The first "Historical Filth" article I ever wrote was called "The 10 worst Popes in history"- it even pre-dated the "Filth" title itself. It was a piece I was never really happy with, as I'd not yet settled on the more comfortable narrative style. It read as a shrill denunciation rather than an enthusiastic wallowing in human failings. I always promised myself I'd re-write it one day.

That day has now come, though the great thing about the history of the Papacy is that finding grossing perversions among the Popes is like finding interesting discharges produced by the less expensive street hookers in Bangkok. It's like shooting fish in a barrel. Of the ten Popes below, only one featured in my original article and there's still loads more great stories left unrevealed. The Roman Catholic church is the gift that just keps on giving, as far as I'm concerned. I invite you to sit back and spend a few minutes wading crotch-deep through the slurry of human endeavor with me. You're in good company with these God-botherers, I can assure you.


The Pimp Pope

Sixtus IV (1471- 1484)

Popes throughout the ages have always faced a pressing problem. namely "how the hell can I get the cash to pay for my lavish lifestyle and huge retinue of totty?". For a considerably large part of the history of Catholicism, the solution proved to be in prostitution and no Pope took it quite so far as Sixtus IV.
To fund his lifestyle and war against the Turks, Sixtus started building a huge brothel for both sexes in Rome. He also imposed annual taxation of Rome's prostitutes, and if there was one thing Rome was not lacking, it was prostitutes. Your average pilgrim was probably a bit backed up around the bollocks by the time he reached Rome, and the chance of a few quick fumbles followed by absolution was a combination few could resist. Rome was stuffed with whores of all types, so this was a big earner for Sixtus.
Sixtus was bisexual and incestuous- he had relationships with his nephews. He was also impressively liberal, and approved petitions permitting certain noble families to commit sodomy during the hot months of the year. He also built the Sistine Chapel, which gives him quite a groovy track record, though he totally blew it away by appointing Torquemada and starting the worst excesses of the Inquisition. The git.


The Pornographer Pope

Pius II (1458- 1464)

Amongst the company of this article, Pius II looks almost saintly, though he remains one of my favourites. Born in poverty, young Enea Piccolomini took jobs as secretary to a number of Cardinals, leading to employment as a roving ambassador. His memoirs reveal a lively time spent wooing young ladies in his spare moments- but it's a rather charming and romantic randiness rather than the rampant fornications of the average Pope.
He came to the attention of Pope Nicholas V due to his writing ability (at another time he was poet laureate to King Frederick III of Germany)- namely his noted skill at churning out pornographic stories. Nicholas V employed Enea as his secretary, with the duty of producing the Papal porn. With a blend of charm, flattery and self-promotion he rose effortlessly through the ranks to become Pope. I take this tale as proof that the next Pope will be Hugh Hefner.


The Paedophile Pope

Leo X (1513- 1521)

There have been quite a few gay Popes, but they usually kept this aspect of their lives under a degree of discretion. Not Giuliano de'Medici who was probably the most "out" Pope ever. Becoming a Cardinal at 13 (the youngest ever), Leo X went on to be elected Pope. At his election he had to be carried into the Conclave on a stretcher because his sodomy-related anal ulcers were too painful for him to walk or sit. One of his first acts was to make his lover a Cardinal.
This is all pretty blameless stuff, of course. However Leo did like boys who were disturbingly young, even by the standards of the time. One of his favourite party tricks at banquets was to serve up huge pies from which naked boys would emerge and be served up (culinary side-note: regrettably, the records do not reveal what sort of pie was considered suitable to contain rent boys. Being a British prole at heart, I'm hoping it was a pork pie, though the image of jailbait covered in pork jelly is one likely to give me nightmares, I can assure you).
It's also recorded that as nobody could be bothered to wash up after these banquets the (silver) plates and cutlery would simply be thrown in the river. Seeing as the typical main course was a nice plate of parrot's tongues, one can only gawp at the size of the catering bills they must have run up. It left the papal treasury bankrupt.
If all this wasn't impressive enough, Leo was also an atheist. He was a major factor in the works of Martin Luther and the rise of Protestantism, which should surprise nobody.



