The History of the Church through 100 Masterpieces

The Period of Pornocracy

The History of the Church 74 The Period of Pornocracy This period, the most troubled in all the history of the Roman Church, began in 896 when Pope Stephen VI had his predecessor, Formosus, exhumed and his corpse brought to trial, dressed in pontifical vestments . The outcome of this “Cadaver Synod” was that the dead pope was declared guilty—the three fingers used for consecration were cut from his hands, and his remains were thrown into the Tiber. Stephen VI himself was strangled soon afterwards, and the dark clouds of madness settled upon the papacy. In the beginning of the tenth century, the Roman prince Theophylactus had the lover of his daughter Marozia elected pope, as Sergius III. Later, Marozia had John X (the lover of her mother) assassinated, so as to have her son by Sergius III placed on the pontifical throne, as John XI. A grandson of Marozia by another liaison was pope under the name of John XII. He was deposed by the German emperor Otto I, who seized Rome and charged him with polygamy, with castrating a cardinal, gouging the eyes of his godfather, and naming a ten-yearold as bishop. The emperor then appointed Leo VIII (who may not even have been baptized) as his successor, but the Romans reinstated John XII to the pontifical see. Soon afterward, the latter died in the bed of a woman, killed by her jealous husband. And so the century unfolded. It must be admitted that the survival of the papacy amid such an onslaught of scandals is nothing short of miraculous. Jean-Paul Laurens (1838–1921) Pope Formosus and Stephen VI Musée du PetitPalais , Paris ...