A friend of mine said that he was watching a program on the History Channel, and it said that there was a Pope with 100 illegitimate children. Is this true? Has there been such bad Popes in history?

-- Cameron (shaolin__phoenix@hotmail.com), November 26, 2004

Answers

The most infamous pope in history was probably pope Alexander VI (1492-1503) who had I believe seven illegitimate children as a Cardinal, which he openly acknowledged. During His early reign as the Pontiff, he had an affair with a married woman. If i am wrong here, i will quickly be corrected by one of the well informed Catholics in this forum. Anyways, I think over all, there have been about 7 out of 265 bad Popes. A far cry from the 1 bad Apostle out of 12. Popes are infallible and not impeccible so they do sin. Some unfortunately more than others.

-- DJ (newfiedufie@msn.com), November 26, 2004.

Yes Cameron, there have been really bad popes, but I think DJ put it in great perspective. The Renaissance popes are usually the ones used to "disprove" the papacy because they did many scandalous things.

There is a big difference between personal holiness and the protection from error that Christ promised the Church. In fact, the power of the sacraments are not based on the personal holiness of the priest, but on the promise of God. That's comforting I think.

Do the saintly popes in history prove the legitimacy of the papacy anymore than the unsaintly popes disprove it? I think not. The infallibility of the pope is based on other more solid things such as Scripture and Tradition.

For a good book debunking myths about the papacy, I recommend Pope Fiction by Patrick Madrid.

-- Andy S ("ask3332004@yahoo.com"), November 26, 2004.

A friend of mine said that he was watching a program on the History Channel...

not to contribute directly to the discussion -the "History" Channel and other 'academic' rich media venues tend to be rich with secular and revisionist agendas -buyer beware...

-- Daniel Hawkenberry (dlm@catholic.org), November 26, 2004.

This is how the rumors and the anti-Catholic sentiment develops. "I heard from a friend who said he saw this but he wasn't sure..." Before you know it, the Church is the devil.

-- brian (brian@brian.com), November 27, 2004.

no one is infallable even if the dogma "innefabbilis deus " states that the pope is infallible, i beleive there were bad popes. what about pope LeoX who started the st peter s pence who was a collection for st peter s church in rome, he and his cardinals sold indulgencies to poor people so that they could benefit from the profit. does someone consider this a good pope. exmple 2 the pope who was ruling the church during WW2 holocaust and everything, no pope opened his mouth. was he afraid of mussolini and hitler???

-- johann (johann@sus.com), January 23, 2005.