The Pre-pubescent Pope

Benedict IX (1032- 44, 1045, 1047- 48)

Yes, you're reading those dates correctly. Benedict was Pope three times- a record likely to remain unchallenged for the foreseeable future. At the time, Rome was controlled by the monstrous Tuscolani family- so it probably surprised nobody when Pope XIX died in suspicious circumstances and was replaced by the 12 year old Benedict IX.
There is a theory that the more spoiled and unrestrained a child is, the more depraved they will be as an adult. I suspect that the textbook definition of this theory reads "see Benedict IX" because he racked up one hell of a track record. Among his hobbies were bisexuality, bestiality, witchcraft and Satanism. In fact, if Marilyn Manson lived up to his own publicity and was elected the next Pope he'd still fall some distance short of Benedict. Dante, who was not squeamish about consigning Popes to his inferno, considered him to be the lowest ebb of the papacy.
Eventually he became so unpopular that he spent the last years of his reign in fear of his life, hence the three reigns. His second interregnum occurred because he sold the papacy to his godfather- a feat still unequalled in Papal history. The fact that he died of natural causes years after his final deposition surprises just about everyone seeing as he was possibly the most unpopular man in the entire world.


The Pint-sized Poisoner Pope

Gregory VII (1073- 1085)

Let me start by listing the positive points about Gregory VII.



Sorry. There aren't any. He was genuinely horrible. A bitter little midget, he ascended to the papacy through the simple and very effective method of poisoning absolutely everyone with a better shot at the title. These victims included six Bishops. When poisoning alone wasn't enough, he used his school of highly skilled forgers to come up with the necessary "ancient" documents to promote his cause.
If you want to know who to blame for the Catholic church's problems with its priest's sexual proclivities, Gregory is a better target than most. At his first Council in 1074 he deposed all married priests and attempted to impose celibacy (naturally, this did not prevent him fiddling with Countess Mathilda, whose husband gregory had murdered). Thousands of priest's wives were left abandoned and destitute- many committing suicide as a result.
Gregory's drive toward a celibate priesthood met with stiff resistance, even to the point of him being excommunicated by a group of Bishops. Eventually Gregory became so unpopular with the people of Rome that he was forced to flee for his life, supposedly dying of shame shortly after.

The Pike-wielding Pope

Clement VII (1378- 1394)

Antipope Clement VII was born Robert of Geneva, and was probably the hardest Pope ever. While most Popes were soft and pampered big girl's blouses, Robert was a former front-line soldier who was famed for his ability to decapitate a man with one blow of a pike. If you've ever seen the size of a pike you'll understand what a bruiser he must have been.
He earned one hell of a reputation for brutality by massacring thousands in his campaigns across Bologna and Florence (4500 massacred in Cesena alone), and during that particularly unstable time in Papal history (the start of the Great Schism) the Cardinals decided it was time to take control by electing a man's man for a change. At 36, Robert became Pope.
Naturally, as soon as he became Pope, he developed a taste for scantily-clad pageboys. It comes with the job, it seems.


The Pervy Pope

Paul II (1464- 71)

Nicknamed "Godly Mary", Pietro Barbo was another gay Pope, though his real tastes were something really vile. He was possibly the biggest sadist to become Pope, and spent much of his spare time watching naked men being racked and whipped while failing to conceal a papal priapism beneath his frock. One might expect him to be some sort of ice-cold snake-eyed killer- something close to Christopher Walken in a big white hat. Instead, he was famous for being tearful, and the waterworks would come on at the slightest provocation. This earned him another nickname- "Our Lady of Pity". Paul II died of a heart attack while being energetically buggered by a pageboy.


