So one of the issues that has come up with the selection of Cardinal Ratz as the new pope is that he is not the most liberal of theologians. No married priests, no gays, and definitely no women as priests.

Saying that Catholicism is torn about its attitudes toward women is like saying that Canada is cold, Brazil is hot, and that Florida is full of oddballs. As obviously true as it may be, it barely covers the complexity of the issue. For example, JP Dos didn’t want women priests, but was fairly tolerant of the Virgin Mary cult. As a function of political power, only allowing men to ordain and consecrate makes them the deal breakers in the church. No matter how important Mother Teresa was, she was still (theoretically) secondary to a priest.

Anyone who has been brought up in a religious tradition knows how the female members of the congregation often run everything, with the pastor as ether final arbiter or figurehead. “OK, Pastor Bob. Say what you want about the Holy Ghost, but that ain’t gonna get the bakesale cookies baked, is it?” That’s not how my Lutheran church worked growing up, under either Pastor Jerry or Pastor Joel, but certainly women did a lot of the organizing and the work of running the church.

But when the women actually have a powerful control over the actions of the church, that’s clearly a problem for the Vatican. Maybe it’s a problem of publicity, maybe one of power, but Popes no like times when women tell them what to do.

Case in point: the 10th Century Pornocracy. Also -- and probably better -- known as the “Rule of the Harlots”

From 904 and Pope Serguis 3, until Pope John 12 is deposed in 963, two women were considered major players in the papacy: Theodora, and her daughters and Marozia and, uh, Theodora.

Allow Philip Schaff (1819-1893), American theologian and church historian, to introduce us to these ladies:

(T)hree bold and energetic women of the highest rank and lowest character, Theodora the elder (the wife or widow of a Roman senator), and her two daughters, Marozia and Theodora, filled the chair of St. Peter with their paramours and bastards. These Roman Amazons combined with the fatal charms of personal beauty and wealth, a rare capacity for intrigue, and a burning lust for power and pleasure. They had the diabolical ambition to surpass their sex as much in boldness and badness as St. Paula and St. Eustachium in the days of Jerome had excelled in virtue and saintliness. They turned the church of St. Peter into a den of robbers, and the residence of his successors into a harem. And they gloried in their shame. Hence this infamous period is called the papal Pornocracy or Hetaerocracy.

Some popes of this period were almost as bad as the worst emperors of heathen Rome, and far less excusable.

I love that last part. Except for the whole “slaughter their enemies like dogs” part, don’t these women seem like they’d be hellaciously fun to hang out with? Have some wine, fuck a Pope!

(Oh, the passage is from History of the Christian Church, Volume IV: Mediaeval Christianity. A.D. 590-1073.)

Marozia seems to have the most influence. She was supposedly the lover of Sergius 3, as well as Pope John 10, who gave her titles like senatrix and patricia. She and Sergius are said to be the actual parents of Pope John XI, though many others think he was actually the son of her first husband Duke Alberic of Spoleto. Her supposed affair with John 10 didn’t work out so well, because she and second husband Guy of Tuscany seized power in Rome, had John 10 put in prison, and eventually killed. Marozia was the power in Rome until 932, when her son Alberic 2 had her and Guy deposed and thrown in prison.

As entertaining as it is to think about sex-obsessed Popes -- that is, obsessed with having sex as opposed to making sure no one else has it -- this description of the Theodoras and Marozia seems to stem from the writing of their contemporary and political enemy Liutprand, the Bishop of Cremona. Even the Catholic Encyclopedia is somewhat circumspect about these stories. Speaking of Sergius, they comment:

These assertions are only made by bitter or ill-informed adversaries, and are inconsistent with what is said of him by respectable contemporaries.

That said, the idea of attacking the Papacy by associating it with women has other examples. Like Pope Joan.

(By the way, Wikipedia and the Catholic Encyclopedia are the sources for a lot of this information.)