AHC: End the Papacy
- Thread starter DStecks
- Start date
I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "ending the title of Pope".
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12260a.htm#V
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12260a.htm#V
Make the Papal office so defamated that nobody on their right mind would claim it (hard to do, there were VERY bad popes and nobody dared to abolish the papacy).
An easier way: spread the Reformation to Italy and splinter the Church in more denominations than OTL. Or make an earlier Reformation in the Middle Ages or so, make a popular Holy Roman Emperor (he would practically have to be a saint) put his weight behind it, and overthrow a VERY corrupt Pope.
An easier way: spread the Reformation to Italy and splinter the Church in more denominations than OTL. Or make an earlier Reformation in the Middle Ages or so, make a popular Holy Roman Emperor (he would practically have to be a saint) put his weight behind it, and overthrow a VERY corrupt Pope.
I remember reading some interview with some UCL historian back when Benedict XVI had just abdicated discussing how in the time leading up to the Council of Constance 1414-18, what with there being three people at the same time claiming to be Pope (Benedict XIII, Gregory XII and John XXIII), it could very well have gone so that the whole hierarchy of the Catholic Church, confused as it must have been, could have collapsed altogether and the leadership would have ended up decentralized as a consequence, being ruled locally by councils of bishops and other important clergy.
If that had happened in the early 15th century, then who knows, the entire Reformation could have ended up a far more tranquil and incremental affair.
If that had happened in the early 15th century, then who knows, the entire Reformation could have ended up a far more tranquil and incremental affair.
Make the Borgia Papacy even worse that it was in OTL. The Pope remains as a figure head, but the job of actually ruling the Church falls to the College of Cardinals.
That doesn't count for the purposes of the challenge, since there is still a man who claims to be Pope, and a church that recognizes him as Pope.
To clarify, since Elfwine has pointed out some ambiguity, the challenge is to end the papal succession permanently, so that the Catholic church is no longer headed by a single individual with a recognized claim to be the successor to Saint Peter.
Will Kürlich Kerl
Banned
Nuclear war happens between the USA and the USSR, and the Vatican is annihilated (by the USSR), along with most of the world's population. The survivors are then too focused on surviving to appoint a pope.
Will Kürlich Kerl
Banned
You need a stronger Protestant Reformation that hits Italy, France, Austria, Poland, and Spain, and then an Ottoman Empire that strikes at Southern and Central Italy and succeeds after taking the Balkans.
Cesar Borgia becomes Pope after his father's death and begins a tradition in which successors are of Borgia blood who have children 5 years prior to taking the cloth and become Pope upon the death of their father. This begins a series of Pope-kings who eventually merge the secular and religious institutions. In 1778 the final step is taken and the Papal States simply become the Roman Catholic Empire (to distinguish it from the Holy Roman Empire), in time it unifies Italy, Spain, Portugal, Austria, Switzerland, southern Germany, southern France, parts of Northern Africa, every island of the Mediterranean, and holds colonies on four other continents. Ireland will eventually join later. This causes an even deeper religious schism in Europe as the Roman Catholic Church is now seen not only as a religious institution but a political one in which any active church member is seen as a potential spy for Rome.
Short of a natural cataclysm that wipes out European civilization, I don't know how you can make it happen.
You could, however, reduce it to relative obscurity...
Consider the original patriarchates - the Pentarchy. There was Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, and Constantinople (later elevated to second place in the 5th century). The latter four sees ultimately fell under Islamic control, three quite quickly in the first wave of Arab conquest, and Constantinople only in 1453. All four still exist; but they're greatly diminished from years of Islamic rule, and in Alexandria's, Antioch's and Jerusalem's cases, split between multiple rival claimants.
If, perhaps, the Arabs are able to overrun Italy in the 8th or 9th centuries - not impossible, given that Arab raiders actually sacked Rome at least once - then Rome could well have ended up like Alexandria: there would still be a Papacy, allowed to remain in one of its lesser basilicas on sufferance, nominally speaking for a diminishing Christian population in Italy, and perhaps faced off against one or more firmly established lineages of antipopes.
You could, however, reduce it to relative obscurity...
Consider the original patriarchates - the Pentarchy. There was Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, and Constantinople (later elevated to second place in the 5th century). The latter four sees ultimately fell under Islamic control, three quite quickly in the first wave of Arab conquest, and Constantinople only in 1453. All four still exist; but they're greatly diminished from years of Islamic rule, and in Alexandria's, Antioch's and Jerusalem's cases, split between multiple rival claimants.
If, perhaps, the Arabs are able to overrun Italy in the 8th or 9th centuries - not impossible, given that Arab raiders actually sacked Rome at least once - then Rome could well have ended up like Alexandria: there would still be a Papacy, allowed to remain in one of its lesser basilicas on sufferance, nominally speaking for a diminishing Christian population in Italy, and perhaps faced off against one or more firmly established lineages of antipopes.
French Revolutionary forces disrupt the 1799-1800 Papal Conclave, and no successor to Pius VI is chosen. The Cardinals are imprisoned by the French, and Napoleon is much more successful, creating stable puppet republics in Italy, Spain, Portugal, Germany and Poland. Eventually, with an alliance between France and Russia, Prussia and Austria are defeated, leaving Republican forces in control of all of Catholic Europe.... The Cardinals are never allowed to meet to choose a new pope, and Pius VI is remembered as the last pope....
The simple way (in theory): Have the Islamic conquerors invade Rome and the rest of Italy. Then have some overzealous caliph to stamp out Christianity in Rome, rendering the religion extinct in the city. Et voilà! If there's no Bishop of Rome, there's no Pope.
The challenge about this, though, is having a caliph intolerant enough to snuff out Christianity, since caliphs have historically been really tolerant of Christians and Jews. It wasn't until the Saudis annexed Mecca in the 1920s when their brand of fundamentalist Islam became widespread OTL.
The challenge about this, though, is having a caliph intolerant enough to snuff out Christianity, since caliphs have historically been really tolerant of Christians and Jews. It wasn't until the Saudis annexed Mecca in the 1920s when their brand of fundamentalist Islam became widespread OTL.
The Bishop of Rome, aka the Pope, resided in Avignon for several papacies OTL. What's preventing something similar here?
Same with other holders of titular sees.
Have a string of such unpopular Popes (perhaps here in the 21st century - a string of Popes continually denouncing well accepted things, like still denouncing gay marriage in 100 years, or for some reason deciding to regress women's rights in the church in this time period) that Popes are nearly synonymous with "evil" and "backwards" and "hatemonger" that no matter who the College of Cardinals pick, that person turns them down. Eventually, either the Papacy is ended or all the Cardinals die.