Historical Popes: Unholy Fathers to Illegitimate Children, Gamblers, Lovers of Mistresses and Other Men's Wives
Oct 24, 2017 00:04:53 #
The Popes of Roman Catholicism: Earthly Fathers to Illegitimate Children, But Historically, Never "Holy"
Calling the men entitled popes "Holy Father," or "His Holiness," hardly fits the historically recorded unholy lives lived by most of them.
Consider a few examples. Pope John XII (955-64) had numerous mistresses, ran a harem in the papal palace, raped women visiting St. Peter's, blinded and murdered friend and foe alike, toasted Satan at St. Peter's altar and was killed by a husband who found him in bed with his wife - a fate suffered by more than one pope.
Pope Gregory XII's (1406-15) first pontifical act was to pawn his tiara for 6,000 florins to pay his gambling debts. Upon purchasing the papacy, Alexander VI (1492-1503), who had committed his first murder at age 12, shouted, "I am Pope, Pontiff, Vicar of Christ!"
Though he scarcely pretended to be a Christian, he was, like all the popes, deeply devoted to Mary.
The crimes of this Borgia pope are beyond calculation. Sixtus IV (1471-84) licensed Rome's brothels for an annual fee and taxed the clergy for their mistresses. He invented the idea of applying indulgences to the dead. Catholic historian Von Dollinger said of Popes, Paul II, Sixtus IV, Innocent VIII and Alexander VI had each tried "to exceed the vices of his predecessor."
In contrast to Christ, who was homeless, whose kingdom was not of this world, and whose followers didn't fight (Matthew :8:20; John:18:36), the popes long lived in palaces of more than 1,000 rooms each and fought, using their own armies and navies, to build a worldwide empire of unparalleled earthly wealth and power.
Michelangelo wrote, "Of chalices they [the popes] make helmet and sword and sell by the bucket the blood of the Lord." Pope Innocent III killed more Christians in one afternoon than all Roman emperors combined. Multitudes were tortured and killed by the popes.
How did such evil power arise?
In the winter of 755 A.D., Pope Stephen III, desperate for protection from the besieging Lombards, crossed the Alps to seek help from Pepin, king of the Franks. The Pope showed Pepin the "Donation of Constantine," - a newly created fraudulent document (as Catholic historians have admitted). It claimed that Constantine, the Roman Emperor, had given his "palaces, the City of Rome, and all the provinces, places, and cities of Italy and the regions of the West" to the Roman Catholic popes, thereby creating their own worldly and godless kingdom.
Deceived by this lie, Pepin routed the Lombards and gave the papacy about twenty (20) cities and much land along the Adriatic coast. It was the beginning of the papal states over which the popes would rule for centuries as tyrants, while claiming to be the "vicar - sole representative" of Jesus Christ upon this earth.
With prosperous cities in its possession from which huge revenues came by heavy taxation, the papacy was a prize over which rival factions fought. Powerful families (Colonna, Orsini, Annibaldi, Conti, Caetini, et al.) fought to place one of their own on the alleged "throne of Peter." Popes fought and killed one another for "Peter's Chair," excommunicated and even exhumed one another to do so. Yet each one is called the "Holy Father, His Holiness, Vicar of Christ" and is considered to be a link in the long claimed chain of apostolic succession supposedly going back to Peter.
Six popes were put in office by a mother-daughter pair of prostitutes: Theodora (wife of a powerful Roman Senator) and her daughter, Marozia. In Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Edward Gibbon writes, "The bastard son, the grandson, and the great grandson of Marozia - a rare genealogy - were seated in the Chair of St. Peter."
This is the "apostolic succession"? - of which the Bible knows nothing.
For decades the papacy was under the control of a powerful family of warlords, the Alberics of Tusculum, who would eventually boast of 40 cardinals and 13 popes issuing from that one family. It would be a mockery to say that the wealth and power that produced this remarkable familial network of popes had anything to do with apostolic succession; yet there they are today, on that "official" prevaricated and fabricated Vatican list of the supposed "Vicars of Christ."
The foregoing is only part of the appalling heritage by which Francis today claims God's title, "Holy Father." To receive his own salvation, he must renounce such pretense and "believe on the Lord Jesus Christ" who died for his sins. All Bible believing evangelical Christians, still honoring the "great commission" given them by Jesus Christ, continually and lovingly present the true gospel to those whom Rome has deceived.
