How many popes is too many?
we’re gonna need a bigger vatican……
When I told my wife I was writing about pope stuff this week, it was as if I’d told her, “Hey, so I’m thinking about getting addicted to heroin.”
You see, this isn’t my first rodeo with pope stuff. The first time I entered the papal rabbit hole, it was right after I’d seen the movie Conclave and also right after Pope Francis got sick (the first time) and everyone was pretty sure he was about to die.
I said to myself, “I want to write about the history of the conclave and have it ready to publish the second he dies,” but since I was pretty sure “the second he dies” was going to be about five seconds later, I had to work very quickly.
So, I spent the following weekend devoting nearly every waking minute to researching and writing about pope stuff, convinced that Francis’s death was imminent, and then Francis proceeded to live for two more months.
But I still had all this pent-up papal passion from not being able to share the post, so I spent the entire duration of a Trader Joe’s shopping trip talking my wife’s ear off about pope stuff.
Understandably, she doesn’t really want to hear any more pope stuff, because she’s heard it all.
Or so she thinks!
While I’ve regaled her with tales of the conclave, she’s been blissfully unaware (until now) of the very weird phenomenon known as the year of three popes.
As the name suggests, this is when three different popes sit on the throne, all within the same calendar year. This isn’t exactly common, but it’s not unheard of either.
There have been twelve years of three popes throughout history, most recently in 1978 (plus one Year of Four Popes). History has seen more years of three popes than New York Jets playoff wins.
Today, we’re going to dive into these years of plentiful papacies to learn about the old Catholic men behind them and all the wild stuff they got up to. Buckle in!
827
Eugene II
We’re starting with a boring one, but I promise it’s about to go from 0 to 100 real fast.
Honestly, the most interesting thing about Eugene is that he was chosen as pope over a guy named Zinzinnus, which I think is kind of tragic. Imagine having a Pope Zinzinnus.
When Eugene was picked over Zinzinnus, time forked into two parallel dimensions and we are stuck in the worse of the two.
Eugene was succeeded in the papacy by a guy named Valentine, and rumor has it that Eugene was either Valentine’s father or lover. Scandalous either way!
Valentine
Possibly slept with his dad (see previous pope)
Gregory IV
Nothing interesting about this dude except for his wild hair:
896
Formosus
Formosus is primarily known for something that is completely insane even by papal standards, and that is the Cadaver Synod.
What is the Cadaver Synod? Oh, just that time when Pope Stephen VI decided to exhume the remains of one of his predecessors (Formosus), who had been dead for seven entire months, to put him on trial for, among other things, perjury.
Oh, right, that Cadaver Synod! Gotcha
Stephen lugged the dead body of Formosus into the papal court, dressed him up in his papal vestments, placed him on a throne, and asked him why he had “usurped the universal Roman See in such a spirit of ambition.”
And you know what Formosus said? NOTHING. As one writer put it, Formosus “remained stoically silent, as might be expected of a corpse.”
Unable to defend himself, Formosus was found guilty and his papacy declared null. They ripped off all his clothes, chopped off the three fingers he had used to bless stuff, and threw his body into the Tiber.
Actually, first they buried him in a graveyard for foreigners, then they decided that wasn’t a good enough punishment, so they dug him up again and THEN they threw him in the Tiber.
Eventually, his wet, rotting corpse was retrieved by a monk and it was rumored that even in this state, Formosus was still performing miracles.
Unsurprisingly, the people of Rome were like “sorry what the fuck?” and threw Stephen into prison, where he would later be strangled (lmao)
(If you want to read more about the Cadaver Synod, ’s Dirtbags Through The Ages has a fantastic post all about it.)
Suffice it to say, this was a very weird era for the papacy. In the span of about a century, there were 24 different popes, and in just the decade after Formosus died, they had about one new pope every year.
The death of Formosus also marked the beginning of a very weird 60-year period called “Saeculum obscurum” (literally “the dark age”), more funnily known as the Rule of the Harlots or the Pornocracy.
