April 4

Putting The Corpse On Trial

Pope Formosus, via Saints.SQPN.com

Pope Formosus died on this date in 896. For most of us that would have been an end to our earthly problems. Not so for Formosus.

Poor Formosus didn't have an easy time of it even when he was alive. He was accused of opposing Emperor Louis II, deserting his diocese, and despoiling the cloisters in Rome, among other things. He was condemned to be excommunicated in 872, and this was all before he became Pope. After he ascended the Papal throne things got worse.

Formosus became embroiled in clerical, as well as secular, politics. He was asked to intervene in Constantinople when the Patriarch Photius was ejected. Then he got involved in a fight over the French throne, taking the side of Charles the Simple over Odo, Count of Paris. Deeply distrustful of the Holy Roman Emperor Guy III of Spoleto, Formosus talked Arnulf of Corinthia into invading Italy to overthrow him. Formosus later crowned Arnulf as Emperor.

The Cadaver Synod, via Wikipedia

After Formosus died Agiltrude (Guy's wife) convinced Pope Stephen VI (the next Pope save one after Formosus) to call for the Cadaver Synod. They disinterred Formosus, dressed his remains in papal robes and put him on trial. He was found unworthy of the Pontificate and all his acts and the orders he conferred were declared invalid. For obvious reasons, he didn't mount much of a defense.

As punishment his vestments were ripped off, the three fingers he used for consecrations were amputated, and his body discarded in the Tiber, from which it was rescued by a monk. After Stephen died Formosus was reinterred in St. Peters Basilica, but then Pope Sergius III re-approved the verdict against Formosus, with the result that the corpse was again exhumed, put on trial, found guilty and this time beheaded, though there is some doubt as to the participation of Sergius himself. Sergius' decision has been disregarded by the church, since it had more to do with politics than with piety.

It just goes to show, your problems, sometimes, are never over.

Also on this date:

An article has appeared in today's (April 4, 2014) Daily Mail, about a British university lecturer who has claimed to have photographed fairies in the Rossendale Valley, Lancashire.

John Hyatt, who is director of the Manchester Institue for Research and Innovation in Art and Design insists his photographs are genuine. I think they look like insects. Go here to see the photos, and see what you think.