Posted on 06/22/2015 6:31:38 PM PDT by ebb tide
None of those popes publically taught heresy.
Did any of them teach the literal drinking of Christ’s Blood in the Passover remembrance with His disciples? Did any of them teach that Mary carried God in her womb?
And SOME of that LOOSING power is applied to FINGERS at times!
Pope Stephen VI (896–897), who had his predecessor Pope Formosus exhumed, tried, de-fingered, briefly reburied, and thrown in the Tiber.[1]
Pope John XII (955–964), who gave land to a mistress, murdered several people, and was killed by a man who caught him in bed with his wife.
Pope Benedict IX (1032–1044, 1045, 1047–1048), who "sold" the Papacy
Pope Boniface VIII (1294–1303), who is lampooned in Dante's Divine Comedy
Pope Urban VI (1378–1389), who complained that he did not hear enough screaming when Cardinals who had conspired against him were tortured.[2]
Pope Alexander VI (1492–1503), a Borgia, who was guilty of nepotism and whose unattended corpse swelled until it could barely fit in a coffin.[3]
Pope Leo X (1513–1521), a spendthrift member of the Medici family who once spent 1/7 of his predecessors' reserves on a single ceremony[4]
Pope Clement VII (1523–1534), also a Medici, whose power-politicking with France, Spain, and Germany got Rome sacked.
So? Petrine authority and papal infallibility are not the same as impeccability. Peter himself had to be rebuked by both Jesus and Paul yet he was the one to whom Jesus said “feed my sheep”; he is still regarded as an apostle. If we were to reject Catholicism because some popes were notorious sinners then we would have to reject Christianity itself because of all the notorious sinners. Do you claim that you are without sin?
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