Early years of violence

Press, 15 May 1981, Page 4

Early years of violence

NZPA-Reuter $ Vatican City Several of Pope John Paul’s predecessors have met violent ends or narrowly escaped assassination. Saint Peter himself, venerated by Roman Catholics as the first Pope,, was crucified upside down ip Rome in 64 A.D. dr 67 A.D., and his 14 immediate successors were ajso believed to have beep martyred. Sixteen or 17 other Popes have died by poison, the swprd or other unnatural means, bringing the total of violent Papa!

dcaths to more than 30. Since renaissance times, however, the Popes have fared better, and most have died in their beds. The last to die outside Rome was Pius VI who ended his days as a prisoner of Napoleon Bonaparte in 1793 in Valence, France. One of the cardinals of the pleasure-loving Pope Leo X (1475-1521) tried to poison him, but the plot misfired and the cardinal was executed. The last Pope to die violently is believed to have been Lucius II in 1145. As he led an assault

on a group of opponents on Rome’s Capitol Hill, he was killed by a volley of stones. The body of Pope Formosus, who died in 896, was exhumed in the same year by his enemies, clothed, tried and found guilty. The body was stripped again and thrown into the River Tiber. In 908, Pope Sergius 111 set the unique precedent of having bis predecessor, Leo V, put to death. Pope John XII was killed in 964 after a reported act of adultery, but records do not make clear whether it was at the hand of the wronged husband.