Basically, there was this one Roman family that had a ton of control over the papacy through political influence, family alliances, and sexual relationships.
There was a mother-daughter combo (Theodora and Marozia) who were particularly powerful during the Rule of the Harlots. Why were they so powerful?
It’s much more nuanced than this, but I’m choosing to sum it up as “they were fucking all the popes” even though, when I googled “were theodora and marozia fucking all the popes,” the google AI overview told me “this is a dramatic oversimplification.”
(Truthfully, they were only fucking some of the popes)
Boniface VI
Boniface had the second shortest papacy ever, at just 15 days.
Some say he died of gout, some say he was “forcibly ejected to make way for Stephen VI.” Either way, one thing is clear, according to a 16th-century papal historian: he was a “disgusting monster” guilty of adultery and homicide.
That’s popes for ya!
Stephen VI
Made a bishop by Formosus “possibly against his will,” whatever the hell that means
Died of strangulation in jail, as previously noted
897
Stephen VI
Again! Yes, 896-897 bears the unique distinction of being the only time there have been two Years of Three Popes back to back. Fun!
Romanus
Next up was Romanus, but not for long, because it’s said that “he was made a monk,” which means he was deposed and confined to a monastery (oops).
Theodore II
Pope Ted had the fourth shortest papacy (20 days), but it was a productive one!
His first and only order of business was getting everyone together to talk about the Cadaver Synod and how bad and uncool it was and how we should never do anything like that again.
Pope Ted said, “Hey can we maybe pump the brakes on this whole ‘putting corpses on trial’ thing?” and everyone agreed and there hasn’t been a single corpse put on trial by the pope since. Progress!
964
Leo VIII
Leo had a very complicated relationship with the concept of being the pope:
Benedict V
At one point, Leo was overthrown and Benedict was chosen as pope instead.
The people of Rome loved this. The people of Rome were like, “We love Benedict, we will always be loyal to Benedict. We will never abandon Benedict. We will protect Benedict against the Holy Roman Emperor, Otto, who hates Benedict.”
Otto heard about Benedict being elected pope and said, “oh absolutely not,” and proceeded to besiege Rome, sparking a famine in which a single modius of bran cost thirty denarii (!!). And I thought my grocery bill was out of control!
Because everyone was starving for bran, the loyalty oath that the Roman people had sworn to Benedict did not hold up. They all said to Otto, “You can absolutely have him if you give us some bran,” and he did, I assume, because Benedict stopped being pope.
John XIII
His grandma was Theodora, of Pornocracy fame
His nickname that he’d had since childhood was “the White Hen” due to his light colored hair
Were they making fun of him? I honestly can’t tell. Please chime in, people who were bullies when they were kids
1003
Sylvester II
Sylvester was an accomplished scientist and mathematician which is great for him, congrats Sylvester, but of course back in those days if you were good at math and science people thought you were practicing “dark arts” and that’s exactly what happened to Sylvester.
One legend has it that Sylvester won the papacy by playing dice with the Devil. Another legend accuses him of building a weird magical head contraption that did evil wizard stuff? I don’t really understand this thing.
John XVII
born John Sicco
His dad’s name? Also John Sicco
John XVIII
In my notes I just put down “I have nothing interesting to say about this man” so we’re just gonna move on
1045
Sylvester III
Unqualified to be pope
Overthrown and excommunicated
Benedict IX
This was actually Benedict’s second time being pope after first being elected at age 20, making him the youngest pope in history. Some sources say he may have been as young as 11 or 12 but this is unsubstantiated.
Benedict got elected the first time (right before Sylvester) because his dad bribed the Romans but then the Romans got mad about the bribery (presumably the ones who did not get bribed) and kicked him out of Rome.
His second time as pope, he overthrew Sylvester, as discussed, but then he quickly got bored of the papacy and decided he wanted to do something else instead.
Specifically, Benedict said, “You know what would be better than being pope? Marrying my cousin.” So he did tried to do that.