The Parricidal Pope

Paul III (1534-1549).

As a younger man, Alessandro Farnese earned the nickname "Cardinal Petticoat" for giving his young sister to Pope Alexander VI to be deflowered. That was one of his nicer acts as far as his family was concerned, because when he got bored of waiting for his inheritance he poisoned his parents. He also killed one of his sisters, committed incest with his daughter and murdered his son-in-law. He also had an affair with his niece, but was caught with his papal pants down by her husband who give him a thrashing that left him scarred for life.
He stayed immensely wealthy due to imposing a monthly tax on Rome's 40,000 prostitutes (Rome's total population at the time was only 100,000). Despite all this, he's remembered rather fondly as the commissioner of Michelangelo's work in the Sistine Chapel. If you ever visit it, don't buy any hype about Paul III- he was an appalling man who persecuted Protestants with a zeal that went far beyond the call of duty. However, I bet even the most tortured Protestant could at least take some small comfort from the fact that they weren't related to him.


The Party-animal Plague Pope

Clement VI (1342- 1352)

At the time of Clement's reign the Papacy was based in Avignon. The reason for the move was that Rome was considered too sinful and debased to house the church- naturally the Avignon Popes did everything they could to ensure that their new base was just as mucky as the old place. Clement was certainly no exception.
One of the greatest spenthrifts to become Pope, Clement had a lifestyle closer to one of the more flamboyant Roman Emperors than the average Pope. Even the bits of his horses were solid gold. He used lavish banquets (which tended to end as orgies) to seduce assorted noblewomen, when he wasn't establishing new brothels to boost his funds. While the Pope romped with his many mistresses, most of his palace was taken up by the extensive torture facilities of the Inquisition and they were never short of work.

When the Black Death hit Avignon in 1348, it was viewed as divine judgement on Clement. He reacted by burning much of the city, but three-quarters of the population still died. There was widespread celebration when he died, and fifty priests said mass for his soul for nine successive days in an attempt to keep him out of hell.


The Pirate Pope

John XXIII 1410- 1415

Technically speaking, Baldassare Cossa was an Anti-pope- this explains why he's one of two Popes to bear the name John XXIII. Unlike many Popes he wasn't born into a particularly enriched family, but he certainly displayed an impressive entrepreneurial streak which left him very seriously rich indeed. It wasn't the sort of career path one might associate with the Papacy, however. He was a pirate.
Seeking a change of career, he started working as Papal treasurer to Boniface IX and Alexander V and became a lot richer thanks to his staggering propensity for corruption. Naturally he was soon made a Cardinal. Embezzlement alone wasn't enough to keep him entertained so he happily continued to build a reputation as one of the world's greatest libertines. His home was stuffed to the rafters with two hundred concubines and prostitutes. When he wasn't knobbing them, he was killing people- it's recorded that he executed so many people that the poulation of Bologna dwindled significantly during his tenure.
Despite his unorthodox lifestyle, his accession to the Papacy was almost boringly traditional. He poisoned the reigning Pope then surrounded the Papal conclave with his troops until he'd terrified the Cardinals into electing him (yawn). One intriguing technical footnote was that Cossa had to be ordained as a priest the day before he was consecrated as Pope- it was not necessary to have taken holy orders to be a Cardinal. That was a mere trifle compared to another fact about the new John XXIII, however. He was an atheist.
John XXIII was eventually forced from power in the Council of Constance, which unified the Papacy (there were actually three Popes simultaneously up until that point). In his abdication he confessed to murder, adultery, incest, heresy, atheism, simony and sodomy. None of these were deemed totally incompatible with a career in religion so after a brief imprisonment he was made Dean of the Sacred College- a position he held until his death in 1419.

Interesting, but you should include a disclaimer saying:
The actions of these past popes are of no impact to the present day Catholic church and this behaviour has long since stopped.

Otherwise you'll be locked for trolling.

