The Popes: 2,000 Years of History in 4 Minutes

Without a strong Church—pyramidal, wealthy, rigid, and powerful—would Jesus' message have survived 2,000 years? No It allows us to excuse the excesses committed throughout history by the popes of Rome. We don't know what the affirmative answer would have yielded. The history of the Church, and more specifically of the papacy, is nothing less than an unbalanced balance between the winning option of Vatican continuity and the alternative of commitment to the poor. These days, amid the fabulous theatrical pomp of Francis's funeral, the late pontiff's desire for Franciscan simplicity has been constantly highlighted. The contradiction between what we saw and what was called exemplifies this unresolved secular tension. A tension also between tradition and modernity in organizational and moral terms: the Church is not democratic and remains sexist.

How has such a powerful earthly power with such a poetic egalitarian message survived for so many centuries? History of the Popes (Fragmenta), Diego Sola takes a brilliant tour through altars and luxuries, art and faith, corruption and humanity. The popes of the first centuries, persecuted, died violently. In 313 the Emperor Constantine decreed freedom of worship. The first not to die a martyr was Sylvester I (Pope between 314 and 335). Here begins Caesaropapism, the link between Church and State. Emperor Theodosius I makes Christianity the official religion (380) and Rome becomes the center of worship. Without the Western Emperor (476), the figure of the Pope gains strength and canon law is born, but also Arian dissent.

Gregory (590-604), the man who sang Gregorian chant and promoted monastic life, was an important pope, as was Leo III (795-816), who crowned Charles as emperor, and Sylvester II (999-1003), who had studied at Ribic and c. After years of simony (the buying and selling of spiritual goods), came the reformer Gregory VII (1073-1085), who introduced celibacy, condemned simony, clashed with the German emperor, and forbade political authorities from appointing church officials.

With Urban II (1088-1099) began the dark period of the Crusades, within the framework of the birth of medieval European nations. Then came the Cathar dissidence, but also the Dominican orders (inquisitors and educators) and the Franciscan orders (return to poverty). At the Council of Lyon (1274) of Gregory X, the current formula of conclave to elect the Pope was established. And then came the Avignon Schism, with two popes, even three, with Pope Luna fortified in Peñíscola. And we entered the Renaissance with a papacy corrupted by power struggles that clashed with both science and absolutist states. The Church would be divided by Protestantism. Popes from rival families followed one another: Colonna and Orsini, also the Valencian Borgia and the Florentine Médici. Corruption and nepotism, lovers, and marvelous art ruled: Michelangelo, Raphael, Bramant...

The return to the essence comes from the north, with Luther and Calvin, and ends in doctrinal schism. And, in response, the Catholic Counter-Reformation, with the Jesuits and Paul III's Council of Trent (1534-1549). With the Baroque, the unequal struggle to cleanse the Church without relinquishing power and ostentation continued, with Jansenism as the new dissident rot. And then came the Enlightenment, a wave of enlightenment, progress, and a desire for freedom that once again unhinged the Vatican, which saw the rise of anticlericalism and was horrified by the French Revolution. In the 19th century, democratic liberalism, the Industrial Revolution, Marxist laborism, and nationalism proved difficult for the ultramontane Church to swallow. The Papal States disintegrated, and, anchored in papal infallibility, modernity once again overtook it. With the dawn of the 20th century, Leo XIII (1878-1903) sought a social "third way" that would give rise to a leftist Christianity and international moral leadership. Having overcome the two world wars with great contradictions, John XXIII (1958-1963) tried a new update with theupdate of the Second Vatican Council, soon overtaken by the cultural upheaval of May 1968. The subsequent twists and turns, with liberation theology and an anti-communist John Paul II who became a kind of traveling pop star, are already well known. Now we'll see what comes after Francis's new attempt at openness.