7 Things Every Catholic Should Know about the Papacy (#6: Anti-Popes)

Black smoke over the Sistine roof signals the first
balloting in the  2013 Conclave.

Whatever the outcome of the current conclave, one thing is fairly certain: Once that white smoke does appear from the chimney over the Sistine Chapel, we won't be seeing an anti-pope on the loggia of St. Peter's Basilica. 

It certainly hasn't always been this way. Everything that has been done over the past weeks, from the careful setting of dates to the taking of oaths, to the command "extra omnes" when the doors of the Sistine Chapel were closed, has been ordered to ensure the freedom of the Cardinals and the validity of the papal election. It's not only a matter of interesting traditions. It's vital that Catholics can be secure about just who it is who is piloting the Barque of Peter.

One of the most important roles the Successor of Peter has in the Church is that of being a visible sign of the unity of Christ's followers. Anti-popes represent the exact opposite of this papal ministry. 

The first anti-popes seem to have arisen in the third century, while persecutions still threatened the Church in Rome. The most recent anti-popes (there are a half-dozen or so right now, two of them in the United States) are so marginal that they cannot even be taken seriously. Historical records are incomplete enough (or simply inconclusive enough) for us to even identify all the Popes and anti-popes of history with absolute certainty. 

By some accounts, St. Hippolytus is considered the first anti-pope, but the term really doesn't fit the primitive Church's situtation. Hippolytus is identified as a bishop in or around Rome, but he was a Greek writer, and may have been the “episcopos” (literally “overseer”/bishop) of a Greek-speaking community that was not integrated into the Latin speaking majority of Rome's christians. It's not even the possibility that Hippolytus was an “extra” bishop in Rome that makes him a candidate for anti-pope status: it's that he is known to have had serious differences with more than one of the recognized early Popes. Hippolytus is recognized as a saint in the Catholic Church, thanks to his martyrdom, in exile along with Pontian, Bishop of Rome, with whom he shares a feastday.

Coming right after Hippolytus, Novatian of Rome is a more likely candidate for first-ever anti-pope. When the savage persecution under the Emperor Decius finally subsided, the Church of Rome had been without a bishop for a year. (Pope Fabian had been one of Decius' many victims.) Evidently, the priest Novatian did not agree with the majority of clergy, faithful and bishops who, according to the report by St. Cyprian, elected Cornelius to the Chair of Peter: he sent messengers to summon three bishops to ordain him a bishop as well, and then issued proclamations claiming that he had been chosen to take Fabian's long vacant seat. That this was happening from Rome meant it was not a simply local matter, but affected the whole Church. All the more was this so when Novatian sent missionaries and attempted to replace local bishops with his own appointees: men who would adhere to Novatian's own rigorist views of Church life. 

From Africa, the Council of Carthage undertook an investigation into the case of the two Popes, concluding without a doubt that Novatian's act was completely illegitimate. Within the year, Novatian was formally excommunicated by Pope Cornelius, in a council of some sixty bishops. True to the disruption of Church unity initiated by this first anti-pope, Novatian's followers (“Novatians”) continued on for several centuries.


Later anti-popes, for the most part, followed a different pattern, being associated in one way or other not with a theological or pastoral tendency (Novantian's severity, for instance) but with politics. They were installed with the support of (or under pressure imposed by) an Emperor or king. The tenth and twelfth centuries witnessed the most of this attempted manipulation of the papal office by secular powers.


The longest-lasting and most disruptive succession of anti-popes began in 1378 when a group of cardinals rejected the (admittedly difficult) Pope Urban VI in Rome, declared his election invalid and named their own man, the former Papal Legate known as the “Butcher of Cesena” for his approval of a mass slaughter of villagers in a disputed territory. (Not the most auspicious of beginnings.)

As “Clement VII,” Robert of Geneva established himself in the old papal stronghold of Avignon, France. His successor was a Spaniard who had volunteered for the job under the ruse of then surrendering his claim and reuniting the Church under one legitimate Pope. Needless to say, the anti-pope Benedict XIII found it more congenial to reign in Avignon than to serve in Rome.

