Shedding the Dutch Curse

The man Roman Catholics regard as the first Pope was also, of course, the first non-Italian Pope: Simon Peter, the "rock" on whom Jesus Christ said he would build his church. For most of St. Peter's 263 successors, however, it was not the universal nature of the church but the strident demands of local Roman politics, with its aristocratic, warring families, that determined their selection. No fewer than 205 of them were Italians. The 58 exceptions were 15 Greeks, 15 Frenchmen, six Germans, six Syrians, three North Africans, three Spaniards, two Dalmatians, two Goths, a Thracian, an Englishman, a Portuguese, a Dutchman, one of unknown nationality--and now a Pole.

In the early years of Christianity, under the unifying, cosmopolitan empire, many of the Popes were Greeks, Syrians and North Africans. The first French Pope, Sylvester II (999-1003), had difficulty coexisting with the powerful Roman families. One of the most brilliant and scholarly men ever to occupy the papal throne, Sylvester was so learned that he was suspected of being a sorcerer; in fact, he is thought to have been the model for Dr. Faustus.

The only Englishman to sit on the Throne of St. Peter was born Nicholas Breakspear in humble circumstances. As Adrian IV (1154-59), he adroitly played off the grasping Byzantines, the ambitious Emperor Frederick Barbarossa and the obstreperous Romans. The sole Portuguese Pope had a brief pontificate: John XXI (1276-77) was killed when the ceiling of the papal palace in Viterbo collapsed,

In 1305, Italy's city-states were being ravaged by imperialist-republican quarrels, and the papacy went into exile in Avignon, part of a papal fief on the borders of France. Not unjustly, the exile of the papacy was called the "Babylonian captivity": the avarice and corruption of the papal court was unequaled even in the days of the Medicis and Borgias. Seven French Popes resided at Avignon before Gregory XI (1370-78) finally returned the papal seat to Rome.

The two non-Italian Popes of the 15th century were both members of Spain's notorious Borgia family. Alonso de Borgia, elected as Callistus III (1455-58), made the papacy a family affair. So did his nephew Rodrigo, who became Alexander VI in 1492 and named four nephews, as well as his illegitimate son Cesare, Cardinals. In 1503, both father and son fell gravely ill. Alexander died after a week's illness; Cesare survived. It is widely thought that the two master poisoners accidentally partook of the poisoned beverage that they had intended for a rival Cardinal.

The last non-Italian Pope was a Dutchman, Adrian VI (1522-23). A university chancellor and rector in the Low Countries, he also was Inquisitor General of Spain. For a man charged with burning heretics, he had a delicate sensibility. Shocked by the immorality of Renaissance art, he threatened to whitewash the Sistine Chapel.

Adrian VI was the first Pope to face the consequences of Martin Luther's reform movement. But his confession of ecclesiastical errors and call for reform at Nuremberg in 1522 antagonized the German bishops almost more than Luther did--and anyhow came too late. When the Pope died virtually unmourned after a pontificate of 20 months, someone hung laurels on the door of the papal physician who had failed to save his life. For 455 years after that, Adrian's disastrous tenure cast a "Dutch curse" over the possibility of another non-Italian Pope.

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