But before he hung up the papal robes, Benedict called his godfather and said, “Would you maybe wanna be pope? You’ll just have to reimburse me for the bribe money that my dad paid to the Romans,” and that’s exactly what his godfather did.
Gregory VI
After Gregory became pope, Sylvester came back to Rome and said, “actually? I’m still pope.” Benedict also came back to Rome and said “my cousin decided she didn’t want to marry me, so I would like to be pope again.”
The people of Rome collectively decided this was way above their pay grade, so they called Henry III, Holy Roman Emperor, to sort it all out.
Henry came to town and called a meeting where he told Benedict and Sylvester that neither of them were pope. Then, everyone turned their heads towards Gregory, who said, “Yeah, I bought the papacy, so what? It doesn’t constitute simony.”
Unfortunately for Gregory, everyone else said “ehhhh we’re pretty sure it does constitute simony though” so Gregory said “😡” and resigned the papacy.
The next pope was Clement II, handpicked by Henry after his first choice “refused the dangerous honor” of the papacy. Clement was only pope for about nine months and pretty much the only notable thing he did was make it harder for people to buy the papacy, which makes a lot of sense.
After Clement died, Benedict returned to become pope for a third time but was soon driven out of the city so a guy named “Poppo von Brixen” could become pope.
One historian later said of Benedict: "It seemed as if a demon from hell, in the disguise of a priest, occupied the chair of Peter and profaned the sacred mysteries of religion by his insolent courses.” In this context, “insolent courses” refers to all the sodomy, bestiality, and orgies that Benedict (allegedly) partook in, which I completely forgot to mention earlier (oops)
1187
I don’t have anything interesting to say about any of the three men who were pope this year (Urban III, Gregory VIII, Clement III), so why don’t you just take this opportunity to catch your breath before we move on to this next disaster of a pope.
…but actually, first, real quick, i need to mention:
1276
which was the Year of Four Popes, the only such occurrence in the history of the Catholic Church. I covered this in more detail in my conclave post, so please check that out if you’re interested!
okay, back to the terrible popes of the Middle ages
1503
Alexander VI
Alexander’s papacy got off to a great start with a truly staggering amount of bribery, even by corrupt old-timey papal standards.
The Wikipedia page for the conclave that elected Alexander goes through the cardinals one by one and lists exactly what they received as their bribe.
For most of them, the new pope was just like “i will give you this important office, i will make you the bishop of whatever” but one of them is just “i will give you one of my houses in Milan.” My favorite bribe here is “four mule-loads of silver.” I would do absolutely anything for four mule-loads of silver.
Circling back to that “most illegitimate children of any pope” thing, Alexander had three illegitimate children and he openly acknowledged all of them. He was not shy about it.
My favorite thing about Alexander’s papacy is that time his son (allegedly) threw an iconic dinner party called the “Banquet of Chestnuts,” or, alternatively, the “Joust of Whores.”
Suffice it to say, this was not your usual dinner party. In attendance was the pope, two of his kids, and “fifty honest prostitutes.”
After dinner, all the candles were taken from the tables and placed on the floor. Amidst the burning candles and dripping wax, “chestnuts were strewn around, which the naked courtesans picked up, creeping on hands and knees between the chandeliers.”
The party ended with prizes like shoes and silk tunics given out to “those who could perform the act most often with the courtesans.”
Imagine going to a party and having the most sex out of anyone there, and then being rewarded with a pair of new shoes. The Renaissance sounded awesome.
Now, it’s not 100% confirmed that this party actually happened. Several sources attest to some sort of “social event” occurring on this date, but there’s obviously a huge difference between “a party happened” and “a 50-prostitute-strong orgy happened and they did this weird shit with chestnuts.”
The only detailed account of the Banquet of Chestnuts comes from a guy who apparently did not like the pope and his family very much, but also, he was not known for exaggerating and he was the pope’s official Master of Ceremonies at the time of the party, so I kinda trust him. Also, I really want this story to be true so I’m choosing to suspend my disbelief in honor of the orgy.
