Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - The Man Who Didn't Want To Be Pope

Episode Date: December 10, 2020

On February 10, 2013, in what began as a rather innocuous assembly, Pope Benedict the XVI stunned the world by announcing that he would be retiring. Not only were people stunned, but to paraphrase King George in the Musical Hamilton, most people weren’t even aware that was something a pope could do. Yet, it is something popes can do, and the precedent was set over 700 years earlier. Learn more about Pope Celestine V, the man who really didn’t want to become pope. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On February 10, 2013, in what began as a rather innocuous assembly, Pope Benedict the 16th stunned by announcing that he would be retiring. Not only were people stunned, but to paraphrase King George and the musical Hamilton, most people weren't even aware that was something a Pope could do. Yet, it is something popes can do, and the precedent was set over 700 years earlier. Learn more about Pope Celestine V, the man who really didn't want to become Pope, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Fear is the virus is trending on TikTok. Vaccines are poison. Then your yoga teacher says that sex traffic children are being sacrificed by satanic liberals, but it's all okay.

The Great Awakening is coming. What is happening? Every week on Conspirality Podcast, we explore the fever dreams that suck friends, family, and wellness gurus down the right-wing cult spiral in a search for salvation. Hello, great minds. Mr. DGMH here, but wait, what the hell is DGMH? DGMH or drinks with great minds in history is a weekly podcast that covers one of history's greatest minds each month. While we enjoy review and rate themed cocktails, liquors, and beers on the scale of greatness.

As greats like Alexander Hamilton square off against George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and more, DGMH is the perfect cocktail of history, sarcasm, and alcohol, with a twist of psych and a bunch of, in a bunch of shots along the way. So grab yourself a drink with some great minds in history. Cheers. According to the official history of the Catholic Church, there have been 264 men that have served as the Bishop of Rome, a.k.a. The Pope.

Almost all of them have died while serving in that position. Almost all, but not all. In an earlier episode, I went over the process by which a pope is selected. Today, it's known as a conclave. The Cardinals will lock themselves behind closed doors and debate and vote in secret to elect a pope. However, it wasn't always that way. In fact, the last time they didn't do it that way

led to the subject of this episode, Pope Celestine V, aka Pietro de Moroni. The story of Pope Celestine V begins in late 13th century Europe. The church was near the apex of its power. This was before the Protestant Reformation, and Christianity had pretty much spread everywhere in Europe at this point,

save for Lithuania. That meant that the church, and hence the papacy, was a political football that the great monarchs of Europe fought over. This was especially true between Italy and France. The 13th century saw many of the longest and most contentious papal elections in history. In 1268, Pope Clement V died, and his replacement wasn't chosen for almost three years. The election took so long that of the 20 cardinals who were there at the start of the process, three died and one resigned. The people of Viterbo, where the election was held,

eventually locked the cardinals in the building they were meeting, began only serving them bread and water, and eventually took the roof off so they would make a decision. In 1271, Gregory the 10th was selected as a compromise candidate. Gregory the 10th instituted a series of reforms to make sure that such an election would never happen again. In the 23 years after the election of Gregory the 10th, there was a secession of popes with very short reigns. There were eight during this period ending with Pope Nicholas IV in 1294.

and that is where this story starts. Despite the attempts to avoid a papal election like the one from 1268 to 1271, it happened again. There were 12 cardinals at the start of this election, and one died soon after the process began. The primary divisions were between two powerful Roman families, the Colonna and the Orsini. Each family literally had two members as cardinals who were taking part in the election. The Orsini family supported French claims in Sicily, and the Colonna supported the Aragon claims to Sicily. Moreover, remember that back then the papal states were a thing, and the Pope was the political ruler of a large part of Central Italy, including Rome. The cardinals in this election would meet and get nowhere, and then adjourn, and then meet again somewhere else, and this process continued for two years.

Meanwhile, in Rome, it was devolving into a state of anarchy without a leader. In the summer of 1294, the Cardinals were meeting in the city of Perugia, still unable to elect a Pope when a message was sent to them from a hermit who lived on top of a mountain named Pietro de Moroni. Moroni was probably well known to all the Cardinals in attendance. He was a very pious and saintly man. At the age of 17, he became a monk, and at the age of 22, 55 years before the papal election, he retreated to a cave to live in ascetic life in the vein of John the Baptist. While living as a hermit, he still found time to create a new branch of the Benedictine order.

