Pope Alexander VI - A doomed pope?

[Bob Crowley]

Pope Alexander VI was one of the most corrupt popes to hold the sea of Peter.

Pope Alexander VI - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Alexander is one of the most controversial of the Renaissance popes, partly because he acknowledged fathering several children by his mistresses. As a result, his Italianized Valencian surname, Borgia, became a byword for libertinism and nepotism, which are traditionally considered as characterizing his pontificate.

Of Alexander's many mistresses, one of his favourites was Vannozza dei Cattanei, born in 1442, and who was married to three different men. The relationship began in 1470, and she had four children whom the pope openly acknowledged as his own: Cesare (born 1475), Giovanni, afterwards duke of Gandia (commonly known as Juan, born 1474 or 1476), Lucrezia (born 1480), and Gioffre (Goffredo in Italian, born 1481 or 1482).

Rodrigo only legitimized his children after becoming pope. He had pretended that his four children with Vannozza were his niece and nephews and that they were fathered by Vannozza's husbands.[53] G. J. Meyer argued that the birth dates of the four children in comparison with Alexander's known whereabouts preclude him from having fathered any of them. His "acknowledgement" merely consisted of addressing them as "beloved son / daughter" in correspondence (while applying the same address to, e.g., Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile in the same letter).[3]

Another mistress was the beautiful Giulia Farnese ("Giulia la Bella"), wife of Orsino Orsini. Giulia was mother of Laura Orsini, born in 1492, probably daughter of Alexander. However, he still loved Vannozza and his children by her. Caring for them proved the determining factor of his whole career. He lavished vast sums on them. Vannozza lived in the Palace of a late Cardinal, or in a large, palatial villa. The children lived between their mother's home and the Papal Palace itself.[36]

I was reading a passage from Butler's "Saint of the Day" last night. For the 18th June it was "Blessed Osanna of Mantua", who lived from 1449 to 1505. Alexander was Pope from 1492 to 1503, towards the end of her life.

The passage stated "She was deeply distressed by the state of the Church under the dissolute Borgia Pope Alexander VI and prayed to Our Lady and the saints for his salvation, but ti seems that he was beyond even their intercession, for "God ever kept motionless, with aspect and countenance of wrath, and he gave no reply to anyone who prayed; not to the Madonna, not to the apostles, not to my soul".

It would appear that as far as God was concerned, Alexander VI was finished - doomed if you like. Being Pope was no guarantee of God's favour.

 

[The Liturgist]

Pope Alexander VI was one of the most corrupt popes to hold the sea of Peter.

Pope Alexander VI - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I was reading a passage from Butler's "Saint of the Day" last night. For the 18th June it was "Blessed Osanna of Mantua", who lived from 1449 to 1505. Alexander was Pope from 1492 to 1503, towards the end of her life.

The passage stated "She was deeply distressed by the state of the Church under the dissolute Borgia Pope Alexander VI and prayed to Our Lady and the saints for his salvation, but ti seems that he was beyond even their intercession, for "God ever kept motionless, with aspect and countenance of wrath, and he gave no reply to anyone who prayed; not to the Madonna, not to the apostles, not to my soul".

It would appear that as far as God was concerned, Alexander VI was finished - doomed if you like. Being Pope was no guarantee of God's favour.

Indeed. There were Popes as bad as Alexander VI; for example, the 10th century Pope who put on the gruesome spectacle of the Cadaver synod, and then we have Honorius I who was actually anathematized by the Sixth Ecumenical Synod (in the 16th century a grimoire psuedepigraphical attributed to him was circulated due to his notoriety as the only Pope of Rome deposed as a heretic by an ecumenical council recognized by the Roman Catholic CHurch).

But for every Alexander VI there have been great Bishops of Rome, like St. Clement, St. Victor, St. Celestine, and St. Gregory the Dialogist, and more recently St. Pius X, St. John Paul II and Blessed Benedict XVI, who should be canonized (or as we say in Orthodoxy, glorified) for his contributions to the liturgical life of the church and to traditional Catholic morality.

 

[Joseph G]

Pope Alexander VI was one of the most corrupt popes to hold the sea of Peter.

Pope Alexander VI - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I was reading a passage from Butler's "Saint of the Day" last night. For the 18th June it was "Blessed Osanna of Mantua", who lived from 1449 to 1505. Alexander was Pope from 1492 to 1503, towards the end of her life.

The passage stated "She was deeply distressed by the state of the Church under the dissolute Borgia Pope Alexander VI and prayed to Our Lady and the saints for his salvation, but ti seems that he was beyond even their intercession, for "God ever kept motionless, with aspect and countenance of wrath, and he gave no reply to anyone who prayed; not to the Madonna, not to the apostles, not to my soul".

It would appear that as far as God was concerned, Alexander VI was finished - doomed if you like. Being Pope was no guarantee of God's favour.

The papistry is doomed no matter the latest personality, as it is not, nor never was, ordained by God. It's fruit bears such witness, especially in it's utter defiance to the will of the Father and the commands of His Son.

