The Pope Who Was Pregnant

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For eons, Vatican has tried to erase and alter records of a pope who became pregnant months after his election.

Pope John VIII had come to power in the middle ages between 855-858 AD. The church had been oblivious of his pregnancy till the day he gave birth during a papal procession.

According to Chronica Universalis Mettensis, written in the early 13th century, he was a curial secretary, then a Cardinal and finally Pope.

Joan, a young German, disguised herself as a man and after distinguishing herself as a scholar, she ascended through the church ranks and was elected Pope John VIII in the year 855. 

It is reported she was born in Mainz and her lover had convinced her to take up the disguise on a trip to Rome.

“Pope John VIII is said to have arrived at popedom by evil art; for disguising herself like a man, whereas she was a woman…she met with few that could equal, much less go beyond her, even in the knowledge of the scriptures; and by her learned and ingenious readings and disputations, she acquired so great respect and authority…” reads the writing of one Vatican library prefect Bartolomeo Platina.

She was impregnated by her companion and through ignorance of the exact time when the birth was expected, she delivered a child while mounting a horse in procession from St. Peter’s to the Lateran in a lane once named Via Sacra (the sacred way) but now known as the “shunned street.” 

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Up to this date, Popes avoid using the street due to abhorrence of the middle ages’ event.

To avoid such an occurrence, subsequent popes had to sit on a chair with a hole in the middle and a cardinal had to reach out and find out if they had testicles before announcing, “He has two, and they dangle nicely” or “he has them”

She has been expunged from church histories and her reign replaced with pontiffs Leo IV and Benedict III.

One millennium later, patriachs of the Catholic Church are still baffled how they could be played by a gender they so much try to suppress.