Unbroken Line of Utter Non-Sense: Not long after Ottos death in Germany, the papacy fell under the control of a powerful family of warlords in the Alban hills. The leader of the clan, Gregory of Tusculum, through wealth and the power of the sword succeeded in placing two of his three sons and a grandson (one succeeding the other) on the supposed throne of St.Peter. The Alberics of Tusculum could eventually boast of 40 cardinals, 3 antipopes, and 13 popes issuing from that one family. It would be a mockery to say that the wealth and power that produced this remarkable familiar network of popes had anything to do with apostolic succession. Of this period, Church historian von Dollinger, himself a devout Catholic, writes: ...the Roman Church was enslaved and degraded, while the Apostolic See became the prey and the plaything of rival factions of the nobles, and for a long time of ambitious and profligate women. It was only renovated for a brief interval (997-1003) in the persons of Gregory 5th and Silvester 2nd, by the influence of the Saxon emperor. Then the Papacy sank back into utter confusion and moral impotence; the Tuscan Counts made it hereditary in their family; again and again dissolute boys, like John 12th (age 16 when he became Pope) and Benedict 9th (at age 11), occupied and disgraced the Apostolic throne, which was now bought and sold like a piece of merchandise, and at last three Popes fought for the tiara, until the Emperor Henry 3rd put an end to the scandal by elevating a German bishop to the See of Rome--(The Pope and the Council, von Dollinger, p.81). A legacy of Shame, a legacy of debauchery.
Posted on: Mon, 03 Feb 2014 10:23:48 +0000
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