All God's rejoicing children through faith in Christ, love, serve and obey only the One "Holy Father," He who resides in Heaven, but has never lived in Rome.
Calling the men entitled popes "Holy Father," or "His Holiness," hardly fits the historically recorded unholy lives lived by most of them.
Consider a few examples. Pope John XII (955-64) had numerous mistresses, ran a harem in the papal palace, raped women visiting St. Peter's, blinded and murdered friend and foe alike, toasted Satan at St. Peter's altar and was killed by a husband who found him in bed with his wife - a fate suffered by more than one pope.
Pope Gregory XII's (1406-15) first pontifical act was to pawn his tiara for 6,000 florins to pay his gambling debts. Upon purchasing the papacy, Alexander VI (1492-1503), who had committed his first murder at age 12, shouted, "I am Pope, Pontiff, Vicar of Christ!"
Though he scarcely pretended to be a Christian, he was, like all the popes, deeply devoted to Mary.
The crimes of this Borgia pope are beyond calculation. Sixtus IV (1471-84) licensed Rome's brothels for an annual fee and taxed the clergy for their mistresses. He invented the idea of applying indulgences to the dead. Catholic historian Von Dollinger said of Popes, Paul II, Sixtus IV, Innocent VIII and Alexander VI had each tried "to exceed the vices of his predecessor."
In contrast to Christ, who was homeless, whose kingdom was not of this world, and whose followers didn't fight (Matthew :8:20; John:18:36), the popes long lived in palaces of more than 1,000 rooms each and fought, using their own armies and navies, to build a worldwide empire of unparalleled earthly wealth and power.
Michelangelo wrote, "Of chalices they [the popes] make helmet and sword and sell by the bucket the blood of the Lord." Pope Innocent III killed more Christians in one afternoon than all Roman emperors combined. Multitudes were tortured and killed by the popes.
How did such evil power arise?
In the winter of 755 A.D., Pope Stephen III, desperate for protection from the besieging Lombards, crossed the Alps to seek help from Pepin, king of the Franks. The Pope showed Pepin the "Donation of Constantine," - a newly created fraudulent document (as Catholic historians have admitted). It claimed that Constantine, the Roman Emperor, had given his "palaces, the City of Rome, and all the provinces, places, and cities of Italy and the regions of the West" to the Roman Catholic popes, thereby creating their own worldly and godless kingdom.
Deceived by this lie, Pepin routed the Lombards and gave the papacy about twenty (20) cities and much land along the Adriatic coast. It was the beginning of the papal states over which the popes would rule for centuries as tyrants, while claiming to be the "vicar - sole representative" of Jesus Christ upon this earth.
With prosperous cities in its possession from which huge revenues came by heavy taxation, the papacy was a prize over which rival factions fought. Powerful families (Colonna, Orsini, Annibaldi, Conti, Caetini, et al.) fought to place one of their own on the alleged "throne of Peter." Popes fought and killed one another for "Peter's Chair," excommunicated and even exhumed one another to do so. Yet each one is called the "Holy Father, His Holiness, Vicar of Christ" and is considered to be a link in the long claimed chain of apostolic succession supposedly going back to Peter.
Six popes were put in office by a mother-daughter pair of prostitutes: Theodora (wife of a powerful Roman Senator) and her daughter, Marozia. In Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Edward Gibbon writes, "The bastard son, the grandson, and the great grandson of Marozia - a rare genealogy - were seated in the Chair of St. Peter."
This is the "apostolic succession"? - of which the Bible knows nothing.
For decades the papacy was under the control of a powerful family of warlords, the Alberics of Tusculum, who would eventually boast of 40 cardinals and 13 popes issuing from that one family. It would be a mockery to say that the wealth and power that produced this remarkable familial network of popes had anything to do with apostolic succession; yet there they are today, on that "official" prevaricated and fabricated Vatican list of the supposed "Vicars of Christ."
The foregoing is only part of the appalling heritage by which Francis today claims God's title, "Holy Father." To receive his own salvation, he must renounce such pretense and "believe on the Lord Jesus Christ" who died for his sins. All Bible believing evangelical Christians, still honoring the "great commission" given them by Jesus Christ, continually and lovingly present the true gospel to those whom Rome has deceived.
All God's rejoicing children through faith in Christ, love, serve and obey only the One "Holy Father," He who resides in Heaven, but has never lived in Rome.
If you want to reply, then register here. Registration is free and your account is created instantly, so you can post right away.