After the order grew and expanded, he willingly gave up control to return back to his ascetic life, living on the top of Mount Morone. He was believed to have been 84 years old when he sent the letter to the Cardinals. In his letter, he chastised the Cardinals and said that God would punish them if there was any further delay in selecting a Pope. In a moment of inspiration, one of the Orsini Cardinals nominated Pietro de Moroni to become Pope. None of the factions supported him, yet none of the factions were against him. Moreover, by electing an 84-year-old man, the oldest person ever to be elected Pope, his papacy would probably be a short one, and it would get everyone off their back about not selecting a new pontiff. The Cardinals all patted themselves in the back for coming up with such a brilliant idea. Of course, this was all done without the consent of Morone.

He sent the letter as a stern warning to the Cardinals not as part of an election campaign. Back in the election of 1268, the Cardinals tried doing the same thing. They originally elected the hermit, St. Philip Benizzi, who also wrote a letter to the Cardinals at the time telling them to get moving. He was never elected because he fled so he could never get picked. History repeated itself in 1294. When Moroni was notified of the election, he reportedly fled on foot and refused to go meet any of the Cardinals. Eventually, an entourage consisting of the King of Naples and several Cardinals went up to the mountain to convince him to become Pope. He reluctantly agreed and took the name Celestine V.

His coronation was held in the town of Aquila, which was the nearest cathedral to his hermitage. Because not all cardinals were able to attend, the ceremony was performed again, making him the only Pope to be coronated twice. As a pope, Celestine was pretty ineffectual. It turns out, living your entire life in a cave by yourself is not the best training for running one of the world's largest religions. He never actually made it to Rome. He spent his entire papacy in Naples under the thumb of King Charles II of Naples, who was a very close ally of the French king Philip the 4th. He never met with the Roman Curia, who was responsible for the day-to-day management of the church.

In a short pontificate, he did appoint 12 cardinals, seven of whom were from France and three were from Naples. This was responsible for a massive swing in power for future papal elections, and in some ways, the century of the Avignon Papency which would happen in the future, can be seen to have started here. But I'll leave that topic for a future episode. He was really unhappy, and he knew that he wasn't a very good Pope. He consulted with one of his advisors, Cardinal Benedetto Gaetani, about resigning and if it were possible. Cardinal Gaetani was trained as a lawyer, so he suggested creating a papal decree,

allowing for papal resignations just before he resigned, just to make sure it was legit. He also reenacted the papal election rules of Gregory X to make sure, once again, there was never a really long papal election. On December 13th, 1294, only five months after becoming Pope, Celestine V, resigned. He then went back to his cave on the mountaintop and lived happily ever after the end. Of course not. His advisor, who suggested he resign, Cardinal Gaitani, was elected the next pope and took the name Boniface the 8th. He then proceeded to throw Celestine in jail to avoid any issues of there being a living anti-Pope that people could rally around. Celestine died 10 months later, still imprisoned.

While legend holds that Celestine was kept in horrible conditions, in reality he was kept in a castle with several attendants from his monastic order and could go anywhere on the grounds that he liked. A small hole in Celestine's skull led to rumors for centuries that he was murdered, but there's no actual evidence for this. On May 5, 1313, under the suggestion of Philip the 4th of France, he was declared a saint. The only thing that history really remembers about Celestine V was

the fact that he resigned. For centuries, there was a great deal of debate as to if the act was heroic or cowardly. There is a passage in Dante's book, The Inferna, which might be in reference to Celestine V. He wrote, quote, I saw and recognized the shade of him, who due to cowardness made the great refusal, unquote. It was written soon after Celestine V's resignation and death, so many people believe the passage is about him. Interest in Celestine Vth peaked after the resignation of Pope Benedict the 16th, when he became the first pope in 719 years to resign since Celestine the 5th. I'm sure if and when another pope resigns in the future, Celestine the 5th will once more make another brief mention in the news. But this time, you'll know more about the man

who ran away when he was named Pope. Executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is James Mackela. The associate producer is Thor Thompson. Remember to leave a five-star review to get your review read on the show. They can be left at Apple Podcast. podcast, podcast Republic, or wherever you listen to the show. Also, you can help support the show over at patreon.com.

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