[OT] Has a pope ever resigned?
Josh Hayes
should resign", and had decided to just skip it, when I wondered -- has a
pope ever resigned before? Or have they all served until they died?
I suppose it's the sort of thing I could find out with ten minutes of web
searching, but I don't want to waste that ten minutes: I want YOU guys to
do that.
So. Has it ever happened? And if so, what were the details?
-JAH
Interested Quakers want to know
Steven J.
(usually, the alleged sale of church offices) or because they thought
the job harmful to their spiritual life. Dante complains, in
_Inferno_, about the abdication of Celestine V, who apparently was
convinced that no one could wield political power (the Pope was, among
other things, the ruler of much of central Italy at the time) and
attain salvation. The last pope to abdicate was Gregory XII in 1409;
he was one of three men all claiming to be Pope at the same time, and
resigned in the hope that a council could elect a successor who would
be recognized by the entire church.
>
> -JAH
>
> Interested Quakers want to know
-- Steven J.
Von R. Smith
> On Apr 22, 11:27 pm, Josh Hayes <jos...@spamblarg.net> wrote:> I was just skimming down the threads, and saw the one titled "Re: the pope
> > should resign", and had decided to just skip it, when I wondered -- has a
> > pope ever resigned before? Or have they all served until they died?
>
> > I suppose it's the sort of thing I could find out with ten minutes of web
> > searching, but I don't want to waste that ten minutes: I want YOU guys to
> > do that.
>
> > So. Has it ever happened? And if so, what were the details?
>
> Several popes have abdicated, either in response to a scandal
> (usually, the alleged sale of church offices)
I thought the sale of church offices was par for the course. They
called it the Rule of Par Simony. :p
jcon
> should resign", and had decided to just skip it, when I wondered -- has a
> pope ever resigned before? Or have they all served until they died?
>
chronicle of how the Papacy changed hands over the
years is *far* too convoluted for an email response, but
suffice to say that many left office, either by being
driven out, abdicating, or selling the office to the highest
bidder.
In this regard, the current Pope has a rather interesting
namesake. Pope Benedict IX has the distinction of
being the only Pope to serve *three* times. He was driven
out of his first term, came back and took the position
back by force, got bored and *sold* the Papacy
to his godfather. Later he changed his mind
again, and again retook the position by force, and
was later driven out and excommunicated on
charges of simony.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Benedict_IX
The last Pope to abdicate was Pope Gregory XII,
in 1409, and I *think* that since then, all have served
until they died.
-jc
Mark VandeWettering
> I was just skimming down the threads, and saw the one titled "Re: the pope
> should resign", and had decided to just skip it, when I wondered -- has a
> pope ever resigned before? Or have they all served until they died?
Popes may indeed step down prior to death. It is rumored that Pope John
Paul II considered doing so when illness made him less effective.
Papal abdication has happened twice. Lookup "papal abdication" on wikipedia.
Steve Marshall
"jcon" <cire...@yahoo.com> wrote
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Benedict_IX
>
> The last Pope to abdicate was Pope Gregory XII,
> in 1409, and I *think* that since then, all have served
> until they died.
>
Some died in unusual circumstances - for a Catholic!
Pope Leo VII (936-9) died of a heart attack during sex.
Pope John VII(955-64) was beaten to death by the husband of the woman he
was having sex with.
Pope John XIII (965-72) was similarly murdered.
Pope Paul II (1467-71) allegedly died of a heart attack while being
sodomised by a page boy.
And these Bible bashers are always going on about morals and trying to tell
us when and how it's right to have sex !
Steve M
Perplexed in Peoria
"Steve Marshall" <s...@atmos.plusBlockA.com> wrote in message news:462d26e9$0$8716$ed26...@ptn-nntp-reader02.plus.net...
Interesting. However, I cannot find references to this in Wiki or any other source.
And some of the dates are very wrong. I am curious as to what happened to
John VIII thru XII - five popes who, by your dates, must have somehow fit into
the years 964 to 965.
Care to provide a citation for your information?
jcon
wrote:
> "Steve Marshall" <s...@atmos.plusBlockA.com> wrote in messagenews:462d26e9$0$8716$ed26...@ptn-nntp-reader02.plus.net...
