Roberto de Mattei
Corrispondenza Romana
December 4, 2019
Who was the worst Pope in the history of the
Church? Many maintain that it was Alexander VI, a Pope excessively criticized.
According to St. Robert Bellarmine it was John XII (937-964), whom he defines “omnium pontificum fere deterrimus”,
“practically the worst of all pontiffs” (De
Romano Pontifice, l. II, cap. XIX, in De controversiis christianae fidei, Apud Societatem Minimam,
Venetii 1599, p. 689).
Alberic II of the Counts of
Tusculum (the Roman princeps from 932
to 954) some days before dying, asked to be taken to St. Peter’s and on the
Apostle’s tomb, in the presence of Pope Agapetus, had the Roman nobles swear,
that at the death of the Pope in office, they would elect to the Papal Throne, his
son, to whom he had given the auspicious name of Octavian. When the Pope died,
in December 955, Octavian was elected under the name of John XII, even if he
hadn’t reached the canonical age to become pope, being only eighteen years old.
According to an unanimous description of the sources, the young Pope was a dissolute
pontiff, who didn’t interrupt his life of reckless abandon in unbridled
pleasures, even with his election to the Papal Throne.
In the autumn of 960, having gotten into a
conflict with the Marquis Berengar of
Ivrea, (who had proclaimed himself King of Italy) and also with his son Adalbert
, the new Pope called on the aid of Otto I, the King of Germany. Otto led his
army into Italy, defeated Berengar and Adalbert and continued on to Rome, where,
on the Feast of Candlemas, February 2, 962, he was solemnly crowned Emperor by
the Pope. This coronation was the foundational act of what would later be known
as “Holy Roman Empire of the German
Nation”. This act was followed a week later by the concession of what is termed
the Privilegium Ottonis a copy of which is still kept in the Vatican Archives.
If the document, on the one hand, confirmed the territorial concessions made to
the Holy See by Pepin the Short and Charlemagne, constituting in fact, the
Church State, on the other hand, it made the Holy See submit the papal elections
to the prior approval of the Emperor and his successors. Otto then went back to Pavia, but John
betrayed the vow of fidelity he made to Otto and struck up a new alliance with
his old adversary, Adalbert.
In a well-known text recently reproduced in version
philologically accurate, Liutprando, Bishop of Cremona, describes the conflict
between the Pope and the Sovereign during the years 960 to 964 (De
Iohanne papa et Ottone imperatore, by Paolo Chiesa, Edizioni del Galluzzo, Firenze
2018). The editor of the volume also included other documents in the Appendix,
which help to provide a more complete
picture of those events, starting with the pages dedicated to John XII in the Liber pontificalis (pp. 97-100 of the Appendix).
When he discovered that the Pope had struck up
an alliance with Adalbert, Otto the Emperor convened a Synod in St. Peter’s, in
which the bishops and archbishops of his retinue, the clerics and Roman Curia,
the leaders of the city and representatives of the people, all took part. John
XII however, had quit the Eternal City. When the Emperor asked the reasons for
his absence, the Romans replied that they were to be found in the Pope’s immorality,
which was described in a long list of crimes: simony, sacrilege, blasphemy,
adultery, incest, abstention from the sacraments, use of weapons and trafficking with the
devil. All of them, clerics and laity alike, declared that “he had turned the
Holy Palace into an actual bordello”; “he had blinded Benedict, his spiritual
father, who died shortly afterwards; he had killed John, Cardinal Subdeacon, by
cutting off his genitals; he had set fires; he girded himself with a sword and
armed himself with helmet and shield: they testified to all of this. All of
them, both clerics and laity, cried out that he would toast to the health of
the devil; they said that in games of dice he would invoke the help of Jupiter
and Venus and other demons; that he would not celebrate Matins and the
Canonical Hours, and wouldn’t make the sign of the cross.” (p.15).
After the accusers confirmed their declarations
under solemn oath, on November 6, 963, Otto, in the name of the Synod, sent a
letter to John, asking him to come in person to exonerate himself. “Know, then,
that thou have been accused – not by a
few, but by all, laity and ecclesiastics alike – of homicide, perjury, theft of
sacred objects, of incest with thy relatives and two sisters. They also aim
another accusation at thee, too horrible even to hear: that thou toasted to the
health of the devil, and that in dice games thou invoked the help of Jupiter,
Venus and other demons. We strongly
entreat thee, father, do not refuse a return to Rome to defend thyself against
all these accusations.” (p.19).
John, nonetheless, refused to appear before the
assembly. The Romans asked the Emperor then to depose him and replace him with
a new Pope of high moral standing. “An unthinkable pestilence must be
extirpated by an unthinkable cauterizing. If his corrupt morals, were of harm
to him alone and not to everyone, in some way they might be borne. But many who
were chaste have become depraved in their desire to imitate him! How many good
men have been perverted because of the example he gave! We thus ask thy
Imperial Majesty that this monster, which no virtue has been able to redeem of
his vices, be cast out of the Holy Church of Rome” (p.23).
On December 4, 963, John was condemned and deposed
and Otto requested that the Synod elect a successor. The clergy and the Roman
people chose (with the name of Leo VIII (963-965)) a layman, the Head of the
Lateran Chancellery, who, after being ordained deacon, priest and bishop that
same day, received the approval of the Emperor and was consecrated in St.
Peter’s. When Otto departed, John, the deposed Pope, came back to Rome and
forced Leo VIII to flee. John XII convened a new Council wherein he
excommunicated Leo and began to take revenge on those who had abandoned him, by
having the right hand cut off one of them (Azzone); and another, (Giovanni) his
nose, tongue and two fingers.
While the Emperor was preparing his return to
Rome, on May 7, 964, John XII had a seizure, brought about - according to
Liutprando - by the devil during a sexual sin, and died eight days later, May
14, 984, without receiving the sacraments. He was twenty-seven years old and
was buried in St. John Lateran’s. The Liber
pontificalis, describes him as infelicissimus,
as vitam sua in adulterio et vanitate
duxit, “he spent his entire life in adulteries and frivolities” (p.99).
Those who think that the Holy Spirit elects and
guides infallibly every Pontiff are proven wrong by facts and risk rendering a
great disservice to the Church. The Holy Spirit never abandons the Church but
in that dark century, the laity responded with greater piety to His influence
more than the Popes did. Despite John XII’s protests against the canonical
illegitimacy of his deposition, the Church ranks Leo VIII in its official
chronology as his legitimate successor.
An aura of sanctity surrounds the throne of
Otto I, whom Robert Bellarmine describes as “pius imperator”. His wife was St. Adelaide; his mother St. Matilda,
who, after becoming a widow, retreated to the Quedlinberg Abbey, founded by
her; St. Bruno, Archbishop of Cologne, was
his brother. Otto I’s nephew and his third successor, St. Henry the
Emperor, married St Cunigunde; Henry’s sister, St. Giselle, was the bride of
St. Stephen I, King of Hungary and was St. Emeric’s mother. This family network
of saints was at the origin of Medieval Christian Europe, at a time the Papacy
was going through a period of serious decadence. Then, a century later, from
Cluny the great movement of reform of the Church began, which culminated in the
Pontificate of St. Gregory VII and the event of the Crusades, inaugurated by
Blessed Urban II. The Church, as She always does, forged ahead victorious in
the storm.
Translation: Contributor Francesca Romana
