POPES
by Deb McCoy | Aug 16, 2021 | Popes
Giovanni Fasano was born into a priest’s family in Rome in the mid-900s. It was a time of extreme control of the Catholic Church by politicians, especially the emperors of the Holy Roman Empire and the Kingdom of Italy. John XVII died and Fasano, the pastor of St....
by Deb McCoy | Jul 10, 2021 | Popes
You may recognize Sylvester II under his given name, Gerbert of Auxillac, the phenomenal scholar of the early Middle Ages. Gerbert was born around 946 in Bellise, south central France. At around 17 years of age, he entered the Monastery of St. Gerald of Auxillac to...
by Deb McCoy | Jun 18, 2021 | Popes
Bruno of Carinthia was born around 970-972 in Stainach, Duchy of Carinthia. This is in the southern part of what is, today, Austria, not too far from the Italian border. It is at the eastern end of the Alps. It was part of the Holy Roman Empire. His father was Otto I...
by Deb McCoy | Jun 10, 2021 | Popes
Although Pope John XV is spoken of as having a pontificate marked by greed and nepotism, there is little in the way of facts to support it. The same can not be said of the Roman dictator. John certainly had to be careful of whatever he did, since he was succeeding two...
by Deb McCoy | Jun 3, 2021 | Popes
POPES BENEDICT VII and JOHN XIV Benedetto (Benedict) de Spoleto was born in Rome around 930 AD. Does the name sound familiar? If you have been following this series, it does. The papacy was getting to be quite the family affair. Marozia Crescentii was the female...
by Deb McCoy | May 25, 2021 | Popes
Here is a story of a difficult episode in Church history. Benedict was a Roman, whose father, Hildebrand, was of German descent. In the past 35 years, Otto, the Holy Roman Emperor, a German, had been a controlling factor of the papacy and Italian politics. Benedict...
