Absolute Monarchs: A History of the
Papacy
By John Julius Norwich
(Random House, 528 pages, $30)
In his eccentric history of the papacy, Absolute
Monarchs, John Julius Norwich is just hitting his stride when
he mentions in passing the “hideous persecutions… instituted by the
violently anti-Christian Marcus Aurelius, a philosopher-emperor who
should have known better.”
Now think about that for a minute. Norwich is a popular
historian; by his own admission he is no scholar. Marcus Aurelius
was a philosopher. Here the popularizer presumes to instruct the
philosopher on how he should have approached a question of belief.
It apparently does not occur to Norwich that Marcus Aurelius might
have had good reasons to fear the growth of Christianity—reasons
that he, Norwich, fails to grasp.
Notice, too, how lightly Norwich airily suggests that the
philosopher-emperor “should have known
better”—as if persecution were the sort of regrettable offense
that might be committed by a naughty schoolboy. The same
determinedly superficial attitude will be in evidence throughout
Absolute Monarchs. And this passage appears on page 13,
with 455 pages to go. Steel yourself.
IT IS NOT CLEARY WHY Norwich chose to write a history of the
papacy. A devout Catholic might treat the papacy with reverence,
while an ardent Protestant might compare the Roman institution to
the Whore of Babylon. But an “agnostic Protestant,” the description
that Norwich chooses for himself, has no clear frame of reference.
The author is skeptical about nearly every claim put forward for
the papacy, the Catholic Church, and the Christian faith. He is not
sure that St. Peter ever actually made it to Rome. Indeed he is not
sure that Jesus intended to establish a Church. But if the reader
holds these beliefs, Norwich will not oppose them. One has the
impression that he doesn’t really care about questions of faith, as
Marcus Aurelius did. He just wants to tell a story.
And what a story it is! Norwich roars through 2,000 years of
errors and frustrations, schemes and setbacks, venality and
failure. His history focuses on the political side of the papacy:
the constant maneuvering for power and influence, the shifting
alliances with political powers. Absolute Monarchs is
absolutely the wrong title for this book; Norwich takes great
delight in showing how many Roman pontiffs desperately sought
support from earthly potentates. As he tells the story, one pope
after another needed help from powerful Roman families or European
emperors. As often as not the pontiffs failed to win the necessary
support, and in a remarkable number of cases they conveniently die,
sorely disappointed, as soon as Norwich has finished recounting
their political failures.
Other historians have exposed the corruption that has
undoubtedly tainted the papacy: the bribery and the assassinations,
the mistresses and catamites, the sales of indulgences, the red
hats for bastard sons. Serious Catholics and Protestants might
disagree on the value of the papacy, yet agree that Rodrigo Borgia
disgraced the institution. Norwich, never emotionally engaged with
this subject, merely reports the vices of the Renaissance popes,
sine ira et studio. It’s just all part of the story, and if you
want to know the significance of the story—well, you’ll need to
read another book.
Norwich the amateur historian does not try to stir the reader’s
outrage against the scoundrels who have sat on Peter’s throne. But
Norwich the popular writer cannot resist the lure of debunked myths
about the papacy, even when he realizes that they are false. He
realizes that the tales of a female “Pope Joan” are bunk, yet he
devotes an entire chapter to the subject, giving the myth plenty of
play before he disowns it. He airs the wild conspiracy theories
about the alleged murder of Pope John Paul I in 1978 before quietly
owning, in a footnote, that he does not believe them.
Page after page, chapter after chapter, Absolute Rulers
recounts the conflicts between Roman pontiffs and other European
leaders. In the early chapters the main conflict is between Roman
and Byzantium, and Norwich, whose sympathies are clearly with the
East, can barely suppress his wonder at the fact that Rome rather
than Constantinople emerged as the acknowledged hub of the
Christian world. Yet he notes that St. John Chrysostom, the most
illustrious bishop of Constantinople, deferred to the bishop of
Rome. Apparently St. John, like Marcus Aurelius, noticed something
that has escaped Lord Norwich.
Yes, it is true that many early popes (and not a few later ones)
had trouble differentiating themselves from the other political
figures who surrounded them. But on their good days—and there were
many good days, even if Norwich does not recognize them—the Roman
pontiffs recognized that they were not politicians, but vicars of
Christ, who had announced that his Kingdom is not of this world and
his power is not earthly power.
Generations of history students have heard how a penitent Henry
II stood barefoot in the snow at Canossa, waiting patiently for
Pope Gregory VII to lift his excommunication. “In fact, Gregory’s
triumph was empty and ephemeral, and Henry knew it,” writes
Norwich, who goes on to show that Henry continued to plague Gregory
for years after that dramatic encounter. Nonsense! At Canossa, the
pope clearly established that whatever political power a king might
wield, he could not match the moral authority of Peter’s successor.
