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With sacerdotal dictatorship, Marozia ruled Christianity for average life of a pope was two years, he held the throne for 10 several decades from the papal castle near St Peter's, and dealt years. However, his life came to a sudden and violent end when, with everything Christian except routine matters. She could not according to pious chroniclers, he was killed by the Devil while sign her own name, yet she was the head of the Christian raping a woman in a house in the suburbs. The truth is that the Church—a fact known to historians who have at least an Holy Father was thrashed so severely by the enraged husband of elementary acquaintance with the papal record. She was the woman that he died of injuries eight days later. Emperor Otto amorously aggressive, callous, densely ignorant and completely then demanded that the clergy select a priest of respectable life to unscrupulous. She appointed ruthless warrior-bishops to succeed John XII, but they could not find one. The new pope, strengthen her factions, and she triumphed in her rule over Leo VIII (963-965), was a layman drawn from the "civil service opponents. To translate the words of the Roman people literally, who was put through all clerical orders in one day" (ibid.). Leo they called her "the Popes' whore" (plural) and she was directly VIII is reckoned by the modern-day Church to be "a true Pope", responsible for selecting and installing at least four popes. but "his election is a puzzle"—one that canonists have not cared Modern-day apologists say her promotions were "scandalous", but to unravel (ibid.). those popes are now accepted by the Church as "legitimate" The Catholic Encyclopedia gives additional accounts of papal successors of St Peter. At the time, however, large bodies of good debasement: folk deeply resented the obscene farce the papal religion had "The Popes 'Benedict' from the fourth to the ninth inclusive become and turned upon it with disdain and (IV-IX) belong to the darkest period of anger. papal history... Benedict VI (973) was Later in his papacy, Pope John XI took ill thrown into prison by the anti-pope Boniface and Marozia temporarily installed an elderly VII (d. 983), and strangled by his orders in monk in the papal chair. He subsequently . . 974. Benedict VII was a layman and became refused to resign and was forcibly removed .- according to pious pope by force, and drove out Boniface VII. to a prison cell to be starved to death. John . Pope Benedict IX [c. 1012—1055/1065/1085; XI then resumed his position and exhausted chroniclers, he was pope 1032-45, 1047, 1048] had long caused his remaining wealth hiring soldiers to killed by the Devil while | scandal to the Church by his disorderly life. restore order in Rome. The city was heavy His immediate successor, Pope Gregory VI with a feeling of revolt against the Church raping a woman Ina [1044-46], had persuaded Benedict IX to and the appalling clerical morals that existed house in the suburbs. resign the Chair of Peter, and to do so throughout Italy. John XI then set out to The truth is that bestowed valuable possessions on him." recover and secure the rich temporal domains of the papacy, but in 936 he died. the Holy Father was Thus, in this condensed description, we learn with amazement of the days thrashed so severely by when loose women ruled the Holy See the enraged husband and a Christian doctrine had not yet been developed. of the woman that he died of injuries eight days later. (Catholic Encyclopedia, i, p. 31) Anti-pope Boniface VII was described by Gerbert (to become Pope Sylvester II, 999-1003) as "a horrible monster that in criminality surpassed all the rest of mankind", but the "scandal" of Pope Benedict IX deserves special mention. His name was Grottaferrata Teofilatto (Theophylact, in some records) and in 1032 he won the murderous scramble for the wealth of the papacy. He immediately excommunicated leaders who were hostile to him and quickly The Papacy Sold amidst New Depths of Wickedness As incredible as it may seem, the papacy then sank to a lower depth of wickedness and remained in this condition for nearly a thousand years. Christian historians airily brush aside the true nature of the popes, saying that established a reign of terror. He they never regarded them as officially opened the doors of "the "impeccable" and ignoring the fact that they committed outrages _— palace of the popes" to homosexuals and turned it into an against every standard of human decency. organised and profitable male brothel (The Lives of the Popes in Pope John XH (Octavian, c. 937-964, pope 955-964, The the Early Middle Ages, Horace K. Mann, Kegan Paul, London, Popes, A Concise Biographical History, ibid., pp. 166-7) was 1925). His violent and licentious conduct provoked the Roman another in the succession of impious popes and he opened his people, and in January 1044 the residents of the city elected John inglorious career by invoking pagan gods and goddesses as he of Sabine, under the name of Pope Sylvester III, to replace him. flung the dice in gambling sessions. He toasted Satan during a But Sylvester was quickly driven out by Benedict's brothers and drinking spree and put his notorious mistress/prostitute Marcia in fled for his life into the Sabine hills. charge of his brothel in the Lateran Palace (Antapodosis, ibid.). Benedict IX then sold the papacy to his godfather, Giovanni He "liked to have around him a collection of Scarlet Women", Graziano, who assumed the papal chair as Pope Gregory VI, but said the monk-chronicler Benedict of Soracte, and at his trial for in 1047 Benedict reappeared and announced he was reclaiming the murder of an opponent his clergy swore on oath that he'd had the papacy. The Church added that he was "...immoral...cruel and incestuous relations with his sisters and had raped his nuns indifferent to spiritual things. The testimony to his depravity (Annals of Beneventum in the Monumenta Germaniae, v). He shows his disinterest in religious matters, and his disrespect for an and his mistresses got so drunk at a banquet that they accidentally ascetic life was well known. He was the worst pope since John set fire to the building. It would be difficult to imagine a pontiff XII" (The Popes: A Concise Biographical History, ibid., p. 175). who was farther removed from saintliness, yet in an age when the Upon his death, undertakers refused to build him a coffin. He was taping a woman ina house in the suburbs. the Holy Father was thrashed so severely by the enraged husband a i died of injuries eight days later. 36 = NEXUS ; The truth is that of the woman that he www.nexusmagazi ne.com DECEMBER 2006 — JANUARY 2007