My former husband knew I was obsessed with popes, among other scoundrels, so he bought me a book he found on a street vendor’s table called “The Bad Popes,” or as we preferred to call it, “The Very Bad Popes.”
And they were very bad indeed. When not fornicating with their sisters, they were beheading various Muhammedans and plundering the world’s art and gold.
They were fun to read about. I’d do a few each night before I fell asleep, nudging Patrick to read him passages about exceptionally bad papal acts just as he was finally drifting off. Listen to this, I’d say, they actually called this guy “The Butcher of Belgium.”
They don’t make ‘em like that anymore. Or maybe they do. The jury’s still out on Pius XII’s collaboration with Mussolini, his suspected deal-making to keep the fascists out of Vatican City. (Note to Pius: they were in there already.)
One thing about divorce: assuming that you went so far as to actually marry someone, it was because you were bound by a common culture, one that you elaborated upon as you went along and that irritated the shit out of your friends. I don’t miss marriage so much as having someone to tell very bad pope stories to. Innocent the Third, Leo the Tenth – they were all bad, but they were ours.
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