The Last Antipope-

[kql314]

The following is an excerpt from my recent column on the Taber's Truths Christian news website, discussing the unique and relatively unknown "antipopes":





There have been 30 “antipopes” within the long history of the Roman Catholic Church. Amadeus of Savoy (or “Felix the 5th”) was the 30th, and last, “antipope” from 1440-1449. The first antipope was Hippolytus in the 3rd century.
What exactly is an antipope? It is someone who, for one reason or another, claims to be the legitimate leader of the Catholic Church- but is not. They usually later on becomes nothing more than a historical footnote. This is very different than the term ”Antichrist”, which is a figure from the future End Times who leads many in the world away from God and the Church. There are some Evangelicals today and in recent history who believe that the Pope is, or will be, the Antichrist. That is another discussion, but it is possible that some are confused with the terms antipope and Antichrist. Others believe the earthly leader of the Catholic Church is predestined to be the Antichrist via prophetical verses in the Books of Daniel and Revelation. (This columnist does not believe that the Catholic Pope is or ever will become the Antichrist.)
How can someone illegitimately claim to be the Pope? To answer that we have to answer how the Pope is actually selected.


Read more http://taberstruths.com/the-last-antipope-felix-the-5th/
Read more at http://taberstruths.com/the-last-antipope-felix-the-5th/#t1fqkXOJojJp48mK.99

Please read the rest of the article, and feel free to post your own thoughts and comments. Thank you.

 

[pshun2404]

I like it...but then this makes the Medicis anti-popes because they bought their positions and even if later elected/appointed the election was based on and determined from this money based usurpation of authority (especially Leo X). A mammon based and determined papacy would have to be an anti-papacy would it not?

Paul

 

[pshun2404]

Leo X (Medici)

His father had exacted his son’s appointment as cardinal deacon through his cousin Innocent VII by donating great sums of money. Now Leo was well educated (one of his instructors was the humanist Pico De Mirandolla) I admit. He was a smart and rich man. But when elected as pope he had not even ever have been a priest so they quickly ordained him as a priest, followed by ordaining him as a Bishop, and then elected him pope all within 1 week (unheard of and not appropriate according to Catholic rule). At once he began permitting all sorts indulgences and absolutions for a price, to any who gave money for the building of St. Peter’s Basilica.

His cousin Innocent Vii who set this all in motion was himself a man given to all sorts of inappropriate lusts (including sex with boys) which was revealed and preached against by the monk Girolamo Savonarola, who loved Christ and the Church and remained faithful to Roman Catholicism all his life, but for accusing the Church’s then corrupt authorities he was publicly silenced and put away. His one extant work The Triumph of the Cross is very revealing and you should read it. So Innocent himself was not innocent. The devil and the Holy Spirit cannot dwell in the same tabernacle and these behaviors and the approval of and turning ones eye to them in Bishops and others is not now, was not then, of God. The apostolic succession had clearly been broken at least by Innocent VII. The essence of the claim to apostolic succession was the passing on of the Holy Spirit by the laying on of hands and this man absolutely did not have it. He was not one of God’s children and I for one do not believe Leo X was either.

Paul

 

[Albion]

There are several anti-popes right now.

 

[kql314]

Hello- Good conversation and thoughts.
Who are the current antipopes, in your view? As far as I know there is only 1 man who is claiming to be the Pope, and he is the Pope. ??
Anyhow, I am not necessarily a papal scholar- and Yes you can find a number of examples of non-adequate men who have served as Pope. But keep in mind there have been 266 RC popes, or at least 266 "Bishops of Rome".
Given the fallen nature of man, there will certainly be some of those men who had serious issues and committed some grave sins.

There are leaders of Protestant and/or Evangelical groups who have also been caught in serious sin, are there not?

You cannot take sin out of the Church, as long as men and women are the church, and lead the Church on Earth.

Best to you,
Ken

 

[pshun2404]

Amen Ken! Definitely not all the popes were bad men...

Paul

 

[Albion]

Who are the current antipopes, in your view? As far as I know there is only 1 man who is claiming to be the Pope, and he is the Pope. ??

Oh no. Last I knew, there were three of them at least, each of course having his own College of Cardinals, and all the rest that goes with the Papal office. One is "Pius XIII" but I've forgotten the names of the others.

They are just not as significant as the run of anti-popes back in the fifteenth century.

You cannot take sin out of the Church, as long as men and women are the church

I have said the same thing several times lately on one forum or another.