Hello Holly!
here is a good E-Sword module for all devout Catholics that are interested in all modules for E-Sword that are intended for use by Catholicshttp://www.biblesupp...t-of-scripture/About the succestio apostolica you should consider that the earliest reference to a popess can be found in the 11th century writing of Martinus Scotus, a monk from the Abbey of St. Martin of Cologne:
“In AD 854, Lotharii 14, Joanna, a woman, succeeded Leo, and reigned two years, five months, and four days.”In the 12th century, a scribe named Sigebert de Gemlours wrote:
“It is reported that this John was a female, and that she conceived a child by one of her servants. The Pope, becoming pregnant, gave birth to a child, whereof some do not number her among the Pontiffs.”The most famous and detailed account of the Pope Joan comes from the
Chronicron pontificum et imperatum (The Chronicle of the Popes and Emperors), written in the mid-13th century by Martin of Troppau (Martinus Polonus). According to Troppau:
“After Leo IV, John the Englishman (Anglicus), a native of Metz, reigned two years, five months and four days. And the pontificate was vacant for a month. He died in Rome. This man, it is claimed, was a woman and when a girl, accompanied her sweetheart in male costume to Athens; there she advanced in various sciences to the extent that her equal could not be found. So, after having studied for three years in Rome, she had great masters for her pupils and hearers. And when there arose a high opinion in the city of her virtue and knowledge, she was unanimously elected Pope. But during her papacy she became in the family way by a companion. Not knowing the time of the birth, as she was on her way from St Peter's to Lateran she had a painful delivery, between the Coliseum and St Clement's Church, in the street. Having died after, it is said she was buried on the spot.”Legends say that a stone slab marked the spot where Joan gave birth and was buried, but out of embarrassment Pope Pius V had it removed in the late 16th century. There is also supposedly a statue on this street depicting a mother a child — representations of the popess and her infant.
Believers in the legend point to a number of things that they claim support its truth.
1) Papal processions stopped using the street in question.
2) Popes starting being carried around in a chair with a hole in the bottom, supposedly designed to allow cardinals to check the gender of the person using it.
Try to imagine this in Rome Italy, the year is 1099, and the Holy Father is shifting uneasily in his sedia gestatoria - a sort of sedan chair - as the Papal procession snakes through the streets. It is becoming apparent to the Popes entourage, that something is not quite right, The Pope's face is twisted with pain and he lets out a scream of pain.
The Papal procession stops in a small backstreet between the Colosseum and the Basilica of St. John Lateran. The Holy Father's entourage rush to assist him, but then recoil in horror as the Pope
gives birth to a baby!So goes the legend of Pope Joan the female Pope, but could it be based on truth? Was there, once upon a time, an actual female Pope?
The official stance of the Catholic church is to deny the existence of a female pope. Pope Joan, they say was simply a mythical figure, and yet, the chroniclers who were some of the most distinguished high-calibre writers of their time - Papal Chamberlains, Archbishops and Bishops, claim that a female Pope - Pope Joan did really exist.
Critics will point out that the records which claim that there was a female Pope were recorded two or three hundred years after the event. However this is also true of most of the other Popes of the dark ages and the Catholic church is happy to accept these as genuine. Is the Catholic church prepared to disregard Pope Joan simply because she was shown to be a woman?
There are a number of strange customs associated with the office of Pope that only make sense if the story of Pope Joan was true.
Custom one:When taking part in Papal processions, the Pope ritually turns his back on one particular street. It is commonly known as "Shunned Street" and it contains an "Edicola" - a wayside shrine which is regarded as the place where Pope Joan gave birth. Attempts to re-dedicate the shrine with a statue of Our Lady have largely failed as the site continues to be infamous as the place where Pope Joan gave birth.
Custom Two:Right in the middle of St.Peters in Rome is a special altar that is only ever used by the Pope himself. The base of the altar depict a strange series of images. Seven of the images depict a woman wearing a Papal Crown with her face apparently contorted in pain. The eighth image is one of a baby above a representation of a swollen belly. Beneath the belly there are what appear to be contracted folds of skin, giving the impression of a birth in progress.
Custom Three:A very special chair called the "Stedia Stercoraria" lies hidden in the depths of the Vatican museum. It is a very unusual piece of furniture of commode-like structure, with a keyhole shaped hole cut into the middle of the seat. Commonly known as "The Ball-Feeling Chair", It was used as part of the Election Ceremony for Popes.
Many medieval travellers have recorded the method of it's use: Before an appointment as Pope could be confirmed, the Papal candidate had to remove his clothes (behind a screen) and sit it the special chair. The youngest Deacon present would kneel down and reach out underneath the chair to confirm that the candidate did indeed possess testicles, and was therefore a male.
