# Does the Papacy un-Pope past bad Popes? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 17, 2016, 10:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-papacy-un-pope-past-bad-popes/774918 "2016-12-17T10:31:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2016, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-papacy-un-pope-past-bad-popes/774918/21 "2016-12-18T16:55:22Z")
> [@Saintly\_Loser](#): > > It should be noted that the sedevacantists (and their close cousins, the Lefebvre-ists, and all the other “radical traditionalists”) are a tiny, tiny minority of crackpots, and not taken seriously by anyone.\* > … > [@Saintly\_Loser](#): > > … > The Siri theory might be taken seriously by as many as a couple of dozen people in the whole Catholic world. I have no knowledge beyond what wiki has told me today. FWIW wiki asserts there are tens to hundreds of thousands of adherents to some variation of sedevacantism. In a ~1 billion member church, even 100,000 is a very small percentage. But it’s vastly more than “a couple dozen”. ---
**Author:** ![Saintly\_Loser](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saintly_loser/32/4045_2.png) [@Saintly\_Loser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saintly_Loser)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2016, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-papacy-un-pope-past-bad-popes/774918/22 "2016-12-18T18:03:49Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > I have no knowledge beyond what wiki has told me today. FWIW wiki asserts there are tens to hundreds of thousands of adherents to some variation of sedevacantism. In a ~1 billion member church, even 100,000 is a very small percentage. But it’s vastly more than “a couple dozen”. I was being a little sarcastic when I said “dozens,” and actually I was referring to those who believe that Cardinal Siri was elected Pope, not John XXIII. But still, I’m surprised. I would have thought the Lefebvrists (the Society of St. Pius X) might have a few thousand adherents. But the sedevacantists? I’m amazed that there are that many. I’ll have to look at the Wiki article and see what its sources are. I guess if you add up every Catholic who is upset by the vernacular Mass and other post-Vatican II reforms, you might come up with tens of thousands, or even 100,000. But those are the traditionalists, the Latin Mass types, who are not necessarily sedevacantists. Again, I am surprised. ---
**Author:** ![Bill\_Door](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@Bill\_Door](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bill_Door)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2016, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-papacy-un-pope-past-bad-popes/774918/23 "2016-12-18T19:24:15Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > What’s the speed of Darkness? Faster than light, that’s for sure. Somebody once said that whenever light arrives the darkness is already there waiting for it. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2016, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-papacy-un-pope-past-bad-popes/774918/24 "2016-12-18T20:05:19Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > Thanks for that link. As a heathen I don’t follow RCC internal politics even a little bit; there’s more than enough secular politics for all of us here on Earth just now. Even as a heathen 😉 , you might be interested in Andrew Greeley’s book, “The Making of the Popes 1978.” It’s a fascinating study of electoral politics in the College of Cardinals in the elections of JP I and JP II. ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2016, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-papacy-un-pope-past-bad-popes/774918/25 "2016-12-18T20:23:29Z")
Fascinating stuff about the sedevacantists, **Northern Piper** , and your info on Formosus, **Captain Amazing** , lived up to your surname. BTW I didn’t really expect that they would erase Popes from the historical records in Stalin fashion, but I did wonder how Catholic theologians reconciled a Pope like John XII being elected with the doctrine of the College of Cardinals being infused by the Holy Spirit to guide them in their choice of Pope. It seems unlikely that a member of the Trinity would goof but perhaps to err is divine as well as human. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2016, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-papacy-un-pope-past-bad-popes/774918/26 "2016-12-18T20:29:29Z")
The traditional answer is that God has to act through humans, and sometimes humans do not listen to God, or consciously disobey God. That’s what Original Sin is about. But the traditional answer is also that no matter how fallible the humans in the church may be (or even in extreme cases, actually evil), God will not let the Church fall for ever. Yes, Tolkien was very Catholic - why do you ask? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2016, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-papacy-un-pope-past-bad-popes/774918/27 "2016-12-19T05:14:16Z")
