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Blackwing

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Hello everybody:)

There is something that read about concerning the papacy and i wish soomeone will clarify coming from a catholic viewpoint:)

Is it true that there was once a female pope? The book i read about(BTW its an awful book full of hogwash but this just caught my eye). It was said there that there was a female who disguised herself as a man and rose to the papacy. And there was a statue of her in the vatican but was torn down(i forgot who was the pope then)

Is this all true?Or just a bunch of baloney?

Thanks and God bless!!!!!!
 

Kotton

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Originally posted by Blackwing
Is it true that there was once a female pope? The book i read about(BTW its an awful book full of hogwash but this just caught my eye). It was said there that there was a female who disguised herself as a man and rose to the papacy. And there was a statue of her in the vatican but was torn down(i forgot who was the pope then)

The MYTH of Pope Joan comes up every so often. It's been debunked over and over. The listing of popes does not leave a time when she supposedly&nbsp; reigned. It fits with the rest of the 'hogwash' in the book.

Kotton :(
 
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Wolseley

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"Pope Joan". It's a fairy tale that got started in the mid-13th century, and re-appeared in myriad lurid forms until about the 17th century; it seemed to subside after that until it was taken up again as anti-Catholic ammunition by Protestant Fundamentalists in the early 20th century.

Broadly, the tale claims that a woman, disguised as a man, had gotten herself ordained as a priest and worked her way up to Cardinal, and was then elected Pope. On her way to the Vatican, however, she suffered an accident (in some accounts she is thrown from a horse, in others, she is in a carriage or a sedan chair that overturns) and gave birth to a child, whereupon the angry mob kills her. How a woman who is nine months pregnant can be mistaken for a man, I'm not sure, not to mention how she got to be pregnant in the first place and not have her impregnator tip off the Roman Curia about her ruse, but there you go. (As Bugs Bunny once said, "You can get away with anything in an animated cartoon.") :D

An excellent thumbnail account about the legend of "Pope Joan" can be found in the back of J.N.D. Kelly's informative book The Oxford Dictionary of Popes (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986; ISBN 0-19-282085-0.)
 
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VOW

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Although, if the woman carries the baby well, she could be mistaken for an overweight man.

Bah.

You make it sound like the way a woman's body handles the pregnancy is something a woman can CHOOSE. Each person is built differently, and what happens is what happens.

I happened to look like I swallowed a HOUSE when I was pregnant.

What gets ME is the woman who shows up in the Emergency Room with a belly ache and delivers a full-term baby. She says, "I never even knew I was pregnant!"

Come ON now! That kid tapdances on every single internal organ. By the last month, the ONLY position that might be comfortable is if Mom hangs from her toes by a ceiling rafter, like a bat.

You can't breathe, you can't walk, you can't eat, you can't sleep....but boyoboy, can you PEE.


Peace,
~VOW
 
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