The obvious question is of course, what else besides the one-time existence of a female Pope could account for the three above mentioned customs. Perhaps there is another rational explanation for them, but I can't think of one - Can you?
William Huw is an ex- Psychiatric Nurse who now makes his living from acting and writing. His speciality is writing about strange stories, inexplicable happenings and unsolved mysteries, and has a series of many such articles entitled "The Mystery Files" which you can find at:
http://gaizy.hubpages.com/As late as 1600, there was evidently a bust of
Johannes VIII, femina ex Anglia in a row of papal busts at the Siena Cathedral.
So in a medieval mystery of the Catholic Church lies evidence of a woman pope, with clues buried in ancient parchment, artwork and writings, even in tarot cards and a bizarre chair once used in a Vatican ritual.
Was there a Pope Joan -- a woman with nerve enough to disguise herself as a man and serve as pope for more than two years in the ninth century? It is one of the world's oldest mysteries. Her story first appeared in histories written by medieval monks, but today the Catholic Church dismisses it.
"Ninety percent of me thinks there was a Pope Joan," says Mary Malone, a former nun who wrote a history of women and Christianity.
Donna Cross, a novelist who spent seven years researching the time period, says the historical evidence is there. "I would say it's the weight of evidence -- over 500 chronicle accounts of her existence."
Life was often short and brutal for women living in A.D. 800.
"No woman would have been allowed to appear on the streets in public," says Malone. "That named you as a prostitute immediately. Women were confined to their homes."
In the town of Mainz, Germany, where it is thought the girl who might have became Pope Joan grew up, most people lived in mud huts. The average life span was only 30 or 40 years.
But English missionaries were bringing Christianity to Germany, and they created a monastery called Fulda, which became a center of education, books and conversation for travelers -- but it was only for boys.
In his "History of Emperors and Popes," a monk named Martin Polonus who was a close adviser to the pope wrote about a young woman from Mainz who learned Greek and Latin and became "proficient in a diversity of branches of knowledge."
Cross and other historians say a girl studying at the monastery would have no choice but to disguise herself as a boy. But how was it possible to keep the secret?
"First of all, you might want to remember that clerical robes are very body-disguising," says Cross. "Also, in the ninth century, personal hygiene was nonexistent. Nobody bathed. They washed their hands, their face, their feet, but they didn't bathe."
Also, clergy members were required to be clean shaven, and malnutrition made most men and women physically gaunt.
Polonus wrote that this woman was "led to Athens dressed in the clothes of a man by a certain lover of hers." Then, according to the 500 accounts, the woman made her way to Rome.
In the ninth century, Rome and the Vatican were nothing like today's solemn and civilized center of culture and faith. Then the center of the Christian faith was home to bawdy monks, scheming cardinals, cross-dressing saints, intrigue, melodrama, corruption and violence.
"Popes ... killed each other off, hammered each other to death," says Mary Malone, the former nun. "There were 12-year-old popes ... we have knowledge of a 5-year-old archbishop. ... It was a very odd time in history."
That also means it would have been a time of opportunity for someone with ambition and nerve. The chronicles say that's how Joan, known as John Anglicus, or English John, became secretary to a curia, a cardinal, and then, as Polonus writes, "the choice of all for pope" in the year A.D. 855.
Clues in Art
If you travel to Italy and ask questions about Pope Joan, many people will direct you toward the clues embedded in art, literature and architecture.
The Renaissance poet Giovanni Boccaccio, best known for writing "The Decameron," also wrote a book on "100 Famous Women." No. 51 is Pope Joan.
Rare book dealers in Rome pull ancient tarot cards from their shelves. The card for hidden knowledge is "La Papessa" -- the Female Pope.
Quotes From Researchers
Travel north to Siena to the Duomo, where inside the cathedral is a gallery of terra-cotta busts depicting 170 popes, in no particular order. In the 17th century, Cardinal Baronuis, the Vatican librarian, wrote that one of the faces was a female -- Joan the Female Pope.
Baronius also wrote that the pope at the time decreed that the statue be destroyed, but some say the local archbishop didn't want a good statue go to waste.
"The statue was transformed," believes Cross. "I mean, literally, it was scraped off, her name, and written on top of Pope Zachary."
At the Basilica in St. Peter's Square are carvings by Bernini, one of the most famous artists of the 17th century. Among the carvings are eight images of a woman wearing a papal crown, and the images seem to tell the story of a woman giving birth and a baby being born.
Medieval manuscripts tell a similar tale: Two-and-a-half years into her reign, Pope Joan was in the midst of a papal procession, a three-mile trip to the Church of the Lateran in Rome, when suddenly at a crossroads, she felt sharp pains in her stomach.
She was having contractions, the stories say. The unthinkable happened -- the pope was having a baby.
