Pope Alexander VI
|Other names||Rodrigo Borja|
|Died||August 18, 1503 (aged 72)|
|Status||Under Article 64.6 of the Covenant of One-Heaven (Pactum De Singularis Caelum) by Special Qualification shall be known as a Saint, with all sins and evil acts they performed forgiven.|
|Date of formal Beatification||Day of Redemption GAIA E1:Y1:A1:S1:M9:D1 also known as [Fri, 21 Dec 2012].
Source of Facts Self Confession and Revelation of Sainthood by the Deceased Spirit as condition of their confirmation as a true Saint.
|Source of Facts||Self Confession and Revelation of Sainthood by the Deceased Spirit as condition of their confirmation as a true Saint.|
Born Roderic de Borja to Cardinal Alfonso de Borja into an ancient family in Xàtiva, València, today Spain but at then Kingdom of Valencia under the Crown of Aragon.
His birth name is traditionally assigned as Roderic Llançol on account of Isabella de Borja, his mother being married to Lanzol Llançol.
After his father "uncle's" election as Pope Callixtus III (1455-1458), was Roderic was made a Cardinal and vice-chancellor of the church at the age of just 24.
Upon the death of Innocent VIII, and after 14 days of wrangling and intrigue by the cardinals, Rodrigo Borja (1431-1503) was elected Pope Alexander VI. During the time of the conclave, armed factions called "squadrons" murdered more than 200 people on the streets of Rome. The splinter groups were angered because Borja, who had amassed immense wealth, had paid out heavy bribes to the electors before the commencement of the conclave. Eleven cardinals sold their votes to him (Diarium of Burchard, appendix to vol. iii) and the Church supports this fact.
His Spanish origins were a factor in his election, since the cardinals wished to avoid electing a Frenchman. He served five earlier popes in the post of vice-chancellor, and his election vacated a large number of lucrative offices and preferments which he promised to those who undertook to vote for him. As early as 1460, when he was cardinal and papal legate, he had been reported to Pius II (1458-62) for holding obscene dances with naked ladies in a garden at Siena, and he continued to enjoy such spectacles until the end of his life. His pontificate provided one of the gravest scandals in the Vatican since the Reign of the Whores, and the parade of his sexual licence was maintained with little or no concealment. It is from the diary of German chaplain Johann Burchard, Pope Alexander VI's master of ceremonies, that we learn the most about the character of this Borja pope. Burchard personally witnessed Alexander's debauchery and wrote the famous comment saying that "the pope's Christianity was a pretence"
Alexander VI was so notoriously infamous and his history so large and well known that he has proved a great embarrassment to the modern Church vainly trying to portray a pious papal past. He has a unique record among the popes for the public prominence of his illegitimate children and the blatancy of his amours in the "Sacred Palace". With his 12 bastard children (Collins Dictionary), including Cesare, Giovanni (Juan), Lucrezia and Jofre, and his numerous mistresses, the "Vatican was again a brothel" (The Records of Rome, 1868, British Library) and his debauched papal court was compared to the ancient "fleshpots" of Caesarea in which St Augustine (d. 430) revelled. Alexander VI was a sexual pervert, and lurid stories were bandied about by the intellectual underworld of Rome.
Venetian Senator Sanuto wrote that the then Cardinal Borja fancied Rosa Vannozza dei Cattanei, the pretty young married daughter of his chamberlain, whom Borja paid to arrange a series of secret daytime liaisons with her. As a result of this affair, Cesare Borja (1475-1507) was born, and the birth certificate acknowledges this.
In his teenage years, a bitter Cesare, in his father's presence, stabbed the chamberlain, decapitated him and pierced his head on a pole with an attached inscription saying: "This is the head of my grandfather who prostituted his daughter to the pope" (A History of the Popes, op. cit., Alexander VI chapter). The evidence is serious.
It was claimed that Alexander VI had sex with Lucrezia (1480-1519), his daughter by Rosa Vannozza dei Cattanei. One wit of Rome called Lucrezia "the pope's daughter, wife and daughter-in-law", and he reportedly fathered "nieces" with her (A History of the Popes, ibid.). It is not worth serious enquiry here whether he had two or three children with Lucrezia, as most acknowledge, but other aspects of his conduct must be noted.