OP variant with ex-post-facto declared “bad” Bishops: > [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > I can see Catholic reasoning going as follows–and I use the _argumentum ad Hitlorum_ differently than its canonic [heh] definition: just because (a) Hitler promulgated anti-smoking, built highways, etc., the decrees are not invalidated. , Along these lines, and its doctrinal argument/position reduced to its simplest form, was at the root as a discreet case in Catholic doctrine, after assuming political form–was the bishop consecrated by a sinning bishop a faithful executor and bona fide bishop–and exponentiated to one of the most challenging heresies of the early Church: Donatism and its various, sometimes armed sects in the fourth and fifth centuries. It essentially separated the North African community from the Roman one permanently, despite the impassioned efforts of St. Augustine backing up the papal thunderbolts and those of Constantine himself, equally under threat from the schismatics. [Short story](https://www.carm.org/donatism), from a current-day source of Catholic _apologia_. [Slightly longer, but with cites, story](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donatism), from Wiki. [Long story](http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05121a.htm), from The Catholic Encyclopedia. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2016, 11:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-papacy-un-pope-past-bad-popes/774918/28 "2016-12-19T11:32:56Z")
> [@Bill\_Door](#): > > Faster than light, that’s for sure. Somebody once said that whenever light arrives the darkness is already there waiting for it. Pterry, IIRC. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2016, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-papacy-un-pope-past-bad-popes/774918/29 "2016-12-19T12:48:07Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > … > Along these lines, and its doctrinal argument/position reduced to its simplest form, was at the root as a \*\*discreet \*\*case in Catholic doctrine … Bolding mine. Discrete. As a logophile you surely appreciate the significance of the difference. ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2016, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-papacy-un-pope-past-bad-popes/774918/30 "2016-12-19T12:54:59Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > What’s the speed of Darkness? > [@Bill\_Door](#): > > Faster than light, that’s for sure. Somebody once said that whenever light arrives the darkness is already there waiting for it. Not at all. It’s obviously -C ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2016, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-papacy-un-pope-past-bad-popes/774918/31 "2016-12-22T17:10:45Z")
Here’s the Perfect Master on some of the bad Popes (after discussing the supposed “Pope Joan”): [Was there once a female pope? - The Straight Dope](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/432/was-there-once-a-female-pope) ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2016, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-papacy-un-pope-past-bad-popes/774918/32 "2016-12-22T18:06:13Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > Here’s the Perfect Master on some of the bad Popes (after discussing the supposed “Pope Joan”): [Was there once a female pope? - The Straight Dope](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/432/was-there-once-a-female-pope) I’ve always been very disappointed that the story of a special chair for new Popes after Pope Joan was a myth. The story was that the elected Pope would sit in the chair, which had a hole in the seat, and each Cardinal would come along, feel the Pope’s testicles, and declare, _Testiculos habet et bene pendentes_, which loosely translated is, _He has balls and they hang well_. As the Italians say, _se non è vero, è ben trovato_, even if it isn’t true it’s a great yarn! Apparently the chair was real, but its actual function was different from what the legend says. And actually, it seems to have been three chairs: one “commode”-type seat, and two porphyry “pierced” chairs. > [@](#): > > In Misconceptions About the Middle Ages (page 66-7; ed. Harris and Grigsby), a description is given of the chairs’ function in papal coronations: > > ``` > The alleged manual examination of the papal claimant's genitalia, performed by a junior deacon through a [sic] opening in the papal chair, aimed, of course, to guard against the election of another woman Pope. ... By 1406, the humanist Jacopo d'Angelo ... denies in his report of the coronation of Gregory XII that such a rite existed, and accounts for the false belief along largely correct lines by explaining the meaning of function of various chairs in the coronation ritual: one chair at the