>
>
> > >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Benedict_IX
>
> > > The last Pope to abdicate was Pope Gregory XII,
> > > in 1409, and I *think* that since then, all have served
> > > until they died.
>
> > Some died in unusual circumstances - for a Catholic!
>
> > Pope Leo VII (936-9) died of a heart attack during sex.
> > Pope John VII(955-64) was beaten to death by the husband of the woman he
> > was having sex with.
> > Pope John XIII (965-72) was similarly murdered.
> > Pope Paul II (1467-71) allegedly died of a heart attack while being
> > sodomised by a page boy.
>
> > And these Bible bashers are always going on about morals and trying to tell
> > us when and how it's right to have sex !
>
> Interesting. However, I cannot find references to this in Wiki or any other source.
> And some of the dates are very wrong. I am curious as to what happened to
> John VIII thru XII - five popes who, by your dates, must have somehow fit into
> the years 964 to 965.
>
Some of these are listed in Wikipedia under "Myths and Legends
Surrounding the Papacy" with no details:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myths_and_legends_surrounding_the_Papacy
I think it's safe to say that if a Pope *did* die during sex,
it's extremely unlikely that fact would ever get out.
-jc
> Care to provide a citation for your information?- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
Gerry Murphy
"Von R. Smith" <trak...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1177335305....@o5g2000hsb.googlegroups.com...
Groan!! 8-}
Perplexed in Peoria
"jcon" <cire...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:1177373401.5...@l77g2000hsb.googlegroups.com...
So, in other words, you think it extremely unlikely that these stories are
based on actual evidence. ;-)
Ok. So John VII should have been written John XII. That takes care of most
of the discrepancies which led me to think this was purely made up.
Jeffrey Turner
> "Von R. Smith" <trak...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>On Apr 22, 11:12 pm, "Steven J." <steve...@altavista.com> wrote:
>>
>>>On Apr 22, 11:27 pm, Josh Hayes <jos...@spamblarg.net> wrote:
>>>> I was
>>>> just skimming down the threads, and saw the one titled "Re: the pope
>>>>should resign", and had decided to just skip it, when I wondered --
>>>> has a
>>>>pope ever resigned before? Or have they all served until they died?
>>>
>>>>I suppose it's the sort of thing I could find out with ten minutes of
>>>> web
>>>>searching, but I don't want to waste that ten minutes: I want YOU guys
>>>> to
>>>>do that.
>>>
>>>>So. Has it ever happened? And if so, what were the details?
>>>
>>>Several popes have abdicated, either in response to a scandal
>>>(usually, the alleged sale of church offices)
>>
>>I thought the sale of church offices was par for the course. They
>>called it the Rule of Par Simony. :p
>
> Groan!! 8-}
You've got to be more indulgent.
--Jeff
--
We can have democracy or we can have
great wealth concentrated in the hands
of the few. We cannot have both.
--Justice Louis Brandeis
John Wilkins
> Gerry Murphy wrote:
>
> > "Von R. Smith" <trak...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>On Apr 22, 11:12 pm, "Steven J." <steve...@altavista.com> wrote:
> >>
> >>>On Apr 22, 11:27 pm, Josh Hayes <jos...@spamblarg.net> wrote:
>
>
> >>>> I was
> >>>> just skimming down the threads, and saw the one titled "Re: the pope
> >>>>should resign", and had decided to just skip it, when I wondered --
> >>>> has a
> >>>>pope ever resigned before? Or have they all served until they died?
> >>>
> >>>>I suppose it's the sort of thing I could find out with ten minutes of
> >>>> web
> >>>>searching, but I don't want to waste that ten minutes: I want YOU guys
> >>>> to
> >>>>do that.
> >>>
> >>>>So. Has it ever happened? And if so, what were the details?
> >>>
> >>>Several popes have abdicated, either in response to a scandal
> >>>(usually, the alleged sale of church offices)
> >>
> >>I thought the sale of church offices was par for the course. They
> >>called it the Rule of Par Simony. :p
> >
> > Groan!! 8-}
>
> You've got to be more indulgent.