Meanwhile in Northern Italy, a council of hundreds (cardinals, bishops, abbots) met to address the problem of the two Popes. The [discredited] Council of Pisa declared the two contenders, Benedict XIII of Avignon, and Gregory XII of Rome, deposed, and led the way for the cardinals to convoke a conclave and elect—that's right—a third “Pope,” who took the name Alexander V. Alexander was not long for this world; his successor was the Anti-pope John XXIII (not to be confused with the 20^th century John, now Blessed John XXIII!). This John (a friend of the powerful Medici family) has the unfortunate distinction of promoting the sale of indulgences, a practice bemoaned in Prague by Jan Hus. In a way the seeds of the Reformation were already sprouting in the fertile terrain of disunity.

With the encouragement of King Sigismund of Germany, John called a Council to end the long schism. Gregory XII in Rome, for his part, authorized the Council, too. Only Benedict XIII in France refused to have anything to do with it. The Council proposed a solution: that all three “Popes” abdicate and allow for a single, valid Pope to be elected. John fled, thinking that the Council proceedings would be invalid without him. Gregory abdicated. Benedict was excommunicated. The new Pope, Martin V, was elected in 1417.

Since the Great Western Schism, no significant anti-popes have arisen with the exception of Felix V, a widower and former hermit who was elected by the Council of Basel when the new Bishop of Rome acted to dissolve the council called by his predecessor. Felix ended well, abdicating his claim and accepting a (real) red hat from his former opponent.





This is the 6th in a series of 7 Things Every Catholic Should Know about the Papacy

#5, The Papacy Might Have Had a Different Form
#4, Infallibility: It's Rare, but It's There 
#3, Bad Popes
#2, The Bishop of Rome is the Pope, not the other way around
#1, It was Jesus' idea

7 Things Every Catholic Should Know about the Papacy (#5)

The Papacy could have taken a different form—and it still can.

The papacy is the world's oldest continuously existing office. But that doesn't mean it always looked the way it does today. The papacy as we know it took almost 2000 years to take this shape, and it can continue to change according to the needs of the Church.

The experience of the first bishops of Rome was hardly what we could call “pontifical.” Waves of persecution, sometimes lackadaisical, sometimes ferocious, ensured that the local bishop kept a fairly low profile in civil society. Besides, the local bishop probably only had a low social profile: Callistus II (+222), for example, had been a slave.

Things changed dramatically when Constantine legalized Christianity—and then started constructing shrines over the tombs of Peter and Paul. The first church buildings began to appear on the sites of the homes that had hosted the community. Many of these churches are known to this day by the names of the homeowners: Cecilia, Chrysogono, Susanna, Praxedes, Pudentiana...) (You can find a list of the churches by family name and current name here: http://romanchurches.wikia.com/wiki/Titulus.) With the Church taking its place in society, leadership styles also evolved. Popes no longer expected martyrdom to end their ministry. Little by little, imperial trappings became associated with the Bishop of Rome. Even the Roman “basilica” (royal) style of architecture was used for Churches.

 Gregory the Great, by Jacopo Vignali
from the Walters Art Museum

At about the same time, though, Imperial Rome moved east, to the newly named “Constantinople” (Constantine's city), the “new Rome.” Old Rome was left more or less to fend for itself, and the Bishop of Rome stepped into the void. Leo the Great is credited with convincing Attila the Hun to spare the decrepit city; a century later, Gregory (also “the Great”), a monk with diplomatic experience, used his organizational skills (he had been Prefect of Rome) for the relief of the needy, setting up an administrative system to streamline assistance. In effect, Gregory restored government to the city. Now he was not just the Bishop of Rome, he was the de facto mayor. Temporal rule was added to the evangelical tasks of "feed My lambs, feed My sheep."