Lateran, called the sedes stercoraria [which means "dung chair" or "toilet"], on which the Pope sits to remind him "that he rises out of clay and dung," that is, that he is subject to the failings of our human nature; and two porphyry seats in the Chapel of San Sylvester (which, because they are pierced, Jacopo says, "the common people tell the senseless fable that someone touches him as he sits to prove that he is indeed a man"). Seated in the latter, the Pope receives, respectively, the papal staff and keys (i.e., the power to govern, granted by Christ to Peter) and a red belt hung with twelve precious stones (invoking the Old Testament priesthood). The two porphyry chairs had first been noted in the investiture of Paschal II in 1099, as found in the Liber Pontificalis. ... The "stercory chair" was eliminated from the rite of investiture in 1560, while the two pierced chairs were last used in the accession of Leo IX [sic; that should be Leo X] in 1513. One was taken from the Vatican by Napoleon after the Treaty of Tolentino and is now in the Louvre; the other is still in the Vatican Museum. > > ``` Above comes from [Christianity.stackexchange.com](http://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/19552/were-the-medieval-popes-examined-on-a-toilet-lid-like-chair-to-establish-their-m) ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2016, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-papacy-un-pope-past-bad-popes/774918/33 "2016-12-22T19:17:07Z")
> [@aldiboronti](#): > > Fascinating stuff about the sedevacantists, **Northern Piper** , and your info on Formosus, **Captain Amazing** , lived up to your surname. > > BTW I didn’t really expect that they would erase Popes from the historical records in Stalin fashion, but I did wonder how Catholic theologians reconciled a Pope like John XII being elected with the doctrine of the College of Cardinals being infused by the Holy Spirit to guide them in their choice of Pope. It seems unlikely that a member of the Trinity would goof but perhaps to err is divine as well as human. 🙂 Well, the sedevacantists are a kinda side issue, since they dont think the "not a pope Popes’ were _Bad_, just that the sedevacantists didnt like their politics. ---
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2016, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-papacy-un-pope-past-bad-popes/774918/34 "2016-12-22T20:53:22Z")
As a Catholic, I find the word “Un-Pope” to be wholly inappropriate. How about “Depontificate?” Or “Depapify”? ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2016, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-papacy-un-pope-past-bad-popes/774918/35 "2016-12-22T21:34:20Z")
I was kind of wondering about that too. Not that it’s inappropriate one way or another, but what, if any, the word is in Catholic discipline. Similarly, un-Bishop and down the line. Is “defrock” a term of art? ---
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2016, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-papacy-un-pope-past-bad-popes/774918/36 "2016-12-22T21:45:53Z")
I think the phrase you are liking for is “Byeshop”. ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2016, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-papacy-un-pope-past-bad-popes/774918/37 "2016-12-22T21:52:19Z")
> [@Raguleader](#): > > As a Catholic, I find the word “Un-Pope” to be wholly inappropriate. > > How about “Depontificate?” Or “Depapify”? As a non-Catholic I too found it unsatisfactory. I just couldn’t quickly come up with an alternative. Retroactively unseat may have been a better, if clunkier, term. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2016, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-papacy-un-pope-past-bad-popes/774918/38 "2016-12-22T21:57:03Z")
The Master Speaks: > **[Was there once a female pope?](https://www.straightdope.com/21341608/was-there-once-a-female-pope)** ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2016, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-papacy-un-pope-past-bad-popes/774918/39 "2016-12-22T23:20:31Z")
> [@Raguleader](#): > > I think the phrase you are liking for is “Byeshop”. Nice typo. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2016, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-papacy-un-pope-past-bad-popes/774918/40 "2016-12-22T23:26:19Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > …It essentially separated the North African community _from the Roman one_ permanently, despite the impassioned efforts of St. Augustine backing up the papal thunderbolts and those of Constantine himself…[ital added] This sounds, and is, wrong, if ultimately true (i.e. more than truthy, but less than helpful): the thunderbolts came from…Constantinople. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-papacy-un-pope-past-bad-popes/774918.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-papacy-un-pope-past-bad-popes/774918.md?page=3)