A Dead Pope’s Warning

An exhumed corpse, adorned in papal robes, sat in silent defense of itself while political hatred hung in the air like smog. This is not the opening scene of a horror movie, nor is it the apocalyptic dream of a Saint or mystic. This was the reality of the papacy and its connection to political factionalism in the ninth century. Though Pope Formosus could not defend himself at his posthumous trial, the lesson of his fate still speaks to modern popes. Political witness must remain subordinate to the witness of Christ and His Church.

The story of the Cadaver Synod, as the incident above has come to be known, serves as a warning to modern popes and Catholics alike. The dangers of becoming too deeply identified with one political party or group can undermine the authority of the papacy in the minds of those concerned with politics and social philosophy. While the statements made by Pope Leo are not overly politically one-sided on the whole, the fluid nature of information dissemination allows for the manipulation of that information by those seeking to promote a particular worldview through clicks, shares, and likes. The result is a misunderstood and miscommunicated message from the Chair of St. Peter that forces people to either agree with the pope or disagree with the pope based solely on political team associations. The pope thinks that water is essential to sustain life? Sounds like something a liberal/conservative/Whig/Bull Moose would say!

At the time of the Cadaver Synod, there was great political turmoil in Italy. There were multiple claims to imperial power, deteriorating identity and unity, and aristocratic manipulation of political actors. All the while, the Church and its prince were supposed to exist as a unifying force that stood outside of the dirty and disordered world of politics, greed, and authoritarian ambition. The atmosphere we study in medieval Italy bears uncomfortable similarities to the modern West.

Unfortunately for Formosus, during his lifetime he had aligned himself with the political enemies of one of his successors—Pope Stephen VI. He was exhumed and his body made to stand trial for a list of ersatz offenses put together by those who opposed his papacy. So, his grave was desecrated, his body propped up in a macabre mockery of himself and the office he once occupied, and the Christian world thrown into turmoil. While the Middle Ages were most assuredly violent and the people volatile, this display was a bit much, even for them.

The Cadaver Synod serves as a warning that when political loyalty becomes central to ecclesiastical identity, the Church risks transforming spiritual authority into a weapon. Poor Formosus’ body was mutilated and thrown into the Tiber. The trial of his moldering corpse was as unnerving as it was disgusting. What came of it was a new view of the papacy. It was seen as petty, beholden to political interests, vindictive, and tribal.

The Church suffered as a result. If apostolic succession forms the sacramental backbone of the Church, what did it mean for the successors of the apostles to behave in this manner? The Church eventually learned from this self-inflicted humiliation. But, as with all entities manned by men, the temptation to forget that lesson never fully disappeared.

Pope Leo cannot and should not avoid politics. To do so would be to ignore the mechanics of societal structures that permeate the modern world. The truth is that popes indeed have a good amount of political influence.

There is no greater example of this in modern history than the transformative power of Pope St. John Paul II and the pressure his papacy exerted on the Soviet Union. Would the Soviet Union have eventually collapsed under its crumbling infrastructure had St. John Paul II not directed the prodigious weight of his office toward its collapse? Absolutely. However, to argue that the extra pressure did nothing to expedite the process is to be willfully ignorant of the variables it created. Popes are, and have always been, consequential. So are their words.

The modern papacy exists in a world that demands immediate political categorization. Every statement is dissected, clipped, taken out of context at times, weaponized, and redistributed by ideological camps desperate to claim the successor of St. Peter as their own. The temptation facing Pope Leo is, therefore, not much different from the temptation that confronted the papacy during the time of Formosus, Boniface VI, and Stephen VI. The names of the factions have changed, the technology has evolved, and the violence has become more rhetorical than physical; but the spiritual danger remains the same. The Church suffers whenever the papacy becomes perceived not as the apex witness to Christ but as the ecclesial extension of a political group.

The lesson of the Cadaver Synod is not that popes should retreat from the political world. On the contrary, history shows us that courageous popes can shape civilizations, confront systemic evils, and defend human rights and dignity in moments when political leaders fail to do so. The lesson is that the pope must never allow partisanship, or even the perception of partisanship, to color or eclipse his evangelization.

The successor of St. Peter cannot sound as though he belongs exclusively to the Right or the Left. He must belong unmistakably to Christ. If Catholics are called to stand outside of the world as an example to others, then the leader of those 1.4 billion people must lead the way in a courageous, public manner.

The image of a dead pope dragged from his tomb and put on trial still horrifies more than a thousand years later. That almost unbelievable incident revealed what can happen when politics overtakes and consumes the sacred. Once the papacy is treated as merely another throne to be captured, the entire Christian world is left weaponless in a battle it cannot afford to lose.