Originally Posted by
Ramini
nakakita nkos book from which i first read about this alleged woman-pope..it's a bit lengthy pero ako nlang i type dri..i got this from Reader's Digest'..title is THE GREAT MYSTERIES OF THE PAST
"...Early in the 9th century, about the year 818, so we are told, a daughter named Joan was born to English missionaries in the Rhine River city of Mainz. As a child, she was noted for her beauty and remarkable intellect. Falling in love with a monk at the age of 12, Joan left her parents' home, donned male attire, and offered herself as a novice at the monastery in order to be with her lover. The days of John Anglicus, or John the Englishman as she called herself, were spent praying studying in the library; the nights were given over to love.
Before long, the deception was discovered, and the couple had to flee--their escape from chuch punishment taking the guise of a pilgrimage across Europe and south toward the Holy Land. In Athens, Joan's companion disappeared, but she went on to Rome. Still masquerading as a man, Joan took work as a notary or in another version of the story, as a teacher. Joan was soon a celebrity. Students admired her eloquence, philosophers respected her wisdom, cardinals noted her theological knowledge, and papal courtiers loved her for her generosity. When Pope Leo IV died in 855, Joan was unanismously elected as his successor; she took the papal throne as JOHN VIII. She was able to keep the secret of her *** from all but one, and this proved her undoing. The lonely, passionate woman took her valet as a lover and was soon pregnant with his child. After the delivery in public of the infant and the swift vengeance of the mob, a new pope, Benedict III was hastily installed. Church historians later advanced the date of his accession to 855 so as to eliminate any record of Joan's pontificate. When another John became pope 15 years later, in 872, he was given the name JOHN VIII, not JOHN IX
The story of Pope Joan most likely arose during the 10th century, when no fewer than 23 popes reigned--some for only months. The endings of their pontificates are a grim litany: imprisoned, murdered, deposed, starved to death, blinded. Behind many of these ineffectual and short-lived pontiffs stood women from Rome's noble families. If women wielded so much power, the common folk asked, why not a woman pope?
Historians find the earliest reference to Pope Joan in THE SEVEN GIFTS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT, the work of a 13th century French Dominican named Stephen of Bourbon. The tale told by Stephen was incorporated in The Chronicle of the Popes and Emperors, a widely read work by another 13th century Dominican, a Pole called Martin of Troppau.
Believers in the story of Pope Joan cited such evidence as the statue of a woman with a child in the alley between the Colosseum and the church of St. Clement, where the papal procession of 857 came to such a dramatic halt. The alley, because of the shame Pope Joan brought to the papacy, was avoided by subsequent processions. For more than 200 years, among the papal busts in Siena cathedral, there was a statue labeled, "Pope John VIII a woman from England"; in the 16th century Pope Clement VIII ordered the bust renamed "Pope Zachary"
So serious was the story of a female pope taken that the Council of Constance in 1415 cited it in debating the powers of the pope. The scholar Pope Pius II, reigning later in that century, tried to debunk the legend--apparently with a little success. Through the 16th and 17th centuries, Protestant writers seized upon the story of Pope Joan/John VIII to bolster attacks upon the papacy. Curiously enough, however, it was a Calvinist writer, David Blondel, who made the first serious assault on the persistent tale. His 1647 treatise bears the lengthy title, Familiar Enlightenment of the Question: Whether a Woman Had Been Seated on the Papal Throne in Rome.
Today scholars reject the Pope Joan/John VIII story. It is, they say, not a record of true events but rather a legacy of the medieval papacy--a troubled time when popes were known for anything but their holiness and nothing was too evil or too strange about them for belief.
by the way ang kadtong procession sa 857 na gi mention sa narrative was the procession in which allegedly nabisto si Pope Joan/John VIII sa iyang pagka babaye kai didto man daw sya naka anak ug ahat..
Well perhaps hoax ra ni nga story about a female pope..pero like what the narrative said and i qoute: "..a legacy of the medieval papacy--a troubled time when popes were known for anything but their holiness and nothing was too evil or too strange about them for belief." grabe jd ug history ang christianity..from the Crusades to the Inquisition this religion is nothing different than a common kingdom with a king who wants to extend his influence and borders..and to think during those times nga limited ra ang education the pope held vast amounts of power other than watching over believers...no kingdom during those times adopted a free religion or no religion policy so their all under the bunal of the pope's own machinations either for his own greedy or selfless purposes.
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