History lessons

The pause has also given me a chance to read. I’ve been reading a book about the history of Christianity, which is very closely aligned to the history of the western world for the last twenty centuries. I am currently reading about the rise of the renaissance, beginning in Florence.

What is astonishing is that, just as art, philosophy, literature, and theology were beginning their ascent, the papacy was going into steep decline. The serious papacies of the 1100s were giving way to a period of Papal debauchery and worldliness, beginning at Avignon, France, where the papacy was moved, and continuing on in the time that it was moved back towards Rome under Martin V. These were Popes who were princes of the world, such as Julius II, a warmonger who led invasion armies, maligned as being more like the other Julius (Caesar) than like Julius I. Other Popes had large households of children via their many mistresses. One of the Borgia Popes left his daughter in charge of the Vatican while he was off carousing.

In retrospect, it is not too difficult to understand why Wycliffe might have planted the seeds that led to the Reformation. We’re much luckier with our Popes today - they might still have controversial opinions, but they are men of a much more palpable holiness!