Nopes

Hello. Welcome to the Weekend Gene Pool, temporary residence of maniacs and libertines.

Since we have a new pope, one who is an American, everyone is speculating on how good he will be. Will he take on Donald Trump? Is he Woke? Will his raving lunatic MAGA-nut brother influence him unduly?

Relax. He could be worse. Much worse.

It’s a low bar. Below, for your entertainment, is a chronicle of the worst popes in history.

—

Pope John XII (AD 955-964) is said to have expired after being thrown out of a window by a man who caught him in bed with his wife. That’s one account. It might be apocryphal. Another is far kinder: That he died of a stroke while in bed with a married woman, and is said to have been punished on the spot by the Devil who hammered him on the temple in horror over his numerous depravities.

—

Pope Alexandre VI:

In fourteen hundred and ninety-two / Columbus sailed the ocean blue / While pope Alexandre, number six / Got his kicks. / He was a Borgia / And as to sex, he was a gorger.

Yes, Alex was considered the most licentious pope, which is quite an achievement. He was also the father of Lucretia Borgia, the noted serial poison murderer. Alex had a bunch of kids, publicly, with at least six mistresses and then installed them all — the kids, not the mistresses — in key positions of power.

Also, he liked to watch horses have coitus. Also, he looked like a cross between Jon Lovitz and a potato.

—

Apocrypha alert: Many years ago I read a story in the Detroit Free Press about bad popes — one was a prankster pope who got his jollies by surreptitiously serving his cardinals raw monkey meat. I cannot confirm this — it does not appear to be on the Web — but I believe it and so am reporting it here, in this august journalism site with very loose rules. Monkey meat also gives you firehose diarrhea.

—

Pope Benedict IX (1032-1050 AD) bought and sold the papacy three times to enrich himself. He was pope three times.

—

Pope Stephen VI (896-897) exhumed the body of his predecessor, pope Formosus, to put him on trial for apostasy and other dreadful things. Formosus’s rotting body — he’d been dead nine months — was propped on a throne as he was tried as pope Stephen shouted unanswerable questions at it, accusing him of blasphemy and such. Here is a very accurate painting of the scene, which was called “The Cadaver Synod”:

The dead pope was declared guilty- surprise! —and his body was sentenced to have three fingers from his right hand amputated, and his body was flung into the Tiber River. Later, however, the body was recovered from the river and given a proper burial by Formosus’ followers. Stephen VI was later imprisoned and strangled to death by Formosus’ supporters.

—

Pope Paul III (1534-1549) is said to have impregnated his granddaughter. This may be untrue — it is debated — but he definitely had four illegitimate children, several of whom were apparently NOT mothered by his granddaughter.

—

Pope Bonerface Boniface VIII (AD 1294) once said that pedophilia was no more problematic than “rubbing one hand against the other.”

Pope Urban VI (1378-1389) ordered the ghastly killings of cardinals who plotted against him, and is said to have griped that their screams weren’t loud enough.

—

I’m kind of done for the day here, but inasmuch as this is the Weekend Gene Pool, I have to ask you a question. Here it comes. Please send your questions and observations here.

Who is the worst person you ever met? And why? No, Donald Trump is not a valid answer, because you probably never met him. I will republish this particular anecdote from a story I wrote a few years ago, during the 2020 presidential campaign, from someone who actually did meet Trump, an Episcopal priest named Janet Vincent:

It turned out she has met Trump. Had dinner with him once, in the early 2000s.

She was the rector of a congregation in White Plains, N.Y. He was licensing his name to a tower there, and Vincent’s church ran a nearby shelter for women in crisis: victims of domestic abuse, substance abuse, women recently out of prison, homeless women desperately needing a place to stay. Trump wanted the shelter moved so that it was nowhere near his building. Vincent refused. There was a dinner meeting, arranged by a sympathetic real estate developer, to show her that Trump wasn’t such a bad guy. And there was a phone call afterward. At one point, she recalls, Trump was apparently unaware he was on speakerphone and told someone else on the call that he didn’t want “those pussies anywhere near my building.” He discovered he’d been overheard when Vincent chimed in indignantly.

When I contacted the White House for comment, I wasn’t sure what to expect. The source was obviously reputable. She was on the record, and reporting a first-hand experience. Trump’s objection to the women’s shelter became public at the time; it had gotten into the newspapers. I thought I’d probably get a terse “no comment.”

I should have known better. Politically, this is wartime. White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany referred my question to Tim Murtaugh, communications director for the Trump campaign. His emailed response, in its entirety: “This is a totally made up, fake story that never happened.”

My final question to the Rev. Vincent: Given everything, is forgiveness really possible?

“My faith orients me toward faith in the future. The future is God, drawing us to a more hopeful world where reconciliation and justice prevail. But it’s just a Pollyanna pie in the sky unless you do the hard work of transformation, our ability to see the other as fully human. I’m not denying difference, or promoting melting-pot theory. Assimilation is not what we want to see. We want to see a celebration of our individual uniqueness.”

“I want to forgive him. To some extent I can see a hurt, desperate human being behind all that bluster. So, yes.”

I asked her about the comment from Michael Caputo, a Trump aide, saying that if Trump loses the election, “the shooting will begin. ... If you carry guns, buy ammunition, ladies and gentlemen, because it’s going to be hard to get.”

“We will need heroes and heroines,” Vincent said. “People who rise up and say, ‘No, we can’t do this.’ ... That’s what would give us a hope of salvation.”

—

Today’s Gene Pool Gene Poll:

Good. See you in a day or two, when I will publish a brilliant original poem about my dog.

If you want to read it you have to be a paid subscriber.

Hint.

—