ROMANISM OF TODAY NOT ASHAMED OF ITS CRIMINAL POPE. LEO XIII RESTORES
BORGIA APARTMENTS, THE PLAGUE OF ROME AND THE VATICAN—BURIED
BENEATH ST. PETER'S AMONG CANONIZED POPES—QUESTIONS WHICH
SHOULD BE ANSWERED BY THE "KNIGHTS OF COLUMBUS."
What has been
the attitude of the Roman church toward the Borgias? Is she proud
of them or ashamed? Some Romanist writers, almost all of them from
the North of Europe, have admitted a series of unpleasant facts
about the incestuous and unspeakable race. Some of Alexander VI's
successors have denounced him. Indeed, the man who, after a few
months, followed him on the papal seat, Julius II, would not even
live in his apartments because he was sick of seeing the face of
"that wretch, that circumcised Jew," on the walls. The
criticism did not address itself to the moral aspect of the case,
could not in fact, for on that score Julius II in one respect was
a good deal worse than even Alexander. Another pope, Urban VIII,
more than one hundred and twenty-five years after Borgia, was annoyed
at seeing the Castel Sant' Angelo covered inside and outside with
the Borgia coat-of-arms, which were obviously in the way of his
own. As he gave almost all of his time to politics and wanted the
Pontifical State to be strong in arms he made great improvements
in the old fortifications of the castle, in the course of which
he undertook to leave his own coat-of-arms spread all over the premises.
When he found how the Borgia Pope had forestalled him he had many
of the latter's escutcheons defaced and even destroyed, as can be
seen to this day.
Urban VIII,
while still Cardinal Barberini, had been one of the keenest bidders
for the properties that Clement VIII had stolen from the Cenci family.
Neither Julius II nor Urban VIII were in a strategic position to
criticize their crooked fellow-pope. On the other hand, one of the
more recent occupants of the papal chair, the ascetic and scholarly
but fiercely intolerant Leo XIII, freely permitted the intertwining
of his coat-of-arms with that of the Borgias, when in 1891 he restored
the Borgia apartments in the Vatican. He must have known what scenes
had taken place there, how the things he believed to be most sacred
on earth had been defiled and desecrated. Here the most horrible
of all the Borgia debaucheries, the infamous "Dance of the
Chestnuts," had been performed; here not alone the dignity
of the church but all the common decencies of life had been mocked
night after night. What gain was there even from the artist's viewpoint
in restoring the infamous mysteries of Isis and Osiris, suggestive
of that worship, when the people of Egypt prostrated themselves
in obscene adoration before the bull Apio. Leo XIII must have known
that these frescoes were made for no purpose but to honor the animal
so prominent in the coat-of-arms of the two Borgia Popes. In the
restored apartments the Borgia emblem is scattered over the six
halls with sickening profusion. Some Roman Catholic soldiers of
Charles of Bourbon, himself a Romanist, after the sack of Rome were
lodged in the ill-famed rooms and destroyed what even to them must
have seemed offensive. The scene of the orgies of Alexander VI were
well forgotten when Leo XIII revived their memories by restoring
the apartments and writing the loathed name of Borgia alongside
of his own.
We come back
to the question: What is the attitude of the Church of Rome toward
the Borgias? As an organization did the church ever take any action
to show its detestation of the House of Borgia? No one can answer
yes. Even in the so-called "Holy Year" (1925) when printing
the pictures of popes who consecrated other "Holy Years,"
the name and face of Alexander VI appeared as prominently as those
of any other pope.
In the so-called
grottoes of the Vatican beneath the aisles of St. Peter there is
an impressive sarcophagus at once a coffin and a stately monument
on which appears the name of Alexander VI. No one knows what is
within the narrow walls; from what we know it is doubtful whether
the remains of the papal monster are really there. In any event
the placing of his tomb with such a name inscribed thereon shows
that the Roman Catholic church thinks its former head worthy of
a noble resting place in company with some of the popes that have
been canonized. In the Church of Santa Maria, in Monserrato, there
is a monument in honor of both the Borgia popes, Callixtus III and
Alexander VI. It was built and set up in the church less than fifty
years ago. I have reproduced the monument in the text and offer
it in evidence as an additional proof that popery and Romanism down
to the present generation still honor the memory of the Borgias.
On the famous
Leonine walls, to be exact above the walled in space where once
appeared the Porta Cavalleggeri, there are two large emblems of
the Borgias surmounted by the papal keys. Right back of these walls
thus decorated with the marble souvenir of one of the worst popes
and one of the worst men that ever lived is the oratory of San Pietro
built by the American Knights of Columbus.
Maybe these noble and simple children of the pope have a feeling
of veneration for the second Borgia because it was he who divided
America between Spain and Portugal. Being engaged in the troublous
task of making America Catholic, Alexander VI is perhaps a well
chosen patron for their work. In any event the presence of two large
escutcheons of Alexander VI on the very walls of their oratory makes
us put the question up to these same Knights of Columbus. Here is
our simple inquiry, our modest request for information.
Why has the
Roman church as a body and in an official way consistently refused
to utter one word of condemnation or repudiation against Roderigo
Borgia, known to history as Alexander VI? In her own teachings he
was guilty of the most heinous of crimes imaginable. Why, through
all the centuries since his death, do we listen in vain for the
reproving voice of "Holy Mother Church" The pagan senate
and people of Rome often endured the rule of depraved emperors,
but after their death passed upon them the sentence of the "damnation
of memory." The servants of the senate in such cases were ordered
to destroy every vestige of the cruel or despotic prince. Why has
the Roman church refused to do to Borgia what the Senate of Venice
did to one of its faithless doges? A man who broke but one commandment
seems a minor delinquent compared with Borgia. In the ducal palace
of the old Republic among the pictures of its many rulers there
appears a black space wherein are stated the shame and punishment
of that unworthy servant of the people. Why does Rome not follow
that impressive example?
The great gallery
of popes, real and mythical, that adorns the walls of St. Paul in
Rome still shows the placid features of the arch-criminal of the
ages between Innocent VIII and Pius III. Perhaps it is better so;
at any rate it is more logical. The church which stubbornly upholds
the verdict of a cruel death and a sentence to the fires of hell
pronounced by this same Alexander VI against the "heretic"
Savonarola cannot afford to say one word of censure against the
orthodox Roderigo Borgia.
On the other
hand, the church to this day maintains various practices and institutions
introduced by Borgia. The "Index Expurgatorius" was an
invention of Alexander VI and that "List of Forbidden Books"
is as dear to Pius XI as it was to his precious predecessor.
Many of the
prayers and practices in connection with the worship of the Virgin
Mary were instituted by Borgia and are followed by the Roman Catholic
church of today. Are we not justified then in believing that as
far as any official action of the "Holy Church" is concerned,
Alexander VI is still a pope in good standing.
Many have been
the cases where the church has opened the graves of men posthumously
condemned as heretics and has turned the mouldering bones over to
the executioner that he might burn them and scatter the ashes to
the winds. In principle the church then admits her power, perhaps
her duty, to sit in judgment even on the dead. If the papacy is
a good institution and a benefit to the church; if the majority
of the popes have been good men, then the Church of Rome owes it
to itself to annul the election of Alexander VI as an offense to
God and to strike the name of Borgia from the list of popes. Indeed,
such a course has been proposed by several orthodox Romanist writers,
but it has never elicited even a faint echo from those tightly closed
windows up in the Vatican.
Such a movement
once started might leave other blank spaces in the pontifical roster
and presently the whole institution of the papacy might appear to
be a rather speckled and spotted affair.