Anyway, when Pope Alexander died, the Venetian ambassador stated that his body was "the ugliest, most monstrous and horrible dead body that was ever seen, without any form or likeness of humanity,” and I can only hope that similar things are said of me when I perish from this Earth.
Pius III
Pius was pope for only 27 days and is part of the proud papal tradition of “popes who probably would have actually been very chill and not insane but died basically right away.”
Immediately after being elected, he said, “I do not intend to be a warlike, but a peace-loving pope.” Then he died. Next!
Julius II
Julius hated Alexander and his entire family (the Borgias) and thought they were terrible disgusting freaks, so he said "I will not live in the same rooms as the Borgias lived,” and he was so serious about it that he sealed off the Borgia Apartments and they remained sealed for nearly 400 years, not being opened until 1889.
These apartments were sealed for longer than the United States has been a country! Imagine what they must have smelled like after all that time! (actually, don’t)
Julius was quite the character himself. He personally led troops into battle on at least two occasions, earning himself nicknames like the Warrior Pope, the Battle Pope, the Fearsome Pope, or, in Italian, “il papa terribile.”
It’s speculated that Julius chose his papal name not in honor of Pope Julius I, but of Julius Caesar.
After Julius died, the Dutch theologian Erasmus absolutely tore him a new one in his story “Julius Excluded from Heaven.” In the story, a drunken Julius shows up at the gates of Heaven with all the soldiers who died fighting on his behalf and whom he promised would get into Heaven no matter what they did on Earth.
Julius demands to be let in, essentially saying, “Do you know who I am?” and threatening St. Peter with excommunication if he does not obey.
His threats do not work, so Julius says, “Fine, I’ll go start my own Heaven, and someday we’re gonna come back and conquer your Heaven.”
1555
Julius III
Keeping with the tradition of scandalous popes named Julius, this guy barely tried at being pope.
He mostly just threw parties at his awesome villa, and he would occasionally come out to attempt a reform or two. His Wikipedia page says his papacy was spent “mostly devoting himself to a life of personal pleasure,” and I was like “hell yeah that’s awesome, that’s my kind of pope,” and I was really quite fond of this guy until I read the next part of his Wikipedia page.
Julius III is perhaps best known for something called “the Innocenzo scandal,” in which Julius’s brother adopted a teenage beggar, described as “illiterate but vivacious and good-looking” (same).
Upon becoming pope, Julius immediately made his adoptive nephew a cardinal and was maybe perhaps also having sex with him.
Innocenzo was a very powerful figure during Julius’s papacy despite being totally unqualified, which made a lot of people mad. But guess what? This whole “making your unqualified nephew a cardinal” thing was actually super common back then. There’s a whole Wikipedia page about these cardinal-nephews.
Popes in the olden times LOVED making their nephews into cardinals. For a few centuries there, it was actually weird if you didn’t make your nephew into a cardinal.
Here comes the most fun fact in the entire post: the word “nepotism” originally referred specifically to popes making their nephews into cardinals (nepos is Latin for nephew).
Congrats, you read far enough to find the cool nepotism fact. Now you’re ready to go out into the world and share your fun new nepotism fact with everyone. You know that party/board game night/miscellaneous social function you’re going to this weekend/next weekend/eventually? Tell everyone at the party about how nepotism was invented. You will be the belle of the ball because of this nepotism fact. Thanks for reading :)
At least 15 popes were once cardinal-nephews, including Benedict IX (the three-time pope) and all three of the popes from 1503 (Alexander VI, Pius III, Julius II).
Unrelated, but does anyone know if our new Pope Leo is looking for a hot dumb young man to sleep with? Asking for a friend. I look great in red btw :)
Marcellus II
Marcellus is the most recent pope who chose to keep his birth name as his papal name instead of choosing something else. And can I be honest? He should have picked something else (sorry to all my readers named Marcellus)
Marcellus was really excited to make a positive impact as pope, but after the exhausting experience of the conclave and his coronation, combined with the daily stresses of being pope, he simply got so tired that he became sick and died. Next!
