How did saints respond to antipopes? Medieval historian weighs in

(LifeSiteNews) — Joining me on this episode of The John-Henry Westen Show is Dr. Ed Mazza, a professor of Church history. We discussed his new book Saints vs Antipopes: Evil in the Church of Rome Convicted & Evicted.

I opened the episode by noting that many Catholics are asking whether Francis and Leo might be antipopes. I asked Dr. Mazza about the roughly 30 antipopes, or false claimants to the papacy who have existed throughout Church history, and even cases in which saints disagreed as to which claimant was the valid pontiff.

The professor highlighted the example of how during the Great Western Schism, St. Catherine of Siena, a great lay mystic, had recognized the true Pope Urban VI, while St. Vincent Ferrer, a great Dominican friar, had recognized antipope Benedict XIII for a period.

“In that one special case that lasted for decades, you had St. Catherine of Siena, a deep mystic … espoused to Christ mystically, (who) was an unlettered lay nothing. … And she supported what historians generally consider the legitimate pope,” Mazza said.

“And then you have a great saint like St. Vincent Ferrer, a Dominican who worked miracles, converted thousands of Jews, and raised the dead. And for a time, he supported the person that historians generally believe to have been the antipope during that period,” he added. “So you can have good people disagreeing as to who is the occupant, the valid occupant of the chair of Peter.”

I noted that today there are cardinals, bishops, and lay Catholics who might privately agree that Francis and Leo are antipopes but contend that this issue can be ignored and considered in future centuries. Mazza rejected this notion and stressed that several saints have called out apparent antipopes throughout Church history.

The professor cited one case during the 12th century in which emperors and kings were illicitly appointing bishops and investing them with the spiritual symbols of their office. In 1111, Henry V, the Holy Roman emperor, then kidnapped Pope Paschal II, prompting the pontiff to eventually concede the Church’s temporal authority and possessions in exchange for the state ending its illicit appointments and investitures.

“A number of saints, canonized saints, stood up and said, ‘The Pope can’t do this, this is a betrayal of the Church, you’re betraying the Church to the world, and this will have a destructive consequence for the Church,'” he said. “St. Bruno, a famous abbot in Italy, told the pope … ‘you can’t go on with this.'”

Mazza continued:

A bunch of canonized saints, bishops in France, got together and they held a synod, as it were, and they basically rejected what the emperor had extracted from the pope, in which the pope, even though he was now liberated, (had) refused to recant or was dragging his feet not to reject publicly. So they rejected … this concession that the emperor had gotten from the pope.

The professor underscored how these bishops then told Pope Paschal that if he continued to go along with this concession to the state, he would be leaving the communion of the Church.

“(The bishops) told the pope … ‘In the unlikely event that you don’t agree with us on this, in rejecting what the emperor extracted from you, you, Pope Paschal II, will be separating us from you, and we will no longer have communion with you,” he said.

“And this is evidence that they believed that bishops, and we’re talking about … a bishop who eventually became Pope Calixtus II, they told the Holy Father that ‘if you don’t agree with us on this, then you’re pretty much not the Holy Father and we’ll have to break communion with you,’” he added. “This is not the same kind of language that we’re getting nowadays on these subjects, unfortunately.”

To hear much more from Dr. Ed Mazza, watch my full interview above or by clicking here.

To purchase Dr. Mazza’s book, click here.

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