Perspective on Religous History - PART 1 - The PAPACY
This thread is designed to put perspective on religious history, please try to only list events that are historically accurate (good faith efforts)
Also, this is not a bash the Papacy thread, which is why my first addition will be a Unpious pope who accomplished phenomenal acheivements
"Alexander VI, 1431?–1503, pope (1492–1503), a Spaniard (b. Játiva) named Rodrigo de Borja or, in Italian, Rodrigo Borgia; successor of Innocent VIII. He took Borja as his surname from his mother's brother Alfonso, who was Pope Calixtus III. Rodrigo became cardinal (1456), vice chancellor of the Roman Church (1457), and dean of the sacred college (1476). Cardinal Borgia had four illegitimate children by a Roman woman, Vannozza; among them were Cesare and Lucrezia Borgia. Alexander was elected by a corrupt conclave. The foreign relations during his papacy were dominated by the increasing influence of France in Italy, which culminated in the invasion of Charles VIII in 1494. Alexander prevented Charles from taking the church property in Rome, but he turned over to the French the valuable Ottoman hostage Djem, brother of Sultan Beyazid II. Alexander's son, Cesare Borgia, was the principal leader in papal affairs, and papal resources were spent lavishly in building up Cesare's power. For his daughter Lucrezia, Alexander arranged suitable marriages. The favoritism shown his children and the lax moral tone of Renaissance Rome as well as the unscrupulous methods employed by Cesare and other papal officials have made Alexander's name the symbol of the worldly irreligion of Renaissance popes. Girolamo Savonarola was an outspoken opponent and critic of Alexander. Recent studies tend to minimize the pope's immorality and stress his solid achievements as a political strategist and church administrator. It was Alexander who proclaimed the line of demarcation that awarded part of the new discoveries in the world to Spain, part to Portugal (see Tordesillas, Treaty of). Alexander was a munificent patron of the arts. He was succeeded by Pius III."
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2007, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
anything from stories of Pope's sons who liked to kidnap and gangbang nuns in Rome (yes, this is a true tale) to Leo I
440-461 AD
St. Leo I the Great
"He stared down Attila the Hun in 452 to prevent the sacking of Rome and later persuaded a Vandal king to spare the people. The first to rule that popes are successors to St. Peter with authority over all the faithful, "he established the pope as someone who could intervene in just about any affair," O'Malley says. He gave the "definitive teaching on the divinity and humanity of Christ," McBrien says."
http://www.usatoday.com/news/religio...al-popes_x.htm
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Originally Posted by Ummon