Paul IV
Okay, Paul did one thing that I think is kinda funny but then the rest of it is trash. One very strange idea and then the rest is “one of the worst popes ever, in my humble opinion”
Paul decided that begging was not cute and that everyone in the church should stop doing it, and this included the collection basket at church. And this is so wild to me because, as someone who has only been inside of a church like four times in the past decade, the collection basket is one of the main things I associate with the experience.
And the idea of the Catholic Church, of all people institutions, being like, “actually, please don’t give us money” is insane to me, just with how off-brand it is. Like genuinely did Paul IV bonk his head right before he told the laity to keep their wallets/coin purses in their pockets?
Anyway, this guy sucked. Paul’s sins include, but are not limited to:
Persecuting the Jewish people of Rome, forcing them into a ghetto, encouraging Christians to treat them as second-class citizens, and requiring that they wear distinctive yellow hats identifying them as Jews
Banning all books written by Protestants
Canceling Michelangelo’s allowance and ordering him to modify The Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel so that the naked people were not naked anymore (Michelangelo ignored him)
Fast forward to 1559, and Paul is now sick and realizing he is about to die. When the people of Rome caught wind of this, they were so excited that they all got together and started rioting even before Paul took his last breath.
The rioters found a statue of Paul and placed a yellow hat on its head, just like the ones he’d forced Jews to wear. They then held a mock trial, decapitated his statue, and threw it into the Tiber where it belonged.
Paul’s family was so afraid that the rioters would break into the Sistine Chapel and desecrate his corpse that he was quickly buried, within a day of his death and without ceremony. Good!
1590
Sixtus V
First and foremost, to answer the question I know is on all of your minds – no, there has tragically not been a Sixtus VI. And I don’t understand why not? None of these popes have realized how awesome “Sixtus the Sixth” would sound? how well it rolls off the tongue? Cmon…..
Like, Sixtus #1 really took a leap of faith choosing that name. He did so with the hope and the trust that five others would eventually follow in his footsteps to give us a Sixtus 6. And every single pope since 1590 has let him down. Sad!
Anyway, Sixtus had a busy papacy. He took a real “tough on crime” approach to dealing with mischief in his lands, by which I mean “there were more heads on spikes across the Ponte Sant'Angelo than melons for sale in the marketplace.”
Also, clergy and nuns were killed if they had sex. Ouch!
Sixtus had his very own “Infrastructure Week,” in which he repaired a bunch of buildings, built a new aqueduct, and instructed his architect “to re-plan the Colosseum as a silk-spinning factory housing its workers” (as far as I can tell, the Colosseum is not a silk-spinning factory today).
Once, Sixtus was taken to a church in Rome to see a cross that was supposedly miraculously bleeding, but he called bullshit right away, by which I mean he took an axe (it’s not specified where he got the ax from) and said "As Christ I adore you; as wood I cut you” and split the cross down the middle. Inside, it was revealed that it contained blood-soaked sponges.
I really wanna see the hot new pope Leo do something as ballsy as this. Like I wanna see him go visit someone who claims to have found the Virgin Mary burned into their grilled cheese sandwich and I want Leo to show up and just take a bite out of it. I want him to be so dead set on taking a bite out of the sandwich before he even shows up that he brings a thermos of tomato soup with him. In this way he would earn my respect.
Anyway, Sixtus was also a little too ambitious in the area of foreign affairs. His wishlist included annihilating the Turks, conquesting Egypt, and transporting the Holy Sepulchre to Italy.
He also quarreled with foreign leaders, including Henry IV of France, whom he excommunicated, and Elizabeth I of England, whose excommunication he renewed.
However, Sixtus also had some friends, including Philip II of Spain, and this was a great friendship because the thing they had most in common was that they both hated Elizabeth I of England.