"And then, shock and horror," says Malone. "And then the story gets very confused, because some of the records say she was killed and her child was killed right on the spot. Other records say she was sent to a convent and that her son grew up and later became bishop of Ostia."
Stories vary -- some say the crowd stoned her to death, others say she was dragged from the tail of a horse -- but in most accounts, Pope Joan perished that day.
In the decades that followed, the intersection was called the Vicus Papissa -- the Street of the Female Pope -- and for more than 100 years, popes would take a detour to avoid the shameful intersection.
Polonus writes: "The Lord Pope always turns aside from the street ... because of the abhorrence of the event."
But how do historians explain the enormous purple marble chair on which popes once sat as they were crowned. The chair has a strange opening, something like a toilet seat, reportedly used to check "testiculos habet" -- or whether the pope had testicles.
David Dawson Vasquez, the director of Catholic University of America's Rome program, says that the Vatican was just using the most impressive chair it had.
"Because it's elaborate, it's purple. It was the most expensive marble of Roman times, and so it was only used for the emperor," Vasquez says. "The hole is there because it was used by the imperial Romans, perhaps as a toilet, perhaps as a birthing chair. It doesn't matter if there's a hole there, because you can still sit there and be crowned."
Others say it was a symbol of the pope giving birth to the Mother Church. Either way, newly minted Protestants in the 1500s had a field day making fun of the chair, and so it was hidden from view.
Although the Catholic Church insist that the female Pope Joan never existed, there are a number of strange items and customs associated with the office of Pope that perhaps suggest that a female Pope once reigned as pontiff.
- During Papal processions, it is said that the Pope will ritually turn his back on one particular Roman street. It is popularly known as "The Shunned Street" and contains a wayside shrine or "Edicola" which is said to be the spot where the female Pope Joan gave birth. Despite a 17th century attempt to re-dedicate the shrine with a statue of Our Lady, the site is still the main attraction for visitors seeking evidence of the Female Pope.
- In the Centre of St. Peter's in Rome, is an altar that is only ever used by the Pope. It has an altar-cover known as a "Baldaccino" which was produced in the 17th century by the sculptor Bernini, the base of which depict eight strange figures. Seven of the figures portray a woman's face, apparently in stages of agony - She is wearing a Papal crown (indicative of a female Pope). The eighth face however, is of a baby, beneath which is a representation of a large swollen belly. Beneath the belly there appears to be contracted folds of skin, giving the impression of a birth in progress.
- Hidden in the depths of the Vatican Museum is a very special chair. The "Stedia Stercoraria". This is a chair of an unusual design, a commode-like construction with a large keyhole shaped orifice cut into the middle of the seat. The seat is popularly known as "The Ball-Feeling Chair". It was used in the Election Ceremony for Popes. The method of it's use has been recorded by many medieval travellers: Before an appointment as Pope could be confirmed, the candidate had to disrobe and sit it the special chair. The youngest Deacon present would then be required to kneel down and reach under the chair to confirm that the candidate did possess testicles. The Roman Church, according to legend, stipulated that anyone elected Pope should prove that his genitalia were intact. To this end a special chair was fashioned that had a horseshoe-shaped seat. The Pope to be would sit on the seat and the cardinals would pass by, checking the papal procession and proclaiming: ‘testiculos duos habet et bene pendentes’. A loose translation being: ‘two testicles he has and well-hung ones’.
The obvious questions are - If there never was a female Pope, then:- Why does the Pope turn away from "The Shunned Street"?
- What is being depicted on the "Baldaccino" in St. Peters?
- Why was the "Stedia Stercoraria" - the "Ball feeling Chair" deemed necessary?
http://gaizy.hubpage...e-Pregnant-PopeThis information from The First Sex by Elizabeth Gould Davis (Penguin 1971) provides an answer:‘Joan, a handsome young English girl made her way to Athens disguised as a monk... armed with a degree in philosophy, she came to Rome where Pope Leo IV made her a cardinal. Upon Leo’s death in 853 Joan was elected Pope by her fellow cardinals.The Catholic Encyclopaedia goes on to say, “she served as Pope for two years, four months and eight days, when she was discovered to be a woman and stoned to death (she gave birth during a papal procession)”...‘The name “John VIII, a woman from England” graced the papal list from 855 to 1601 ...(when she was)... officially declared mythical... Pope John (872-882) who is now numbered VIII was for seven centuries listed as John IX.‘From the time of Pope Joan, all candidates for the papacy for 700 years had to undergo a physical examination to prove their sex... (this) examination went into effect in 855... Benedict was the first of the popes to submit to the test.’
Edited by Justified, 01 January 2012 - 02:39 PM.
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I have also been known to make very short posts sometimes consisting of only one sentence and sometimes consisting of only one or two paragraphs. But anyway, I hope to meet some nice people on here and I look forward to posting with you all!