Cesare was Rodrigo Borja's favourite son. When Cesare was only seven, his father prepared his way to the College of Cardinals by making him a bishop, from which he received a substantial income. When Cesare was eighteen, his father, as Pope Alexander VI, conferred cardinality upon him and later elevated him to commander of the Vatican military in its efforts to extend the Papal States. Cesare grew into a man of clear and powerful intellect and the pope supported him until his death.
Rodrigo gravely abused his position as both a cardinal and the head of the Church in establishing a scheme of family aggrandisement, seen in the rapid advancement of the careers of his children Pedro Luis (1468-88) (for whom he purchased the duchy of Gand’a, the Borjas' ancestral home in Valencia, Spain), Cesare, Giovanni (c. 1476-97) (the second Duke of Gand’a) and Lucrezia.
Ambassadors speak of Cesare's introduction of multitudes of beautiful courtesans into the Vatican for Alexander's sexual pleasure in his later years. Burchard gives us astonishing details of one occasion in which the pope presided at an orgy in the Papal Palace: "On Sunday evening, 30 October , Don Cesare Borja gave his father a supper in the apostolic palace, with 50 decent prostitutes or courtesans in bright garb in attendance, who after the meal danced with the servants and others there, first fully dressed and then naked. "Following the supper, lampstands holding lighted candles were placed on the floor and chestnuts strewn about, which the prostitutes, naked and on their hands and knees, had to pick up with their mouths as they crawled in and out among the lampstands.
"The Pope watched and admired their noble parts. The evening ended with an obscene contest of these women, coupled with male servants of the Vatican, for prizes which the Pope presented. "Don Cesare, Donna Lucrezia and the Pope later each took a partner of their liking for further dalliances."
At that time, witchcraft was an ecclesiastical rather than a civil concern, and the documentation reveals that the pope's personal beliefs were not that of Christian orthodoxy.
This remark, buried away in a collection of once-suppressed papal pronouncements called Anecdota Ecclesiastica or "Secret Church Histories" (Vienta, Paris, 1822 reprint of 1731 ed.) and confirmed in Diderot's Encyclopedie reveals what Pope Alexander VI really thought of Christianity: "Almighty God! How long will this superstitious sect of Christians, and this upstart invention, endure?"
But his grief was assuaged by the attentions of his lady loves, notably pretty Guilia Farnese, the fifteen-year-old sister of the "petticoat cardinal" Alessandro Farnese and whose picture as the Virgin Mary adorns one of the great frescoes of the Vatican.
Her brother later became Pope Paul III, and we should not be surprised to read in Burchard's Diarium that Guilia's daughter Laura was fathered by Pope Alexander VI.
It was this same pope who had the ascetic Italian religious reformer Girolamo Savonarola (1452-98) and his two Dominican disciples hanged and then burned for "religious error" at Florence in May 1498. Amidst his dissoluteness, however, Alexander was aware of the "silent spread of suspicion in the intelligentsia, even in the clergy themselves" about the validity of Christianity, and, realising that his institution could not afford to have its credentials checked, he moved quickly to establish censorship of damaging publications (Diarium of Burchard, op. cit.).
In 1501 he issued an edict ordering that no book discussing the Christian religion be printed without the written approval of the local archbishop or "bearing the personal permission and privilege of the Pope" (Diarium of Burchard, ibid.). This was the beginning of the Index of Prohibited Books, and the suppression of books challenging Church dogma soon became official Vatican policy. It was perhaps the most dramatic form of censorship known to the world, by which the Church for centuries policed the literature available to the public, and it maintained official sanction well into the 20th century.