Not viewed in the context of my extensive track record of articles such as these. Absolutely everything is a target.

Brilliant as always.

I seem to remember you saying that you'd stop writing Historical Filth, im glad you haven't. :)

LOL! This is great stuff (like we expected any different)! :D

Was hoping and waiting for an article on religious leaders...not disappointed at all:rotfl:

Here's a small request...could you please widen the scope, include mad mullahs, priapic pundits and not so godly gurus....pretty please...

Another great article. Unfortuneatly for myself though, I took a class last year and the instructor had focused on the Catholic Church and some of the perversions of some popes for a couple days so some of the stuff isn't new to me. Of course, the article is still interesting.

Great article don't stop writing these

Best filth article yet. If you could, and I'm sure everyone would be appreciative, could you supply a primary bibliography for this and your past articles? Really anything at all would be of help.

Excellent stuff, although as you say the Renaissance Popes are rather easy targets for Historical Filth. It'd be interesting to see what you could rake up about, say, the Quakers or some other group normally regarded as inoffensive!

I was almost getting scared you weren't writing anymore filth articles Kafka. :thumbsup: Brilliant as always.

I'm not having a dull moment here. :thanx:

As usual it was rather.... interesting:) Keep up the great work.

Brilliant as usual. :clap:

Good work- as usual.

Adler

Great stuff! And this is the history of the church which sets itself up as the arbiter of human morals.... :mischief:

Thanks. Much appreciated article.

Great stuff! And this is the history of the church which sets itself up as the arbiter of human morals.... :mischief:

You'll notice that the Counter-Reformation was actually a remarkable clean-up. The Papacy these days bears no resemblance to the murky past.

It's also worth remembering that genuinely good men became Pope. I just don't write about genuinely good men.

Well i would have added the pope who died off overeating and drinking.
i cant recall hes name.

But he came to power by pretending to be the holy ghost and whispered instructions to the current pope. Eventually convinced it was god talking to him vacated the papulcy and appointed him as the new pope.

Fittingly He died of I believe Livery failure a very painfully and slow death.
They say hes body white and twisted with the diesease looked like a hidious mutant so they burnt him/it and everything in the room as well.

after reading this article i better change my nick on counter-strike in something else then:you're pope for today :lol:

It'd be nice if You provided us the sources of information, especially that one could, esp. when it comes to reformation-times popes, expect a high level of bias, just as one of yourself ("Popes throughout the ages have always faced a pressing problem. namely "how the hell can I get the cash to pay for my lavish lifestyle and huge retinue of totty?". For a considerably large part of the history of Catholicism, the solution proved to be in prostitution", "fornications of the average Pope")
Still, much of the information seems to be true. Even catholic encyclopedia condemns some of these. Worth to remember that many of these achieved their position unruly and were deposed one way or another. They did not represent the church as much as their own or their family's ambition.
When it comes to Sabinian, however, He didn't close the granaries. He just refused to give the grain completely for free.
When it comes to Urban II, You seem to mae Him responsible for hostility between Christian and Muslim world. That is nonsense.
"Medieval holocaust" - blah

for the first one do you mean sodomy in todays terms, or back then which was any sex not with the man on top in missionary position

I'm suprised to not see Alexander IV up there. Although he wasn't so much with a vice, just all around horrid.

He's on the second list

You'll notice that the Counter-Reformation was actually a remarkable clean-up. The Papacy these days bears no resemblance to the murky past.

It's also worth remembering that genuinely good men became Pope. I just don't write about genuinely good men.

Granted. I don't think anyone, not even Catholic-bashers, would say all (or even most) popes were degenerates or evil.

But... just combine the doctrine of infallibility of the Pope with the knowledge of what some of those popes were like..... *shudder*

It's also worth remembering that genuinely good men became Pope. I just don't write about genuinely good men.

