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John
Gratian took the name Gregory VI. He was not pope long, owing to a general
perception his payoff to Benedict amounted to the purchase of the papacy.
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ave you ever known a church whose pastor
was such a disgrace to the cloth that the congregation was willing to
agree to a costly severance package, just to get rid of him? That is what
happened in 1045 in Rome.
For more than twenty years, a single family had controlled the papacy.
When John XIX died in 1033, this family continued this control, putting
a young cleric on the papal throne recently occupied by two of his uncles.
He took the name Benedict IX. Everyone agrees that he was one of the worst-behaved
of all the popes, a disgrace to the Roman Church.
In 1036, the Romans said, "Enough is enough." A rival faction
drove Benedict out of Rome. Benedict ran to Emperor Conrad II and got
his protection. With Conrad's approval, he fought his way back into Rome.
The Romans resented Benedict's orgies. In 1044, they drove him out. In
his place, they elected John, Bishop of Sabina as pope. Benedict gathered
forces and fought his way back into Rome. He sent John back to Sabina.
But Benedict grew tired of being pope. Some writers say he had found
a woman he wanted to marry. So in 1045 he negotiated his resignation,
but told the church they had better make it worth his while. Archpriest
John Gratian paid him a nice chunk of money to go.
In doing this, Gratian was probably not buying the papacy, as
some critics claim, but rather paying a shameful character to vanish.
All the same, the deal looked bad when Gratian was elected pope on May
1, 1045, taking the name Gregory VI.
John of Sabina immediately claimed that he, not Gratian, was the true
pope. Benedict also changed his mind. This left three rivals for the papacy.
The new emperor, Henry III, decided he'd better cross the Alps and put
matters right. At the council of Sutri he dismissed all three men and
put Clement II in their place.
The last hadn't been heard from Benedict, though. When Clement died the
next year, Benedict seized Rome and tried to get his old job back. Fortunately
for the church, he was quickly driven out and replaced by a better man.
It seems that in the end Benedict grew ashamed of himself, repented and
went to live in an abbey where he died.
Resources:
- Brusher, Joseph. Popes Through the Ages. Princeton, N.J.:
Van Nostrand, 1959.
- De Rosa, Peter. Vicars of Christ; the dark side of the papacy. Dublin: Poolbeg Press, 2000, especially pp. 54ff.
- Mann, Horace K. "Pope Benedict IX" and "Pope Gregory
VI." The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton,
1914.
- Montor, Artaud de. The Lives and Times of the Popes. New
York: The Catholic publication society of America, 1910-11.
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