Why was the papacy bad?

Answer 1

The papacy was created by Our Blessed Lord, Jesus Christ, to be His Vicar on earth. Nothing that God has created can be bad, only men have the free will to reject God and choose evil, thus constituting something bad, and even then a person would be remain good, in his being, he has just chosen evil and thus made himself bad. In the same way, the Papacy cannot be "bad", although individual popes may, and have been evil men. When appointed to the office, they chose sin instead of service. Nevertheless, the grace of God, of course, is more powerful then any evil (evil, by definition, is just the absence of good), and by the grace of God, the Church has managed to survive two thousand years, and will continue until the end of the world, because it has been guaranteed by God. No human institution could have lasted a hundred years with some of the popes that we have had; the fact that the Church, and the papacy, are still here, doing God's work, is one of the most powerful arguments for the divine institution and guarantee of the Church and the papacy.

Thus, the papacy was NEVER bad, and cannot be, individual popes have been bad, but have never done anything that would endanger Christ's message from winning in the end.

Answer 2

From earliest times, it seems that the bishop of Rome was able to acquire such wealth from parishioners as to be an object of envy. Ammianus Marcellinus, the famous fourth-century pagan historian, says that the chariots, rich clothes, and splendid feasting of the bishops of Rome, whose tables surpassed those of kings, were a tempting object to ambition. According to Jerome, in reference to Bishop Damasus' luxurious lifestyle, the Roman aristocrat Praetextatus joked to him, "Make me bishop of Rome and I will become a Christian."

By the sixth century, election to the papacy was becoming so contested that the outcomes depended on bribes, when not decided by the emperor himself. Still, the papacy was in many respects no worse than the secular rulers of Europe. What finally tipped the balance was a forged document, now known as the Donation of Constantine, by which Pope Stephen II (752-757) persuaded King Pepin of the Franks to cede a huge expanse of territory to the pope and his successors. This made the papacy no more than a prize to be fought over by the factions and warlords of Italy. Whoever gained the papacy and became pope was expected to shower family and friends with wealth from the Church's enormous income and, for this reason alone, became the focus of bitter rivalry. Russell Chamberlin (The Bad Popes) describes how the Church was spiritually weakened as pope after pope took on the office for personal gain and proceeded to live lives of debauchery and vice.