I'm glad you don't :goodjob:

[Dragonlord] You know, of course, that according to the doctrine of Papal infallibility, the Pope is only infallible when making pronouncements "ex cathedra", which literally means "sitting down" but means in his capacity as pastor of the church. It doesn't mean that the Pope never makes errors in his normal life or can do no wrong (that would be more like the Calvinist doctrine of the Perseverance of the Saints!).

It's worth pointing out that many of the sources for these characters are *extremely* biased. For example, there's no real reason to think that Gregory VII actually poisoned anyone. He was certainly much hated in his day, but this was largely because he was concerned to reform the church as a whole and the Papacy in particular and end the days of people like Benedict IX (who was truely shocking) - and most people don't like reform when it means giving up their own corrupt lifestyles. Gregory's methods certainly left something to be desired - such as his actions against priests' wives - but like many reformers he evidently felt compromise was not an option. Gregory certainly didn't introduce the ideal of clerical celibacy, which had been around for some five centuries at least. And in the event, Gregory's reforms helped to put the church and the Papacy back on track for a long time: Gregory VII is a saint in the Catholic Church (though of course according to Gregory *all* Popes are saints, making him the only Pope to have canonised himself, which is pretty good going) and the whole period is sometimes known as "Hildebrandine" (from his real name). In fact I believe that Gregory VII is the only Pope to be at least as well known - if not better known - by his real name rather than by his Papal name, which reflects his importance in the reform movement even before he was Pope. He paved the way for the autocratic Papacy of Innocent III and his ilk - it was only some centuries later that we see the degeneration of the Papacy into the remarkable excesses of the Renaissance era. And the rumour that he poisoned people was spread by his enemies in his lifetime, but I don't believe there's any particular reason to give it any weight.

[Dragonlord] You know, of course, that according to the doctrine of Papal infallibility, the Pope is only infallible when making pronouncements "ex cathedra", which literally means "sitting down" but means in his capacity as pastor of the church. It doesn't mean that the Pope never makes errors in his normal life or can do no wrong (that would be more like the Calvinist doctrine of the Perseverance of the Saints!).


Yes, of course - but just imagine some of these weirdos laying down church law 'ex cathedra' and the Church declaring it 'infallible' just because it was a Pope saying it...
IIRC, the doctrine of infallibility is of a much later date (19th century? you'd know better than I), but it still shows how idiotic that doctrine is..
Of course, I guess the political rationale behind the doctrine is clear enough; no one has the right to question the Pope's pronouncements... :rolleyes:

BTW, the other thing, all Popes autmatically being saints... :lol: :lol: :lol:

I don't trust whatever this stupid book is. It sounds biased! This is just another attempt to bash Roman Catholics! [pissed] I'm a Roman Catholic, and I'm an avid and devout follower of the papal throne! I believe in infallibility! But the thing is, the pope is only infallible when he is speaking (making a proclamation) on moral issues, and he is united with the bishops!

The Pope rules!

He stopped Atila and his Huns, he saved Europe countless times, stood firm throughout heresies and all-around kicked butt!

I don't consider sending so-called heretics to the flames one after the other a noble accomplishment.

Your mileage may vary, but if it does (and you were not just kidding)...whoa man.

The Catholic Church NOW is pretty decent. The Catholic Church from the third/fourth century up to the twentieth century deserves no praise and a lot of criticism. (Note, of course, that for all that they claim, the protestants with their witch-burning crazes are HARDLY any better). The Inquisition, heretics trial, crusades, forced conversion of the native americans (and destruction of their cultural legacy), etc - none of this speaks positively of the church.

[Dragonlord] Yes, of course, the doctrine of Papal infallibility was only made official at Vatican I, in 1870, although of course it had been mooted a lot earlier than that. But of course none of the Popes in Kafka's article would have known or appealed to it, so imagining them claiming infallibility whilst engaging in their naughty antics is pretty anachronistic.

I don't consider sending so-called heretics to the flames one after the other a noble accomplishment.

