But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.
Thanks to the documentary I just watched on the De Medici Family, I feel very compelled to defend why there are so many cases (yet a minority) of Bad Popes.
We start with, Popes can sin, there is even likely Popes in Hell, but Popes are infallible in only in cases concerning Divine Revelation.
There are actually very simple things to say, why God would allow bad popes.
1) Popes have free will.
2) God has chosen many faulty humans, King David, for instance, killed a man. If you want to question the papacy's purity, question the men God chose in the Old Testament. It is a defense we all must make, not only Catholics and the Pope, but the whole Judeo-Christian culture is diluted by the weaknesses of men.
3) Jesus picked Judas, enough said.
4) I like to say that the Pope is the New Covenant Jewish King. The Jewish Kings were chosen by God, and many were awful, the difference is the teachings are carried forth with guidance of the Holy Spirit. No Pope, however bad, ever changed the Church's Divine Revelation to fit their own sins.
-- This is significant in my mind, if Popes are just a bunch of evil tyrants, why did they never change their own sins into virtues or what have you? I mean modern day Christians are making a Christian case for homosexuality as we speak, could the foul Pope not have done something similar?
Now humor,
A Jewish business man from Paris began to have interest in Jesus' teachings. so he sought out a local bishop in Paris.
The man loved the message of Christianity, and having the means, he wanted to travel to Rome before he decided to get baptized and become Christian.
The bishop, knowing the terrible sins which existed in Rome, tried to persuade the business man not to go to Rome until he was baptized. But the Jewish business man insisted that he would rather make a pilgrimage first.
When the business man returned from Rome, the bishop was surprised the Jew was even more enthusiastic about getting baptized than he was before.
Perplexed, the bishop asked why was the Jewish man still wanting to be a Christian after his being in Rome?
The Jewish business man said,
" I'm a business man, I know business. That place must be have God's graces, because anything ran that badly, wouldn't last two weeks."
Think about it, a lot of wisdom in this, how can a corrupted Church last 2000 years?
