Popes in Conflict: Strife, Intrigue, and Blood in Papal History
The papacy is often portrayed as a line of holy men leading the church in unity and purity. History tells a far different story. Across centuries, the papal throne became one of the most contested seats in Europe. It was not simply a spiritual position but a political one, ruling over land, treasuries, and armies. That fusion of sacred authority and temporal rule drew the papacy into the same web of intrigue and bloodshed that defined medieval and Renaissance politics.
The Papacy as a Political Power
From the early Middle Ages, popes governed large territories known as the Papal States across central Italy. The Bishop of Rome held both spiritual and civil authority, controlling fortresses, taxes, and foreign alliances. Roman noble families, including the Crescentii, Tusculani, and Orsini, treated papal elections as political contests. German emperors marched into Rome to install or remove popes, and French kings sought to dominate the papacy from Avignon. When a crown of gold controlled armies and wealth, election intrigue often turned to violence.
The Cadaver Synod and the Struggle for Legitimacy
In 897, Pope Stephen VI staged the Cadaver Synod, one of the most macabre events in papal history. He ordered the corpse of his predecessor, Formosus, exhumed, dressed in papal robes, placed on a throne, and put on trial. The court declared Formosus guilty, cut off the blessing fingers of his right hand, and threw the body into the Tiber River. Soon after, Stephen VI was overthrown and strangled in prison. This gruesome spectacle revealed how far political hatred could reach in the struggle for legitimacy.
Murder and Intrigue in the Dark Century
The tenth century was filled with papal assassinations and coups. Pope John VIII was poisoned and then clubbed to death when the poison failed. Benedict VI was imprisoned and strangled by Roman nobles, while the antipope Boniface VII, who usurped the papal throne, fled Rome with the treasury, later returned, and died violently. Pope John XIV was imprisoned in Castel Sant’Angelo and either starved or poisoned. Boniface VII’s corpse was later dragged through the streets by an enraged crowd. These events came from hostile chronicles, yet their consistency reveals a pattern of imprisonment, usurpation, and murder surrounding the papal office.
Noble Families and Papal Control
Rome’s aristocratic families often dominated papal selection. Some chroniclers accuse Pope Sergius III of having his predecessors Leo V and Christopher killed in prison. Whether true or exaggerated, such stories reflect the brutal reality of the time. The papacy had become a political prize fought over by armed factions rather than a calling to spiritual service.
The Investiture Controversy
By the eleventh century, reforming popes like Gregory VII sought to free the papacy from imperial control. The resulting Investiture Controversy pitted popes against emperors over the right to appoint bishops and church leaders. When Emperor Henry IV attempted to depose Gregory, he was excommunicated and forced to beg for absolution. Yet the conflict resumed, and Henry later invaded Rome, driving Gregory into exile. Gregory VII died at Salerno, far from the city he once ruled. The struggle revealed that the papacy’s claim to spiritual independence was inseparable from political warfare.
Rival Popes and the Western Schism
From 1378 to 1417, Europe endured the Western Schism, when multiple men simultaneously claimed to be pope. One line ruled in Rome, another in Avignon, and later a third arose in Pisa. Each claimant excommunicated the others and sought the backing of kings. Urban VI, the Roman pope, tortured and executed cardinals he accused of treason. The schism shattered the moral authority of the papacy and ended only when the Council of Constance deposed or accepted the resignation of all claimants, electing Martin V as the sole pope.
Warrior Popes and the Renaissance
Renaissance popes became princes and generals. Julius II, known as “the Warrior Pope,” personally led armies to expand papal territory, marching at the head of soldiers in armor. Later, in the seventeenth century, the Wars of Castro saw papal forces destroy a rebellious duchy. These campaigns displayed the papacy’s transformation into a secular monarchy that justified violence for divine authority.
Methods of Power
Throughout papal history, familiar instruments of conflict reappeared. Excommunication destroyed reputations. Imprisonment in Castel Sant’Angelo silenced rivals. Poison and strangulation ended inconvenient lives. Dead bodies were mutilated to erase legitimacy. Councils were convened to justify victory after the fact. The throne of Peter had become the battleground of European politics.
The Legacy of Reform
Centuries of bloodshed eroded the illusion of papal holiness and produced reform movements. The Council of Constance introduced conciliarism, asserting that councils could overrule popes. The later Protestant Reformation directly attacked the corruption of Rome, citing its violent history as proof of doctrinal decay. The Catholic response, the Council of Trent, attempted moral reform and clerical discipline. Yet the scars remained.
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Pauline Review: Why the Body of Christ Is Not a Religion
From a Pauline perspective, these centuries of papal conflict reveal what happens when men turn faith into a system of religious authority. The Body of Christ, revealed through the apostle Paul, is not a religion. It is a living organism of believers united by grace, not a hierarchy governed by ritual and rule. Religion seeks earthly power, visible position, and carnal glory. The Body of Christ seeks none of these things.
Paul never taught the building of an empire or the elevation of one man as the head of the faith. He wrote that “Christ is the head of the body, the church” (Colossians 1:18), and that all believers are “complete in him” (Colossians 2:10). When men replaced this spiritual unity with offices, vestments, and political crowns, they departed from Paul’s revelation of grace. The papacy rose from the blending of prophecy and law with pagan power, not from the mystery revealed to Paul.
The history of papal intrigue is therefore not the story of the Body of Christ but of religious ambition. In Paul’s message there are no thrones, armies, or priestly mediators. There is one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus (1 Timothy 2:5). When the so-called church exchanged that truth for ceremonies and titles, it became another kingdom of this world. Religion must always defend itself with power and force because it cannot produce faith by grace.
The Body of Christ operates under a different order. Its citizenship is in heaven, not in Rome. Its authority is Scripture, not councils. Its unity comes through the gospel of Christ’s finished work, not through decrees or traditions. Paul warned that “men shall arise speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them” (Acts 20:30). The bloody history of the papacy is the fulfillment of that warning.
Understanding this distinction shows why the Body of Christ cannot be identified with any religious institution. It is not a system of temples, relics, or rituals but a fellowship of believers saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. Religion built kingdoms and killed rivals. Grace builds nothing but believers, making them members of one spiritual body sealed by the Spirit and hidden with Christ in God.
Where religion claims authority over others, grace proclaims liberty. Where religion erects a throne on earth, grace points to heavenly places in Christ. The papal history of conflict is a monument to what happens when men forsake Paul’s pattern and return to the kingdoms of men. The Body of Christ stands apart from all of it, anchored not in power or politics but in the mystery revealed to Paul, where Christ is all and in all.