>
Well that's the guiding rule of the priest that administers the sales:
The Principle of Pére Simony
--
John S. Wilkins, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Biohumanities Project
University of Queensland - Blog: scienceblogs.com/evolvingthoughts
"He used... sarcasm. He knew all the tricks, dramatic irony, metaphor,
bathos, puns, parody, litotes and... satire. He was vicious."
loua...@yahoo.com
wrote:
(details of papal sex lives snipped)
> And these Bible bashers are always going on about morals and trying to tell
> us when and how it's right to have sex !
>
> Steve M
You're missing some key history. The Bible bashers vs. scientists
conflict is a new and insipid thing compared to Bible bashers (or
Protestants in general) vs. the Iniquitous Papists of Rome aka The
Whore of Babylon. And it's been mutual.
European history between Martin Luther and Napoleon -- call it a solid
three centuries -- was one long orgy of wars, revolutions, and
massacres to resolve who were the "real" Christians, Protestants or
Catholics. With occasional smaller-scale bloodshed about whether
established churches like the Church of England were Protestant
_enough._
When the US Founding Fathers set up a separation of church and state
and the principle of secular government (e.g. no religious test for
the right to hold public office or vote) that is what they were trying
to avoid. Freedom for science, let alone freedom to not believe, was a
minor side issue.
The idea of Protestants and Catholics as ecumenical allies against
those nasty secular non-Christians (let alone any use of the concept
"Judeo-Christian") is a creation of the twentieth century. It took a
while to catch on even then. The Ku Klux Klan had a major surge of
popularity in the 1920's (it's not coincidence that that happened
alongside the Scopes Trial) and it was as anti-Catholic and anti-
Jewish as it was anti-black. Their emphasis varied locally according
to target availability.
So if you postulate "immoral Popes = immoral Bible-bashers" to an
actual basher, the odds are excellent that they'd revert a few decades
and explain to you how Popes, or at least the Popes of those eras,
were diametrically opposite to _real_ Christians. They might concede
Papal and Catholic virtue for the last 100 years or so, but I bet it
would leave a sour taste in their mouths.
LQM, history buff.
Walter Bushell
"Steve Marshall" <s...@atmos.plusBlockA.com> wrote:
> Some died in unusual circumstances - for a Catholic!
>
> Pope Leo VII (936-9) died of a heart attack during sex.
> Pope John VII(955-64) was beaten to death by the husband of the woman he
> was having sex with.
> Pope John XIII (965-72) was similarly murdered.
> Pope Paul II (1467-71) allegedly died of a heart attack while being
> sodomised by a page boy.
>
> And these Bible bashers are always going on about morals and trying to tell
> us when and how it's right to have sex !
Given the results above, who can blame them?
Throwback
> On Apr 22, 11:27 pm, Josh Hayes <jos...@spamblarg.net> wrote:> I was just skimming down the threads, and saw the one titled "Re: the pope
> > should resign", and had decided to just skip it, when I wondered -- has a
> > pope ever resigned before? Or have they all served until they died?
>
> Prior to the end of the Western Schism (1409), the
> chronicle of how the Papacy changed hands over the
> years is *far* too convoluted for an email response, but
> suffice to say that many left office, either by being
> driven out, abdicating, or selling the office to the highest
> bidder.
Don't leave out the great schism:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East-West_Schism#Excommunications_and_final_break
This was when corrupt popes excommunicated each other, though
the article says only one was excommunicated ...
>
> In this regard, the current Pope has a rather interesting
> namesake. Pope Benedict IX has the distinction of
> being the only Pope to serve *three* times. He was driven
> out of his first term, came back and took the position
> back by force, got bored and *sold* the Papacy
> to his godfather. Later he changed his mind
> again, and again retook the position by force, and
> was later driven out and excommunicated on
> charges of simony.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Benedict_IX
>
> The last Pope to abdicate was Pope Gregory XII,
> in 1409, and I *think* that since then, all have served
> until they died.
>
> -jc
>
>
>
> > I suppose it's the sort of thing I could find out with ten minutes of web
> > searching, but I don't want to waste that ten minutes: I want YOU guys to
> > do that.
>
> > So. Has it ever happened? And if so, what were the details?
>
> > -JAH
>
> > Interested Quakers want to know- Hide quoted text -