One day Philip II of Spain said to Sixtus “hey i’m thinking of doing the spanish armada” and Sixtus said “wait you’re thinking of going to overthrow the queen of england and make all the english people catholic again?” and Philip said “yup, and can we have one million ducats for that?” and Sixtus said “sure, i’ll give you 0% now and 100% when you actually land your fucking ships in england, ya big galoot” *bonks on head with wooden club* and Philip said “ok thanks we’re excited for england to be catholic again” and Sixtus said “yeah me too i’m excited to hear how it goes” and it went really poorly.
As I was researching for this post, I said to myself out loud in an empty house, “Welp, I guess I gotta learn what the Spanish Armada was” and this was my best attempt at summarizing it for you, so I hope that was helpful.
Anyway, in preparation for a successful invasion, Sixtus had a cardinal write the treatise “An Admonition to the Nobility and People of England and Ireland” and it was honestly really mean.
The treatise said that Elizabeth was "known for [being] an incestuous bastard, begotten and born in sin of an infamous courtesan Anne Boleyn." The treatise was later described by a historian as "vituperative billingsgate" which has gotta be the most British thing I’ve ever heard in my entire life.
Urban VII
***Beep beep beep! Shortest papacy ever alert!!!! Only 13 days!!!!!***
Once again, we have an example of a pope who was awesome but died about five seconds after his fellow cardinals decided he could be God’s best friend.
Pope Urban subsidized bakeries in Rome so they could sell bread at lower prices, and he restricted spending on luxury goods for members of his papal court.
He also banned nepotism within the Roman Curia and created the world’s first known public smoking ban, threatening to excommunicate anyone who used tobacco products in or near a church.
After he died, Urban’s entire estate was donated to a Catholic charity to be used as dowries for poor young girls.
Gregory XIV
I’m pretty sure Gregory did not want to be pope. I say this because the day after he was elected pope, he burst into tears and said to the cardinals, "God forgive you! What have you done?”
Gregory also had an unfortunate tendency to start laughing when he was nervous. Sometimes, he was unable to stop himself from laughing, and much to Gregory’s dismay, one of those times was during his coronation.
“Haha, oops”
-Gregory, probably
1605
Clement VIII
Clement was the first pope to drink coffee, a beverage which was previously denounced as “Satan’s drink.”
One day, Clement’s advisors came to him and said, “Can you please tell everyone that drinking coffee will make them go to hell?” and Clement said “well, at least let me try it first,” which then led to him saying, "Why, this Satan's drink is so delicious that it would be a pity to let the infidels have exclusive use of it.”
Coffee became very popular among Catholics after this.
(If you want to learn more about the art and science of coffee (and bread!), you should be reading Flour & Coffee by .)
Leo XI
Leo died less than a month into his papacy after he got way too cold and way too tired at a ceremony he attended, which caused him to develop a fever.
He did this whole “dying a completely avoidable death simply from being old and staying outside for too long” about a quarter-millennium before William Henry Harrison made it cool.
Paul V
Paul was both a friend and an enemy of scientific progress, in that he said to Galileo, “Can you please not go around telling everyone that the Earth orbits the Sun?” but he also said, “I won’t arrest you even if you do tell everyone that the Earth orbits the Sun.”
So, everyone had to wait for Paul to die before they could arrest Galileo for telling everyone that the Earth orbits the Sun.
One fun thing that Paul did as pope was “decide he wanted to exert more control over Venice,” but unfortunately for Paul, Venice said “no thanks” so Paul said, “fine, I’m excommunicating your entire government and placing an interdict on the city.”
When the newly excommunicated Venetian government got together to talk about this, one of their lawyers, Paolo, said, “I’m pretty sure he’s not allowed to intermeddle in civil matters?” and everyone was like, “yeah, what Paolo said.”
So, the Venetian government came back to Paul and said, “actually? we only recognize god’s authority, and last time we checked your name is not god.”
So, Venice kept doing church stuff in direct defiance of the interdict and this made Paul so angry that he almost fought a war over it, but eventually France and Spain came along and said “Can you guys stop fighting? We hate it when you fight”
And they did. Interdict lifted!
Everyone in Venice said “hell yeah!” and they all high-fived Paolo, the guy who came up with the idea of disobeying the pope, and this made Paul really angry, so he said “im gonna fucking kill that guy.”