Your mileage may vary, but if it does (and you were not just kidding)...whoa man.

The Catholic Church NOW is pretty decent. The Catholic Church from the third/fourth century up to the twentieth century deserves no praise and a lot of criticism. (Note, of course, that for all that they claim, the protestants with their witch-burning crazes are HARDLY any better). The Inquisition, heretics trial, crusades, forced conversion of the native americans (and destruction of their cultural legacy), etc - none of this speaks positively of the church.

It doesn't speak positively of the Catholic Church if you only list the negative things. Plenty of positives too, you know, such as the first universal education system in Europe (under Charlemagne) or the first free education systems in modern Europe (under the Jesuits). You may also wish to remember that it was the Catholic Church that spoke out against slavery long before anyone else did (Pope Eugene IV in the 1430s) and it was their representatives in South America who spoke out against the cruelties of the Conquistadors (Bartolomeo de Olmedo, Antonio de Montesimos, Bartolome de las Casas, Antonio Vieira, etc) - indeed you may wish to remind yourself what Paraguay was like when it was run by the Jesuits between 1609 and 1750 - the closest thing to a Utopian society that's ever been achieved.

It's easy to present a simplistic view of history when you only look at one side of things. But we all know that history isn't that simple. The Catholic Church was not some kind of completely evil institutional ogre any more than it was full of inoffensive saints. For every Torquemada there was a Francis of Assisi. Do you really think that, say, Matteo Ricci was a bad man? Saying that nothing the Catholic Church did between the fourth and the twentieth centuries is worthy of praise is simply shockingly ignorant, and there's no excuse for it.

I do wonder why people always criticise the church for the Crusades, yet you never hear a whisper of criticism for the Muslims who stole all those lands from the Christains in the first place... they're just as bad as each other!

"Historical Filth" articles have never been intended as level-headed and rational explorations of history. They are scurrilous and muck-raking trawls through that past's underwear drawer. In such articles I will shamelessly mug up on juicy bits, and gleefully exaggerate points for comic effect- but not to deceive or mislead. Therefore I offer no apologies for the contents of any one of these. And I'm not interested in providing balance either.

Having said that, I never include material from sources I consider to be unduly suspect, and I have never approached any article with the aim of promoting intolerance or bigoted prejudice against any people. This article is not an exercise in Catholic-bashing, any more than the others were Paraguay-bashing, Scotland-bashing, Woman-bashing or just-about-everything-else-bashing.

This is Papal history. The Papacy got over it, so I don't see why anyone else should have an excuse.

It's also worth remembering that genuinely good men became Pope. I just don't write about genuinely good men.[/QUOTE]


wheres the fun in that?
this is my first time seeing one of these articles... Awesome, gonna look for more

Granted, Plotinus. However, my post was mostly a kneejerk reaction to the poster I was replying to, who, if he was being serious, well...

I tend to have the bad habit to try to balance out extreme position I read about by speaking out in favor of the other extreme, which is what seems to have happened here.

I tend to have the bad habit to try to balance out extreme position I read about by speaking out in favor of the other extreme, which is what seems to have happened here.

I have exactly the same habit. You'd never guess, would you!

Personally I do like a bit of ridiculously one-sided history and Kafka always supplies that superlatively... just so long as people are aware there's always another side to every story!

I don't see the Church during that time as horrible! Plotinus did great at showing a more sensible view. :P I have admired all the popes and Catholicism throughout the history of the Church. The Church may not look as though the perfect place, does not claim to be, and is not! It is designed to lead to a more perfect union with God on earth! The Church as a whole has never lost sight of this goal!

[QUOTE=Huzzamaster I have admired all the popes and Catholicism throughout the history of the Church. [/QUOTE]

All of them?

Lol, mis-statement! I just got corrected by a whale-raping abomination! :P I have admired many of them, some of them had several issues, but the church as a whole has always been admired by me!