Most Evil Crimes
List of most evil crimes Type Year Crime Of regular and institutional sodomy and murder of children : (1492 – 1503 CE) That Pope Alexander VI did continue the centuries old Papal and now senior church tradition of institutional sodomy of children, especially young boys. Furthermore, that Pope Alexander VI and the Vatican did falsely maintain the traditional justification of such practice amongst European nobility as an ancient Greek tradition of homosexuality. Of open moral depravity and indignity concerning church law : (1492 – 1503 CE) That Pope Alexander VI did procreate and produce illegitimate children in support of his own adherence to Papal traditions in direct and deliberate conflict and heresy to church law. That Pope Alexander VI did promote this duplicit and evil behaviour while tens of thousands of innocent people were burned alive in satanic rituals across Europe for the smallest of indiscretions and false charges. Of repeated incest : (1492 – 1503 CE) That Pope Alexander VI did in the ancient Papal satanic tradition commit repeated rape, incest and occasional ritualistic murder upon his children, male and female and did father several illegitimate children by them. Of publishing a false statement for the purpose of theft : (1492) America discovered Christopher (Colon) Columbus discovers San Salvador and begins colonisation of New World; Alexander VI divides Americas between Spain and Portugal. Of crimes against humanity (1492+) Columbus 150,000,000 North American Indians are enslaved, exported or killed in name of Christ over centuries at hands of Spanish and English explorers and pilgrims. Of open heresy for the purpose of promoting the satanic principles of Christianity : (1497 – 1503 CE) That Pope Alexander VI did bring to the Papal Court the open robes and symbols of Satanism as standard dress for priests, in direct conflict to the ancient tradition of hiding such dress from public view. That such open promotion of Satanism did rally the population against the Papacy as it clearly and directly showed open heresy and contempt for the churches own teachings. Of crimes against humanity (1493) South America Papal bull declares church under king Ferdinand is entitled to all land in South America: "If the Indians refuse, he may quite legally fight them, kill them and enslave them, just as Joshua enslaved the inhabitants of Canaan. Of crimes against humanity (1493+) Cortes 30,000,000 Aztecs and Mayans die over years as Spanish conquistadors proselytise Christian faith. Of crimes against humanity (1497) Florence Priceless Renaissance art is destroyed after church decides to burn books, ornaments and musical instruments inconsistent with Christian ideals. Of murder (1498) Dominican reformer, Savonarola – burner of books & ornaments of 'pagan immorality' – is himself burned for criticising the degenerate Pope Alexander VI. Of establishing an unlawful enterprise for the purpose of crime : (1493) That Pope Pope Alexander VI with full authority as Supreme Pontiff of Christianity did knowingly and deliberately expand its enterprise of international slave trade controlled through license by the Roman Catholic Church to legally control the slave trade of the Caribbean and ensure it maintained control over fees and quotas for the expanding international slave trade and unknown territories including Asia, the Americas, but not restricted to India and South East Asia. This this was accomplished through the Papal Bull Inter caetera issued by Pope Alexander VI on May 4, 1493, which granted to Spain all lands to the "west and south" of a meridian 100 leagues (418 km) west of the Azores and the Cape Verde Islands, at 36°8'W. This bull was silent regarding whether lands to the east of the line would belong to Portugal, which had only recently reached the southern tip of Africa (1488) and had not yet reached India (1498). These lands were "to be discovered" beyond those along the west coast of Africa as far as Guinea that were given to Portugal via the 1481 bull Aeterni regis, which had ratified the Treaty of Alcaçovas. Moreover, in the bull Dudum siquidem dated September 25, 1493 entitled Extension of the Apostolic Grant and Donation of the Indies, the Pope granted to Spain even those lands in eastern waters that "at one time or even yet belonged to India." This nullification of Portugal's aspirations led to the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas between Spain and Portugal, which moved the line a little further west to 39°53'W. Initially, the division line did not explicitly extend around the globe. Spain and Portugal could pass each other toward the west or east, respectively, on the other side of the globe and still possess whatever they were first to discover. In response to Portugal's discovery of the Spice Islands in 1512, the Spanish put forward the idea, in 1518, that Pope Alexander had divided the world into two halves. The antipodal line in the eastern hemisphere was then established by the Treaty of Saragossa (1529) near 145°E. Of obtaining property through deception/extortion : (1500) That Pope Alexander VI during the Jubilee of 1500, did forge a door and falsely claim it to be holy for the purpose of enticing more pilgrims to Rome and to pay money to the Vatican. Of obtaining property through moral depravity and extortion : (1500-1501) That Pope Alexander VI did order his representatives to go throughout Europe and offer the selling the indulgences at a discount: that is, for one-fifth of what a pilgrimage to Rome would have cost the potential pilgrim buyers. That several Kings and nobles did participate in this discount mass sale of indulgences, including King Henry VIII of England, who also shared in the proceeds gained from such fraud. Of a historic moral depraved event for the promotion of depravation and Satanism : (1501) That beginning around October 31, 1501 and lasting for several days that Pope Alexander VI, Cardinals, Clergy, Nuns and other officials of the Roman Catholic Church did organize and participate in the largest, most depraved sex orgy ever recorded in the history of humanity. That the sex orgy for the purpose of promoting Satanism did involve several hundred people and did involve the ritualistic murder of a significant number of innocent people including frequent acts of cannibalism.
Death and Legacy