History of the Papacy

[bleedingheart]

Only in recent history has the Papacy actually tried to live up to the image it tries to project to the rest of the world. The current Pope John Paul II is very conservative and as far as I know, there haven't been any illegitimate children reported and the office of the Pope no longer holds the control over nations it used to....

However..as far as I have read the Popes were typically the pawns of those benefactors that brought them to power. For instance, Henry VIII could not obtain a divorce from his wife Catherine due in part to the fact that the Pope was held firmly in the hands of King Charles of Spain , aka the Holy Roman Emperor, who was also Catherine's nephew.

I have read some about the Borgia popes and to be honest I find it interesting that many find it horrifying that Lucrezia Borgia may have been a willing pawn in her father's games and have tried to portray her as innocent...personally I doubt that she was so innocent of the power plays her father and brother were participating in...

http://www.crimelibrary.com/borgia/borgialucrezia.htm

So anyone else interested in this topic?

[Mist]

1. I would love to find a "papal history" NOT written by the Church

As it is, I've encountered various popes while reading about a given era, and it's obvious most of them were major power players, and quite corrupt. Hardly "vicars of Christ" ! But a well-researched history of the papacy and the various popes has eluded me so far.

[bleedingheart]

2. Agreed, the Church isn't too keen on exposing their

treasure trove of information to anyone who isn't part of their fold. Imagine the stuff they have stored away especially the personal papers of the previous pontiffs...

[Mist]

3. Yes, tantalizing info indeed

But a really dedicated researcher/historian could still do a good job of reconstructing various papacies from other materials.

[onager]

4. Sort of on topic for you, maybe...

(Hey Lulu! I grew up in SC.)

Two books by Barbara Tuchman: A Distant Mirror and The March Of Folly.

The first is a history of the 14th Century, when one Pope sat in Rome and another in Avignon, each cheerfully excommunicating all of the other's followers. And STILL nobody caught onto the scam. (Sorry for the snark, I'm an atheist.) It's not a papal history of the times, but the story of the Dueling Popes is covered in detail.

The second is an inquiry into why nations willingly act against their own best interests. (And it's a shame Tuchman didn't live long enough to write about the Iraq cluster-Cheney.)

One long section in March Of Folly describes how the 16th-century Popes provoked the Protestant Reformation by their own greed and arrogance. (The other sections deal with Britain losing its American colonies, and the U.S. in Vietnam.)

David I. Kertzer's The Popes Against The Jews: an example of an author who DID get to the primary sources. Kertzer was given access to the Vatican's previously "secret" files. He traces the long, sorry history of anti-Semitism in the Catholic Church, using sources which include the official Vatican and Jesuit newspapers. (Where did the Jews first have to wear gold stars to identify them? In the Papal States...)

Finally, a wild card: The Story Of Stupidity by James F. Welles. A sort of general history of human stupidity, from the ancient Greeks to modern times.

You can check out the Welles book online, here: http://www.stupidity.com/story1final/