In the 15th century, the Roman Catholic Church was very powerful in Europe. Popes had both spiritual power and political power. Meanwhile, Catholicism was the only religion recognized in the middle Ages. The questions then arise as to why was there a reformation or what was the state of the Church right before the reformation. In this essay, I will briefly talk about the corruption in the European Catholic Church with references to the film The Borgias and the lecture notes on Martin Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses.
Simony
The act of selling and buying church offices had widespread in Europe. In the first episode of The Borgias, the story starts with the death of Pope Innocent VIII in 1492, cardinals are fighting for the position of being the new pope. Rodrigo Borgias, aided by his eldest son, bribes the most of the cardinals in order to win this fight. It is absurd that Rodrigo becomes the new pope because he paid sufficient amount of gold and jewels to his colleague cardinals. Therefore, simony was a fundamental cause of the corruption of Catholic Church since positions were given to people who were able to afford it, not to the ones who are qualified as spiritual leaders.
Too Rich
In the film of The Borgias, I was surprised by the first glance of the luxury house of the Borgias’s. Additionally, when the eldest son, Cesare, helps his father to bribe the rest of the cardinals, he takes lots of gold ornaments and precious jewelries from the Church of Romagna. Those scenes reveal the fact that the Church was extremely rich. Before the reformation, the Church had accumulated enormous incomes through various sources. Almost every service offered by the Church was based on money. For example simony we have mentioned above, noble families could buy high positions for their sons in the Catholic Church since they believe that their sons would go to heaven and obtain the