Western Schism

All right, let's talk about examples of anti-popes.

The Great Western Schism.

This lasted from 1378 to 1417.

After years of residing in Avignon, France, you've probably heard this, the papacy returned to Rome under Pope Gregory XI.

Now, doesn't that make those saints heretical? Being mistaken about who the legitimate Pope was during a time of genuine confusion did not make these saints heretics.

They acted according to the best information they had at the time, and they remained faithful to Christ.

Near the end of that great Western schism, though, an effort to solve the crisis made it worse.

The Council of Pisa said, attempted to depose both those two rival claimants, and they ended up electing a third man, Alexander V.

A strong emperor might have had some hope of settling church dissensions.

As it was, the papal schism could not be healed from that quarter and other political events helped to prolong the difficulty.

The schism was indeed in many respects a political question.

The reluctance of France to lose the influence she had so long exerted over the papacy at Avignon and the desire of the Italians to have once more a pope of their own nationality established at Rome soon gave the dispute between rival popes almost the appearance of a struggle between France and Italy.

Ladislaus succeeded Charles as king of Naples and exercised a very important influence, not always of a friendly character, over the popes at Rome.

The claims of Louis II of Anjou were still upheld by the anti-popes at Avignon.

These points are important to remember in working out the history of the papal schism.

There were, besides, other and more complicated questions involved and the ambition of the rival candidates was not the only obstacle to the healing of this terrible quarrel in the church.

And people like to act like this is some invention of the Second Vatican Council, but this is basic moral theology.

And even in the, in the period of the Council of Florence, you have moral theologians talking about this because, uh, right before the Council of Florence, you had what was called the Papal Schism, where you had two and then three different men who claimed to be the pope.

And so you had Catholics who were trying to be Catholics in union with the pope but were innocently unsure who the pope was.

And so Torquemada and others talk about how that's not the sin of schism.

There are seven official popes who resided in Avignon between 1305 and their official return to Rome.

in 1378, as well as two anti-popes who opposed the return to Rome and tried to keep the dream of Avignon alive during the Western Schism.

So we're going to rank all nine today on the standard S to F tier ranking.

I'm going to give a brief blurb about each of them, and Eleanor can talk a bit more because she knows more about them uh because uh yeah um i got bad news for you about my pope rankings people because they're like they're just if i if i find them interesting probably higher if i don't uh fuck off you're boring yeah most of mine like below b is just like either boring or like evil in a way i can't get over um Alright, I guess before we do this, Eleanor, can you give us the brief two, three minute explainer on the Avignon Papacy and why they went there in the first place in the early 1300s?

Okay, yeah.

So the important thing to remember is that the Avignon papacy itself does not necessarily refer to the Western schism, right? It doesn't.

And indeed, when I say the Avignon papacy, I just kind of mean the bit when everybody were chilling.

Yeah.

Wow.

And so then it's only by 1417 that this Western schism was finally demolished of like, look, we're only allowed to have one pope.

Okay.

We have to have one pope.

Yeah.

This crisis was known as the Western Schism, and it lasted almost 40 years.

Whoa.

Yeah.