c. 1998 Religion News Service

(Andrew M. Greeley is a Roman Catholic priest, best-selling novelist and a sociologist at the University of Chicago National Opinion Research Center. Check out his home page at http://www.agreeley.com or contact him via e-mail at agreel(at)aol.com.)

UNDATED _ Catholics believe the”gates of hell”will not prevail against the church. But can this conviction stand the test of history?

From 904 to 1048, for example, Rome and the papacy were dominated by five generations of the Theophylact family, an era later described by high church officials as a”pornocracy.”The gates of hell did not quite prevail against the church in those years. But it was, as Wellington remarked of Waterloo, a”damn near thing.” One cannot reflect theologically on the papacy and ignore this century and a half of history. It presents acute problems for those Catholic fundamentalists who argue the Holy Spirit chooses each pope deliberately and the pope is immediately and intimately directed by Jesus for whom he speaks on all occasions.

The Theophylacts were killers of popes, bribers of popes, sons of popes, mistresses of popes, mothers of popes. Indeed, five of them were popes _ none of them prizes. Installed in their teens or early 20s, they were given to gambling, drinking, adultery, rape, and murder by poison. They plundered the papal treasury and pilgrims who visited Rome, and turned the Lateran Palace into a brothel.

John XI is supposed to have died during sex; John XII was murdered, it is said, by an angry husband who caught the pope with his wife; and Benedict IX sold the papacy to a man who wanted to succeed him.

The most deadly members of the family were the matriarch Theodora and her daughter Mazoria, who ran both civil and ecclesiastical Rome for the first third of the 10th century. The former was the mistress of John X, who she installed as pope and later decreed his death. The latter was the mistress of Pope Sergius III and the mother of John XI whose father was Pope Sergius. In tandem these two women dominated papal appointments for 30 years, naming popes _ including Mazoria’s 18-year-old son _ deposing popes, and ordering their deaths.

Mazoria was called the Senatrix of Rome from 1226 to 1232 while her son reigned as pope. Then another son, Alberic, overthrew and imprisoned her and treated his brother the pope like a puppet. Nonetheless, Alberic and his sons _ one of whom became John XII, a man as bad as his uncle John XI _ and grandsons ran Rome for another 100 years until the Emperor Conrad deposed Benedict IX, the great-great grandson of Theodora and the great grandson of Mazoria. Reform finally came to Rome.

The power to name the bishop of Rome was taken away from the priests, nobles, Roman citizens and given to the cardinals, a reform that was unquestionably necessary at the time.

These were dark times in Europe. The Danes were raiding northern Europe, the Saracens had invaded southern Italy and sacked Rome. The city itself was a lawless jungle, the Roman populace mostly an unruly mob.

Given the times, the remarkable fact is the papacy survived.

But, say Catholic conservatives, the stories of the Theophylacts, even if true, should not be mentioned. They ought rather be kept secret. But history cannot be silenced.

And, one can certainly argue with some reasonableness, the Holy Spirit preserved the papacy through these terrible times _ no small achievement.

But to see God doing much else during the reign of the Theophylacts is an insult to the deity. God, for example, hardly wanted Mazoria’s son to consecrate a 16-year-old as patriarch of Constantinople.

Catholics should realize the promise of Jesus does not imply there will be great popes all the time nor that all popes will necessarily be good or wise men.

Nor should Catholics believe those chosen pope always speak for the Holy Spirit every time they say something nor do they always reflect the wishes of God.

Jesus’ promise to preserve the papacy means only that the popes will not destroy the church or err in fundamental doctrines. That promise has been kept, if only just barely on occasion.

The Theophylacts did not destroy the papacy or the church, but they sure gave it a try.

DEA END GREELEY