CHAPTER 5
Murder in Holy Orders
The archives of the Vatican contain evidence that being pope has been one of history’s most dangerous jobs. Through the centuries many have been murdered or assassinated. The first was Pope John VIII. In 882, he was poisoned and then clubbed to death by scheming members of the papal court. According to Matthew Brunson’s The Pope Encyclopedia: An A to Z of the Holy See most murders of pontiffs occurred in the Middle Ages, especially in a period described by Cardinal Cesare Baronius in Annales ecclesiastici as “the Iron Age of the Papacy,” from 867 to 964, when powerful families had popes elected, deposed, and murdered to advance political ambitions, or as vengeance. Of the twenty-six popes during this era, sixteen died by violence.
The most tantalizing of the murders was that of John XII (955-964). “Just 18 years old when he was elected pontiff, John was a notorious womanizer and the papal palace came to be described as a brothel during his reign. He died of injuries after he was caught in bed by the husband of one of his mistresses. Some legends say that he died of a stroke while in the act of love.”
Theories and claims of murderous cabals blossomed following the death of Pope Clement XIV in 1771. He “was reportedly so racked with guilt over disbanding the Jesuits that he spent his last years terrified of being poisoned.” Following his death, there were so many stories about his possible murder that a postmortem was conducted. It found nothing to implicate the Jesuits.
The following is a list of murdered pontiffs and the manner in which they are thought to have been removed from The Pope Encyclopedia:
John VIII (872-882): Poisoned and clubbed to death
Adrian III, St. (884-885): Rumored poisoned
Stephen VI (896-897): Strangled
Leo V (903): Murdered
John X (914-928): Suffocated under a pillow
Stephen VII (VIII) (928-931): Possibly murdered
Stephen VIII (IX) (939-942): Mutilated and died from injuries
John XII (955-964): [Killed while caught in the act with a mistress by the woman’s outraged husband] or suffered a stroke while with a mistress or murdered by an outraged husband
Benedict VI (973-974): Strangled by a priest
John XIV (983-984): Starved to death or poisoned
Gregory V (996-999): Rumored to have been poisoned
Sergius IV (1009-1012): Possibly murdered
Clement II (1046-1047): Rumored poisoned
Damasus II (1048): Rumored murdered
Boniface VIII (1294-1303): Died from abuse while a French captive
The most bizarre story of a pope is that of Stephen VII. In “896, [he] set in motion the trial of his rival, who had been dead for 9 months.” Author Mark Owen noted in an article on the notorious pontiffs that the body of Pope Formosus was dragged from its tomb and placed on a throne. Wrapped in a hair shirt, the corpse was provided with legal counsel, who remained silent while Pope Stephen raved and screamed.
“The crime of Formosus,” Owen recorded, “was that he had crowned emperor one of the numerous illegitimate heirs of Charlemagne after first having performed the same office for a candidate favored by Stephen.
“After Stephen’s rant, the corpse was stripped of its clothes and its fingers were chopped off. It was then dragged through the palace and hurled from a balcony to a howling mob below, who threw it into the Tiber River. The body was rescued by people sympathetic to Formosus and given a quiet burial. Stephen was strangled a few years later.
“In 964 Pope Benedict V raped a young girl and absconded to Constantinople with the papal treasury, only to reappear when the money ran out.” A church historian called Benedict “the most iniquitous of all the monsters of ungodliness.” He was also “slain by a jealous husband. His corpse, bearing a hundred dagger wounds, was dragged through the streets before being tossed into a cesspit…
“In October 1032, the papal miter was purchased for eleven-year-old Benedict IX. Upon reaching his 14th year, a chronicler wrote that Benedict had surpassed in wantonness and profligacy all who had preceded him.”
According to historian Peter de Rosa in his book Vicars of Christ, popes had mistresses as young as fifteen years of age, were guilty of incest and perversions of every sort, had innumerable children, [and] “were murdered in the very act of adultery.”
Pope Alexander VI (formerly Rodrigo Borgia) reigned from 1492-1503. He committed his first murder at the age of twelve. “Upon assuming the Papal miter, he cried, ‘I am Pope, Vicar of Christ!’ Like his predecessor, Innocent VIII, Alexander sired many children, baptized them personally, and officiated at their weddings in the Vatican. He had ten known illegitimate children (including the notorious Cesare and Lucrezia Borgia), by his favorite mistress Vannoza Catanei. When she faded in allure, Borgia took fifteen-year-old Giulia Farnese. Farnese obtained a Cardinal’s red hat for her brother, who later became Paul III. Alexander was followed by Julius II who purchased the papacy with his own private fortune… A notorious womanizer, Julius was so eaten away with syphilis that he couldn’t expose his foot to be kissed.”
“Pope Sixtus IV charged Roman brothels a Church tax. According to historian Will Durant, in 1490 there were 6,800 registered prostitutes in Rome. Pope Pius II declared that Rome was the only city run by…the sons of popes and cardinals.
Pope Leo I (440-461) asserted that it did not matter how immoral or inept a pope was as long as he was deemed the rightful successor to St. Peter.” There is no official list of popes, but the Annuario Pontificio [Papal Yearbook], published every year by the Vatican, contains a list that is generally considered the most authoritative. It cites Benedict XVI as the 265th pope of Rome.
Number 263, John Paul I, received the designation on August 26, 1978. The first pontiff to choose two names (in honor of his predecessors, John XXIII and Paul VI), he was born Albino Luciani on October 17, 1912, in Forno di Canale (now called Canale d’Agordo), Italy. He differed from his predecessors in having never held a major position in the Vatican ’s internal government or diplomatic corps. Despite being prominent within Italy, he was largely unknown to the wider world.
Ordained on July 7, 1935, “he studied at Rome ’s Gregorian University before a brief period as curate in his childhood parish. After he was appointed to a deputy position at Belluno seminary in 1937, he spent years teaching, during which time he became vicar-general to the Bishop at Belluno. Toward the end of 1958, Pope John XXIII appointed Luciani as bishop of Vittorio Veneto, and after a slow start at the Vatican Council (1962-65), he soon became an active voice in doctrinal matters.” Named archbishop of Venice (1969) and a cardinal in 1973, he rejected many of Catholicism’s more opulent aspects and encouraged richer churches to give to poorer ones.
After his election to the papacy by the College of Cardinals, Time magazine reported, “The Cardinals knew what they wanted: a warm and humble man. Seated at a table in front of the Sistine Chapel altar, the Cardinal solemnly intoned the name written on each ballot. ‘Luciani…Luciani…Luciani…’ Beside him sat two other Cardinal scrutatores (vote counters) who carefully plucked the ballots from a silver chalice, unfolded them and passed them to their colleague. It was the fourth and final ballot of the astonishing one-day conclave that gave the Catholic world its 263rd Pope.”
Succeeding in penetrating “the wall of secrecy that attends such conclaves, and the vows of silence taken by the Cardinals as they enter and are sealed from the outside world, Time’s reporters Jordan Bonfante and Roland Flamini pieced together much of the story of the proceedings in the Sistine Chapel. It was clear that Luciani came to power through no accident, but as a result of a spontaneous consensus that evolved from three agreements reached in a lengthy pre-conclave period that followed the death of Pope Paul VI on Aug. 6 [1978].