# 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:** 11\ **Page:** 3
**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, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-papacy-un-pope-past-bad-popes/774918/41 "2016-12-22T23:29:04Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > Nice typo. A typo is when you mean to type one thing and type another. That was not that. That was simply a bad pun. šŸ˜› ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2016, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-papacy-un-pope-past-bad-popes/774918/42 "2016-12-22T23:51:11Z")
The typo was ā€œlikingā€ for ā€œlookingā€. ---
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2016, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-papacy-un-pope-past-bad-popes/774918/43 "2016-12-23T00:03:34Z")
_blink_ _scrollscrollscroll_ Well. Would you look at that? Good catch. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2016, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-papacy-un-pope-past-bad-popes/774918/44 "2016-12-23T00:12:07Z")
> [@aldiboronti](#): > > Iā€™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 Popeā€™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 ĆØ vero, ĆØ ben trovato_, even if it isnā€™t true itā€™s a great yarn! I wonder how that would have worked had there ever been a Pope-elect who had been castrated. That was a thing for a while by some early priest & religious monks to show that they were really devote & celibate. It had been common for the priesthood in some other, pre-Christian religions. Possibly thatā€™s why it went out of favor in the Church; by the time of the Council of Nicaea voluntarily-castrated males could not become priests (those forcebily castrated by enemies or as slaves by their masters still could). ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2016, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-papacy-un-pope-past-bad-popes/774918/45 "2016-12-23T01:16:22Z")
IIRC, Jewish law prohibits castrated priests (even involuntarily-castrated ones). ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2016, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-papacy-un-pope-past-bad-popes/774918/46 "2016-12-23T01:21:20Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > Indeed. > > The _sedevacantists_ take the position that Pius XII was the last legitimate pope and that John XXIII was not duly elected. They believe that the conclave after Piusā€™s death originally elected a much more conservative cardinal as Pope, but liberals cardinals and the Curia suppressed that election and made John XXIII the apparent pope. > > Since John XXIII was not truly pope, all of his actions were illegitimate. > > Vatican II, convened by John, was heretical and pulled the church away from the true faith. All of the Councilā€™s ā€œreformsā€ were therefore heretical. > > All the cardinals supposedly appointed by John, including cardinal Montini, were also illegitimate, since John was not truly Pope. > > Therefore Cardinal Montini was not a true cardinal and should not have been ā€œelectedā€ by the conclave after John died. > > Therefore all cardinals that Montini appointed when he was said to be Pope Paul VI were also illegitimate. > > Therefore all subsequent conclaves, composed primarily of cardinals appointed by John and Paul, were without authority. > > Therefore John Paul I, John Paul II, Benedict XVI and Francis were not duly elected ed and were all heretics and not pope. > > And so on ā€¦ > > [Sedevacantism - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sedevacantism) Ignoring, as conspiracy theories do, an important detail; it really does not matter if Montini was a cardinal - any man is qualified to be pope. (ā€œHave a seat here and demonstrate your qualificationsā€¦ā€) Montini was more than qualified. I guess the debate - unprovable now - was whether the vote was a majority of the ā€œlegitimateā€ cardinals. (He created 52, including a flurry of 23 the first year). > [@](#): > > Only twice in his pontificate did Pius XII hold a consistory to create new cardinals, in contrast to Pius XI, who had done so 17 times in as many years. Pius XII chose not to name new cardinals during World War II, and the number of cardinals shrank to 38, with Dennis Joseph Dougherty of Philadelphia being the only living U.S. cardinal. The first occasion on 18 February 1946ā€”which has become known as the ā€œGrand Consistoryā€ā€”yielded the elevation of a record 32 new cardinals, almost 50 percent of the College of Cardinals and reaching the canonical limit of 70 cardinals.[98] In the 1946 consistory, Pius XII, while maintaining the maximum size of the College of Cardinals at 70, named cardinals from China, India, the Middle East and increased the number of Cardinals from the Americas, proportionally lessening the Italian influence.[99] > > In his second consistory on 12 January 1953, it was expected that his closest co-workers, Msgrs. Domenico Tardini and Giovanni Montini would be elevated[100] and Pius XII informed the assembled cardinals that both of them were originally on the top of his list,[101] but they had turned down the offer, and were rewarded instead with other promotions.[102] The two consistories of 1946 and 1953 brought an end to over five hundred years of Italians constituting a majority of the College of Cardinals.[103] > > With few exceptions, Italian prelates accepted the changes positively; there was no protest movement or open opposition to the internationalization efforts ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2016, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-papacy-un-pope-past-bad-popes/774918/47 "2016-12-23T02:40:06Z")
> [@aldiboronti](#): > > Iā€™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 Popeā€™s testicles, The chair wasnā€™t to test for testicles, but rather to make sure he has a proper bishoprickā€¦ ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2016, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-papacy-un-pope-past-bad-popes/774918/48 "2016-12-23T03:53:41Z")
> [@dtilque](#): > > The chair wasnā€™t to test for testicles, but rather to make sure he has a proper bishoprickā€¦ šŸ˜ƒ ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2016, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-papacy-un-pope-past-bad-popes/774918/49 "2016-12-23T05:11:03Z")
> [@md2000](#): > > Ignoring, as conspiracy theories do, an important detail; it really does not matter if Montini was a cardinal - any man is qualified to be pope. (ā€œHave a seat here and demonstrate your qualificationsā€¦ā€) Montini was more than qualified. I guess the debate - unprovable now - was whether the vote was a majority of the ā€œlegitimateā€ cardinals. (He created 52, including a flurry of 23 the first year). The ā€œmainstreamā€ sedevacanists donā€™t claim that John XXIII was falsely elected in place of the real pick Siri. Thatā€™s Malachi Martin, as was mentioned. They draw it from a papal bull from the counter-reformation that says that only a Catholic can be pope, and that an active heretic is no longer a Catholic, and also a provision in canon law that says that a priest who renounces Catholicism can no longer serve in a position in the church or exercise priestly functions. Since Vatican II, they say, embraced heretical ideals, like freedom of religion and such, (basically the ā€œmodernistā€ and ā€œAmericanistā€ heresies) , all the participants publicly embraced heresy, and lost their priestly status. So John was no longer validly Pope, all of the cardinals who were at Vatican II lost their status, and Montini was no longer eligible to become pope. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2016, 5:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-papacy-un-pope-past-bad-popes/774918/50 "2016-12-23T05:27:45Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > I was kind of wondering about that too. Not that itā€™s inappropriate one way or another, but what, if any, the word is in Catholic discipline. None, since the process does not exist. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2016, 6:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-papacy-un-pope-past-bad-popes/774918/51 "2016-12-23T06:56:37Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > Since Vatican II, they say, embraced heretical ideals, like freedom of religion and such, (basically the ā€œmodernistā€ and ā€œAmericanistā€ heresies) , Nah, thatā€™s all a smoke screen. The real sin was outlawing Latin Mass. If they hadnā€™t done that, then most of those Sedevacantist types wouldnā€™t have left the church. Oh yeah, allowing guitars in church was a big no-no, too. That was an attempt to stay ā€œrelevantā€ to young people, but it didnā€™t work, at least not with me. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-papacy-un-pope-past-bad-popes/774918.md?page=2)