Some 935 years later, Lord Norwich still has not grasped that
lesson.
Because he takes so little interest in religious affairs,
Norwich does not pay much attention to the theological underpinning
for the belief that the Bishop of Rome is the Vicar of Christ. He
skips lightly through the Christological disputes of the early
Church, the disastrous split between Rome and Constantinople, and
the Protestant Reformation. All these subjects are covered briefly,
whereas the political machinations of the Vatican are given
exhaustive treatment. In this history of the papacy—which is
perforce a history of the Catholic Church—Napoleon Bonaparte is a
far more prominent figure than Martin Luther.
“POPE PIUS V lived for just seven months after Lepanto,” Norwich
mentions, as he wraps up his coverage of one of the most important
popes in history. Lepanto? The reader might be forgiven for
wondering about the reference, since Norwich never says a word
about the Battle of Lepanto, and barely touches on the heroic and
ultimately successful effort by Pius V to rally Catholic opposition
against an Islamic invasion of Europe. Again, the clash
between religious forces is not a particularly important theme in
this book—in a history of the papacy!
Norwich turns to an undoubted political expert for an assessment
of another historically important pontiff, Pius IX. Metternich
described “Pio Nono” as “a good priest, he never turned his mind
toward matters of government.” In this book, Pius IX is depicted as
the Vatican leader who coped with the Risorgimento, the
unification of Italy, and the loss of the papal states. These were
important historical developments, certainly, and they deserve
treatment. But in Absolute Monarchs (again one notices the
inappropriateness of the title) these political concerns completely
overshadow the theological and pastoral work of Pius IX.
On the rare occasions when he does delve into theological
issues, Norwich handles them poorly. He is misleading in his
explanation of how Leo I justified papal primacy, sloppy in his
recounting of the formulae set forth by the Council of Chalcedon,
and simply wrong in his account of the teachings of Vatican II.
Predictably enough, Norwich hews to the standard line of
criticism of the Catholic Church on the punishment of Galileo and
on the reaction to the Holocaust; he pays no attention to the work
of other historians who have challenged the liberal orthodoxy on
those points. As he moves into the modern era, he shamelessly
describes Church leaders as “bigots” when they uphold the perennial
teachings of the Christian Church on issues that have become
controversial in the past few generations.
AT TIMES, the author’s liberal bias is almost comical. For
example, he argues that in his encyclical Humani Generis,
Pope Pius XII “paralyzed contemporary scholarship and categorically
condemned any new or original Christian thinking.” That sort of
line is best written in crayon. And it doesn’t help that Norwich
follows up with a quote from the leftist Jesuit icon Daniel
Berrigan, who claims that Pius XII presided over a “big Stalinist
purge” in the Catholic Church.
When he is not dealing with subjects beyond his ken, Norwich can
be an engaging writer. Yet even at his best he has a tendency to
stretch too far for an arresting comparison. For instance, he
writes that Attila the Hun was “more feared, perhaps, than any
other single man—with the possible exception of Napoleon
Bonaparte—before or since.” One notes the fascination with
Napoleon again. But is it possible to overlook Hitler and
Stalin?
Or consider his description of the Emperor Constantine: “…with
the exceptions of Jesus Christ, the Prophet Mohammed, and the
Buddha, he was to be perhaps the most influential man who ever
lived.” If we confine ourselves simply to religious leaders, what
about Moses and Confucius? And if we enlarge the field to include
all men of influence, as the author’s words suggest, there
might be countless other contenders. Norwich argues that
Constantine is uniquely influential because he had enormous impact
in both the political and religious spheres. True enough. Well, as
long as we’re on the subject of Roman pontiffs, what about Pope
John Paul II. It is truly astonishing that after spending 450 pages
totting up the Vatican’s political wins and losses, Norwich says
absolutely nothing about the dominant role that the late Polish
pontiff played in the fall of the Soviet empire. He mentions that
when Mehmet Ali Agca shot the pope, there was a widespread belief
that the Bulgarian secret service was involved; he never explains
why a Soviet satellite would have found it convenient to arrange
for this pope’s death. Once again the author’s blind spot shows
here. The Soviet leadership understood why a strong Roman pontiff
was a threat, just as Marcus Aurelius did. Norwich doesn’t.
In the last few pages of the book, Norwich attempts to show that
Pope Benedict XVI has been maladroit in his handling of
controversial issues. But the author stumbles badly himself, with a
series of blatant factual errors, culminating when he says,
speaking of the sex-abuse crisis: “The storm first broke in
Ireland…” Since that scandal had already been aired in American
headlines for more than a decade, it is difficult to understand how
Norwich could have made such a blunder. It’s possible that he was
just anxious to be done with this book. So was I.