So Paul texted Paolo and said “come to rome, i have a surprise for you” and Paolo was like “lol no” so Paul sent assassins to kill Paolo and they stabbed him three times but Paolo survived, and Paul, presumably, got even angrier.
1978
Paul VI
Paul VI is famously the pope who most closely resembles a Keebler elf, in my humble yet very qualified opinion.
During the conclave that elected Paul, some cardinals tried really hard to block his election, which led to a deadlock. This caused one of Paul’s friends to freak out and start yelling at all the cardinals to stop blocking his election and please let his friend be pope.
Paul, not wanting to cause a ruckus, started to stand up so he could tell everyone not to vote for him, but then another one of his friends pulled him back into his seat, telling him, "Eminence, shut up!”
Paul’s papal coronation in 1963 was the last ever papal coronation (they do inaugurations instead now).
Paul was also the first reigning pope to travel in an airplane and to visit the Western Hemisphere.
John Paul I
Growing up, John Paul’s teachers thought he was “too lively,” and he would later go on to be known as “the Smiling Pope,” so this tracks.
A few years before becoming pope, John Paul published “To the Illustrious Ones,” a collection of letters he wrote to historical and fictional characters, such as Charles Dickens, Jesus Christ, and Pinocchio.
I was only able to track down a few of these letters online, but thankfully one of them was the letter to Pinocchio, so I’m happy to be able to share the below excerpts:
He opens with “I was seven years old when I read your Adventures for the first time. I couldn't tell you how much I liked them nor how many times I have read them again since then. The truth is that in you, boy, I recognized myself; in your atmosphere, my atmosphere.”
“And if one day you have a girlfriend … respect her. Defend her from yourself. Do you want she keeps intact for you? Very well, but keep yourself in the same way for her and do not pay attention to certain friends who tell their ‘feats,’ boasting and thinking they are ‘machos’ due to their adventures with women.”
Before the conclave that elected him, John Paul told his friends that if he got elected pope, he would turn it down.
In response, one of his friends and fellow cardinals said to John Paul, “You will be the new pope,” to which I’m guessing John Paul said “Did you not hear what I literally just said??”
Anyway, he got elected and felt like he had no choice but to accept, but he wasn’t happy about it and he made sure all the other cardinals knew it.
You see, after a cardinal passes the two-thirds majority threshold needed to win election as pope, he is asked by the dean of the College of Cardinals, “Do you accept your canonical election as Supreme Pontiff?” Usually the response to this is a simple, “I accept,” but John Paul said, "May God forgive you for what you have done.” (yikes)
When John Paul’s friend from earlier (the one who said “You will be the new pope”) came to congratulate him on becoming pope, John Paul said to him, "You were a prophet, but my reign will be a short one."
And it turns out they were both prophets because John Paul was right, and he died about a month later.
(The nuns who found him thought it was a prank: “Your Holiness, you shouldn’t pull these jokes on me”)
John Paul II
Things Pope John Paul II got hit by growing up
A tram
A lorry in a quarry
A truck driven by Nazis
Also – the dude released two albums?
I was gonna make a joke about how he’s probably the pope with the most Spotify listeners, but it turns out Pope Francis also dropped an album, and it’s a lot better.
Most of the songs are pretty much exactly what you would expect for pope music but this one has some sick guitar riffs
One critic gave this rave review: "Musically, the album is similar to but more animated than what one would hear during a yoga class or massage session."
And this is where the post very abruptly ends! That’s all the years of three popes there have ever been!
If you liked this, you should subscribe, and I will send you something just like it next week.
Thanks for reading!
If you enjoyed this piece, consider tossing me a few bucks (I will spend it on snacks)
Finally, someone who writes the way I think. (Only funnier.) Love these scattershot posts. Yes there's a thread to them but they are never constrained by linear thought. Who would have thought an atheist would enjoy reading about the papacy. Well done, Rabbit.
God these are such a joy to read! I learn so much with a big grin on my face the whole time.