By Gregory's time, the Church also had land holdings (the farms that produced the goods Gregory's system distributed). These farms, supplemented 3 centuries later with a dubious land grant attributed to Constantine, became the nucleus of the later “Papal States.” Its last remnant is Vatican City.

It was Gregory who sent missionaries to England, extending the immediate authority of the Bishop of Rome to the far-off British Isles. Later missionaries from England took the Gospel to the still-pagan parts of northern Europe, seeking authorization (as well as bishops) from Rome, uniting all the Christians of Europe even more clearly in communion with the Pope, and giving the Bishop of Rome more of a direct hand in the life of the churches in those lands.

Quick to notice the benefits offered by a united Christendom, Charlemagne imposed the Papal liturgy on his lands. (Given the slow work of copying such complicated manuscripts, this was not entirely successful!) Centuries later, St Francis of Assisi did something similar, telling his friars (in 1223) that their liturgies should follow the rites of Rome and not of the various locations they found themselves in. Both Charlemagne and Francis grasped the unifying quality of the Pope's role. So the papal liturgies had, at least on paper, pride of place even in lands with their own ancient rites. Not until the Council of Trent would the liturgical rites of Rome be mandated throughout the Latin Church, unless a locale could prove that its own rites were over 200 years old. (Conveniently, by the time of Trent the printing press assured ample copies could be made available.) 

Naturally, commercial interests also sought to work this unifying power to their own advantage. With the election of the Bishop of Rome in the hands of the priests and people of the city, influential families (with connections throughout Europe) sought to bend the outcome. Even legislation limiting votes to “Cardinal-Bishops” did not free the papacy from being manipulated and even controlled by the powerful, whether kings or clans (see “Bad Popes”). Like it or not, the Pope was now a prince in his own right. He even started having a coronation--with a unique triple tiara style headdress that continued to be used for about 800 years—until Pope Paul VI retired his immediately after the ceremony.

With the series of revolutions in Europe (beginning with France) that ushered in the modern political framework came the overturning of the former relations between secular and religious authority. Where before a ruler might have submitted nominations for bishop, now that was either outlawed by the nation, or simply unthinkable (a Freethinker—relativist—might be nominated!). The Pope began directly appointing more and more bishops.

It was the loss of the Papal States in 1870 (with the birth of the modern nation of Italy)—along with the birth of popular media—that, oddly enough, contributed greatly to the high profile model of papacy we are familiar with today. Early on, Blessed Pope Pius IX protested by declaring himself a “prisoner of the Vatican.” (He had actually lost his residence, the Quirinale, to the new Italian nation.) But there were advantages to being limited to the tiny territory of Vatican City. The pope was now free to focus on his pastoral ministry without being entrenched in local politics.

Commemorative coins issued by the Vatican on the occasion
of Pope Paul's speech before the U.N. General Assembly.

Pope Leo XIII realized that he could address “the Condition of the Working Classes” with the first-ever social encyclical. Pius X reversed his predecessors' course and gave Italian Catholics permission to participate in elections. John XXIII decided to be “prisoner of the Vatican” no more and ventured out to Rome's hospitals and parishes and prisons. And without any input whatsoever, he called a Council when it wasn't all that apparent to most minds in Rome that one was called for. Paul VI became the first “world” Pope, traveling not only out of Italy, but crossing oceans to speak to the United Nations, visiting the Holy Land, India and even Western Samoa (where he met one of the talking chiefs: my local superior's dad!). The papacy had developed in more ways than could have been imagined in the 2^nd or 8^th century.

And it can continue to develop. Pope John Paul II's encyclical on Christian unity asked for input on how the papal ministry could evolve to better serve the needs of the whole Christian community. Pope Benedict XVI published books as a private theologian under his given name and is resigning the papal office itself—under no exterior pressure at all.

We haven't seen the end of the development of the papacy.  

This is the 5th in a series of 7 Things Every Catholic Should Know about the Papacy

#4, Infallibility: It's Rare, but It's There 
#3, Bad Popes
#2, The Bishop of Rome is the Pope, not the other way around
#1, It was Jesus' idea