Rome, True to Form

The sex scandals of Roman Catholic priests are nothing new. Volumes could be written detailing the immorality, abhorrently vile lives of not just the priests, but of their own pope.

Pope Sergius III who reigned between 904 and 911 obtained the office of his pontificate by murder. The records of the Catholic Church tell about his life of open sin with Marozia who bore him several children. The Cardinal Baronius described pope Sergius III as a “monster” while Gregorovius called him a “terrorising criminal.” The grandson of Marozia, when merely eighteen years old succeeded in taking possession of the pontifical throne under the name of John XII.

In his book The Priest, the Woman, and the Confessional, Chiniquy, the former Catholic priest, on p. 138 writes:

“In the year 936, the grandson of the prostitute Marozia, after several bloody encounters with his opponents, succeeded in taking possession of the pontifical throne under the name of John XII. But his vices and scandals became so intolerable, that the learned and celebrated Roman Catholic Bishop of Cremorne, Luitprand, says of him:- “No honest lady dared to show herself in public, for the Pope John had no respect either for single girls, married women, or widows - they were sure to be defiled by him, even on the tombs of the holy apostles, Peter and Paul.”

The Catholic Encyclopedia itself admits the following facts concerning the monster pope John XII:

“a coarse, immoral man, whose life was such that Lateran was spoken as a brothel, and the moral corruption in Rome became the subject of general odium…On 6 November a synod composed of fifty Italian and German bishops was convened in St. Peter’s: John was accused of sacrilege, simony, perjury, adultery, and incest, and was summoned in writing to defend himself. Refusing to recognize the synod, John pronounced sentence of ex-communication against all participators in the assembly, should they elect in his stead another Pope…John XII took bloody vengeance on the leaders of the opposite party, Cardinal-Deacon John had his right hand struck off, Bishop Otgar of Speyer was scourged, a high Palatine official lost nose and ears…John died on 14th May, 964, eight days after he had been, according to rumor, stricken by paralysis in the act of adultery.”

The Catholic collection of the lives of popes, the Liber Pontificalis states concerning John XII the following: "He spent his entire life in adultery” [Pontificalis, Vol. 2, p. 246].

The pope Benedict IX who reigned from 1033 to 1045 was made pope when merely twelve years old. Halley, in his Halley’s Bible Handbook on p. 775 says concerning this pope the following:

“He committed murders and adulteries in broad daylight, robbed pilgrims on the graves of the martyrs, a hideous criminal, the people drove him out of Rome.”

The Catholic Encyclopedia states: “He was a disgrace to the chair of Peter.”

The pope Boniface VIII, is described in the Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 2, on pp. 668-669, art. Boniface VIII, in the following manner:

“Scarcely any possible crime was omitted - infidelity, heresy, simony, gross and unnatural immorality, idolatry, magic…historians, generally, and even modern Catholic writers class him among the wicked Popes, as an ambitious, haughty, and unrelenting man, deceitful and also treacherous, his whole pontificate one record of evil.”

During the reign of Boniface VIII, the poet Dante visited Rome and described the Vatican as a sewer of corruption. The Catholic historians admit that Boniface VIII spoke offensive phraseology on the public documents. The pope Boniface VIII also publicly declared the following:

“to enjoy oneself and to lie carnally with women or with boys is no more a sin than rubbing one’s hands together” [History of the Church Councils, Book 40, art. 697].

Now this monster of a man was in fact the very pope who in 1302 issued a well known UNAM SANCTUM which officially declared that the Roman Catholic Church is the ONLY TRUE CHURCH - outside of which there is no salvation. His declaration is embraced by the faithful flock of Romanism to this very day. The pope John XXIII was another monster who set on the alleged chair of St. Peter. Chiniquy in his book The Priest, the Woman, and the Confessional on p. 139 gives us the following information regarding this monstrous Holy Father:

“John XXIII, having appeared before the Council to give an account of his conduct, he was proved by thirty-seven witnesses, the greater part of whom were bishops and priests, of having been guilty of fornication, adultery, incest, sodomy, simony, theft, and murder. It was proved also by a legion of witnesses, that he had seduced and violated 300 nuns. His own secretary, Niem, said that he had at Boulogne, kept a harem, where not less than 200 girls had been the victims of his lubricity.”

A Vatican record offers this information in relation to his wicked, immoral and monstrous reign:

"His lordship, Pope John committed perversity with the wife of his brother, intercourse with virgins, adultery with the married, and all sorts of sex crimes…wholly adverse to the life and teaching of Christ…he was publicly called the Devil incarnate” [Sacorum Conciliorum, Vol. 27, p. 663].

The pope Alexander VI is regarded as most wicked and corrupt of the Renaissance popes. He lived in public incest with his two sisters and his own daughter Lucretia, from whom he had a child. In October 1501 he conducted a sex orgy in the Vatican, the equal of which for sheer horror was probably never duplicated in the annals of human history. The Protestant Reformer Martin Luther, while still a Catholic priest, visited Rome. As he caught the glimpse of the seven-hilled city, he fell to the ground and said:

“Holy Rome, I salute thee.”

He did not have to spend much time in Rome - that is, in Vatican where the pope was situated - to find out that Rome was anything but a Holy City. He soon discovered that iniquity and immorality existed among all classes of the clergy. He discovered that many priests told indecent jokes even while serving at the Mass. The papal court was served at supper by Twleve naked girls. He was shocked and dumbfounded. He used to chastise himself and even whip himself when he committed minor sins. But here at the heart of Vatican, in the presence of pope himself - nudism was rampant. [For verification of this story please see Durant, The Story of Civilization, Reformation, p. 344]. Pope Gregory XVI who reigned from 1831 to 1846 had several mistresses, one of whom was the wife of his barber. He was one of the greatest drunkards in Italy. Pope PIUS IX who reigned from 1846 to 1878 also had several mistresses. Two daughters were born to him from two of his mistresses. It is hardly surprising that the popes, cardinals, bishops, priests etc. were and still are guilty of such gross illicit sexual acts. They are nothing more than the priests of Bacchus. Chiniquy writes:

“However, nobody can be surprised that the priests, the bishops, and the popes of Rome are sunk into such a bottomless abyss of infamy, when we remember that they are nothing else than the successors of the priests of Bacchus and Jupiter. For not only have they inherited their powers, but they have even kept their very robes and mantles on their shoulders, and their caps on their heads. Like the priests of Bacchus, the priests of the Pope are bound never to marry, by the impious and godless law of celibacy. For every one knows that the priests of Bacchus were, as the priests of Rome, celibates. But, like the priests of the Pope, the priests of Bacchus, to console themselves for the restraints of celibacy, had invented auricular confession. Through the secret confidences of the confessional, the priests of the old idols, as well as those of the newly-invented wafer gods, knew who were strong and weak among their penitents, and under the veil of the sacred mysteries, during the night celebration of their diabolical mysteries, they knew to whom they should address themselves, and make their vows of celibacy an easy yoke.”