Do you you know truth about the papacy? Answer to following?

Question

The church is governed by the pope in Rome and claims that each pope is a successor of the apostle Peter. Following are some published facts about these so-called successors:

Formosus (891-96): “Nine months after his death, Formosus’ body was disinterred from the papal crypt and arraigned for trial before a ‘cadaveric’ council, at which Stephen [the new pope] presided. The deceased pope was accused of inordinate ambition for the papal office and all his acts were declared invalid. . . . The corpse was stripped of pontifical robes; the fingers of the right hand were amputated.”—New Catholic Encyclopedia.

Stephen VI (896-97): “Within a few months [of the trial of Formosus’ corpse] a violent reaction ended the pontificate of Pope Stephen; he was deprived of the pontifical insignia, imprisoned, and strangled.”—New Catholic Encyclopedia.

Sergius III (904-11): “His two immediate predecessors . . . were strangled in prison. . . . In Rome he was supported by the Theophylactus family, by one of whose daughters, Marozia, he is supposed to have had a son (later Pope John XI).”—New Catholic Encyclopedia.

Stephen VII (928-31): “In the last years of his pontificate, Pope John X . . . had incurred the wrath of Marozia, the Donna Senatrix of Rome, and had been imprisoned and assassinated. Marozia then conferred the papacy on Pope Leo VI, who died after 6 1/2 months in office. Stephen VII succeeded him, probably through the influence of Marozia. . . . During his 2 years as Pope, he was powerless under the domination of Marozia.”—New Catholic Encyclopedia.

John XI (931-35): “Upon the death of Stephen VII . . . , Marozia, of the House of Theophylactus, obtained the papacy for her son John, a youth in his early 20s. . . . As pope, John was dominated by his mother.”—New Catholic Encyclopedia.

John XII (955-64): “He was hardly eighteen, and contemporary reports agree about his disinterest in spiritual things, addiction to boorish pleasures, and uninhibitedly debauched life.”—The Oxford Dictionary of Popes.

Benedict IX (1032-44; 1045; 1047-48): “He was notorious for selling the papacy to his godfather and then subsequently reclaiming the office twice.”—The New Encyclopædia Britannica.

Answer 1

i believe with all my heart that the office of the papacy is the antichrist. its refreshing to hear more people question the obvious man of sin

Answer 2

Yes, do you?

What is the question or questions about the Popes that you want answered?

If you are asking if there have been bad Popes the answer is yes.

In Christ
Fr. Joseph

Abel,

You have made good points. The fact that the Church has survived both attacks from inside and without points to the veracity of Christ's promise to His Church that it would endure for all times. If there was ever anyones doubts about the Church being the true Church established by Christ such accounts of the attacks of evil should should reveal that the Church is the Church led and protected by the Holy Spirit and remains the ark that contains and embodies the description of the Church as the bulwark and ground of the truth and that the veracity of the Church is derived from the righteousness of Christ and not of man. Praise God!

Answer 3

There is more, for example when Luther visited Rome, there was a statue of a woman pope that had been erected on the very spot where Pope Jude gave birth during a papal procession.

Pope John XXIII was made wealthy as a pirate on the Mediterranean Sea. He bought his position thorough what was called Simony, after Simon trying to buy the Holy Spirit.

At that time of history, they tried to elect another pope. Seems John XXIII was dragging women from the cathedral to his chamber. But he refused to resign, after all, all his deeds were just because he was infallible, so they elected another pope--then another--yes, all three threw curses at each other, calling the other Antichrist.

What a fiasco, and people kiss the hands and feet of a fallible human--the pedophile episodes show us that Babylon has fallen and become a cage of every hateful and unclean bird as the prophecy states, "Come out of her my people and don't receive of her plagues.

A 18th century quote may be appropriate:

"Those who know what Rome has once been, are best able to appreciate what she is."
-- Hallam.

Thus says my burro, Burrito.

Blessings, Balaam

Answer 4

Looking back through history, there has been all kinds of corruption in the Catholic church. Many of the popes in the time period you refer to got their office as a result of pulling a lot of strings. Part of the problem was the fact that the Church at the time was the largest landowning entity in Europe. It ended up being more a struggle for temporal power than a real effort to guide men's souls to heaven. Also, there was the consideration of the types of men who were entering the Church. Many were ranked among the nobility and thus had no trade, but were third or fourth sons whose fathers had no use for them; they had no choice but to enter the Church. (Due to the principles of primogeniture, later sons didn't inherit property, and entering the Church was as good a way as any for them to get some.)

In more recent centuries, the Papal Estates have dwindled to Vatican City. People in higher places in the Church are there because they choose to be, not merely because they have no other options. That isn't to say that there aren't still unsavory characters in the Church, but the important thing to remember is that it has never been the Church itself that was at fault, but certain of its members. Besides, if John Paul II and Pope Benedict aren't prime examples of good Catholics, I don't know who is.

Answer 5

Anti-Catholics suffer from the mistaken notion that the Church includes only saints. For them sinners should always be outside its doors. What must be grasped is that the Catholic Church or any Church for that matter contains within itself knaves, and some of them obtain positions of responsibility. Paul and Christ himself warned us that there would be a few ravenous wolves among Church leaders (Acts 20,29; Matthew 1,15).

Jesus didn't choose Judas to betray him. But Judas was always free, and he used his freedom to allow Satan to enter into him, and by his betrayal Jesus was crucified and executed. But God foresaw this evil and used it to accomplish the ultimate good: the redemption of the world.

The point is, sometimes God's chosen ones betray him. That is a fact that we have to confront. If the early Christians had focused only on the scandal caused by Judas, the Church would have been finished before it even started to grow. Instead they recognized that you don't judge a movement by those who don't live it but by those who do. Rather than focusing on the betrayer, they focused on the other eleven on account of whose work, preaching, miracles, and love for Christ we are here today. It is on account of the other eleven that Christianity is alive and well today!

For the same reason, it is on account of the good popes, priests and lay people that the Catholic Church is what it is today. Christ has indeed kept his promise to be with his Church till the end of the age.

May the Lord's peace be with you!

Edit: I doubt the authenticity of your source.

Answer 6

Yeah that is one of the reasons I am not into religion.
It reads like soap opera or miniseries characters/
I like the story of the alleged female pope who was found out because she got pregnant.

Answer 7

Read this: http://philologos.org/__eb-ttb/default.htm