"The ones who obey Me, love me." - Jesus

Prayers up.

biblegateway.com

 

[Bob Crowley]

Indeed. There were Popes as bad as Alexander VI; for example, the 10th century Pope who put on the gruesome spectacle of the Cadaver synod, and then we have Honorius I who was actually anathematized by the Sixth Ecumenical Synod (in the 16th century a grimoire psuedepigraphical attributed to him was circulated due to his notoriety as the only Pope of Rome deposed as a heretic by an ecumenical council recognized by the Roman Catholic CHurch).

But for every Alexander VI there have been great Bishops of Rome, like St. Clement, St. Victor, St. Celestine, and St. Gregory the Dialogist, and more recently St. Pius X, St. John Paul II and Blessed Benedict XVI, who should be canonized (or as we say in Orthodoxy, glorified) for his contributions to the liturgical life of the church and to traditional Catholic morality.

A Catholic friend who is unfortunately no longer with us said to me once that a Fr. Leslie Rumble used to have a Catholic radio show (in Australia anyway). I'd never heard of him as I don't listen to radio (being hard of hearing and I'm not interested in a lot of the rubbish), and he died long before I became Catholic. But obviously my older friend had heard of him and he was a practising Catholic all his life.

Fr. Leslie Rumble

Father Leslie Rumble (1892-1975) was an Australian convert and priest who in the first half of the twentieth century became one of the best-known Catholic apolo...

www.catholic.com

If my memory serves me correctly my friend said that Fr. Rumble commented there were seven popes who could be called truly bad or evil. But he also said that Christ hand picked twelve men and one of them betrayed him.

Fr. Rumble died in 1975. By that time there had been 262 popes, and apparently out of about 260 popes seven were evil. That's one in 37, which means the church has had more success picking good men for pope than Christ did with one in twelve.

As a matter of interest we had a young lady promote "Vision Christian Radio" at a mass recently. Once again I don't listen to radio, but I may try it sometime.

Vision Christian Radio

Discover Vision Christian Radio—bringing you biblical teaching, uplifting worship, and faith-filled encouragement 24/7. Tune in and grow in faith today.

vision.org.au

 

[Bob Crowley]

The papistry is doomed no matter the latest personality, as it is not, nor never was, ordained by God. It's fruit bears such witness, especially in it's utter defiance to the will of the Father and the commands of His Son.

"The ones who obey Me, love me." - Jesus

Prayers up.

biblegateway.com

I take it we have your infallible judgement on that matter, having set yourself up as judge and jury on the Catholic Church?

 

[The Liturgist]

The papistry is doomed no matter the latest personality, as it is not, nor never was, ordained by God. It's fruit bears such witness, especially in it's utter defiance to the will of the Father and the commands of His Son.

That’s nonsense, since it wasn’t until the ninth century that problems with the Roman episcopate became in evidence, which began the process which led to the schism with Rome in 1054, but by the 1550s conditions had greatly improved, but by then you had Protestants falsely associating the bishop of Rome with the anti-Christ, ignoring all of the good Popes of the early church who had been completely uncontroversial, such as St. Celestine, St. Gregory the Great (the Dialogist), St. Victor, St. Sixtus, St. Julius, both martyrs, St. Clement, St. Damasus and so on. None of these early popes claimed Papal supremacy (the one time Archbishop Victor tried to influence a church outside of Roman jurisdiction, he was rebuked by St. Irenaeus the Bishop of Lyons), and Canons 6 of Nicaea, which was agreed to by all 318 bishops present, including two Roman legates, declared that the churches of Alexandria and Antioch had the same privileges in their jurisdiction that Rome enjoyed, and Canon 7 granted those practices to the newly restored Church of Jerusalem (which had been in abeyance since the ruination of most of the city and the expulsion of most Jews from Judaea, following the failed Bar Kochba revolt in 130 AD (led by a false messiah), until the city was rebuilt under Emperor St. Constantine, specifically by his Christian mother St. Helena, who led what could be regarded as the first archaeological expedition.

 

[Joseph G]

I take it we have your infallible judgement on that matter, having set yourself up as judge and jury on the Catholic Church?

Not me, Bob.

The Word Himself - the Person of Jesus Christ.

Found right here and in sincere prayer:
biblegateway.com

Be blessed!

 

[The Liturgist]

Not me, Bob.

The Word Himself - the Person of Jesus Christ.

Found right here and in sincere prayer:
biblegateway.com

Be blessed!

Nothing Christ said condemns all the leaders of the Roman church; I say this as an Orthodox Christian who has serious objections to RCC doctrine.

By the way what is your connection with BibleGateway.com?

I usually use BibleHub.com for quick lookups as it has more versions available.

 

[Valletta]

Not me, Bob.

The Word Himself - the Person of Jesus Christ.

Found right here and in sincere prayer:
biblegateway.com

Be blessed!

That is something we share--it is also the Catholic way to establish a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.