undergo surgery to remove part of his colon rather than continuing treatment with antibiotics and other medicines, as some doctors had favoured.
Francis, who was elected pontiff in , underwent surgery on July 4 and spent 11 days in hospital. He had been suffering from a severe case of symptomatic diverticular stenosis, a narrowing of the colon. Benedict cited his advanced age and deteriorating strength as the impetus for his resignation, explaining that his condition had forced him to "recognize my incapacity to adequately fulfill the ministry entrusted to me.
However, given the events that unfolded during his tenure, which exposed the Church's difficulties in adapting to a changing world and threatened the infallible status of its leader, the non-believers could be forgiven for assuming there were other factors that drove his decision. Upon ascending to the papacy in April , Benedict was forced to publicly confront the trauma of sexual abuse by Church clergy that had bubbled to the surface after generations of suppression. The pope was already familiar with many of the troubling details, dating back to his days as prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith under John Paul II , and as such he was well suited to lead the Church into the 21st century on this issue.
Benedict ended the service of Father Marcial Maciel Degollado, an influential Mexican priest with a long trail of accusations, and he became the first pope to meet with sexual abuse victims in Two years later, he personally apologized to more victims in a pastoral letter to Ireland. But Benedict also became ensnared in the wide-reaching controversy that year, when he was accused of transferring a known pedophile priest during his time as archbishop of Munich in the Vatican said that a deputy was responsible for the transfer.
According to The New Yorker , the Church defrocked offending priests from , but this was a crisis that had outgrown the efforts of one pope. Underscoring the depth of the problem, the wrenching documentary Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God , about the abuse of four deaf boys in the s and the Church's attempts to bury the allegations, aired shortly before Benedict stepped down.
0コメント