The long version of the gospel this Palm Sunday features bribery, deceit, and intrigue in the Sanhedrin among those plotting Jesus’ death. The Showtime network bills its new eight-week drama The Borgias as a “sordid tale” of corruption in the Vatican during the reign of the medieval Pope Alexander VI. While few would defend this infamous pope, some object to the series launching so close to Holy Week.

Alexander, who reigned until his death in 1503, has gotten bad press since the 15th century. A contemporary critic, the zealous church reformer Girolamo Savonarola, even claimed that the pope was doing the work of the Antichrist. Unsurprisingly, Alexander eventually had him executed.

In his recent history, Lives of the Popes, University of Notre Dame scholar Father Richard P. McBrien calls Alexander the “most notorious pope in all of history.” Even William Donohue, the pugnacious head of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights who assailed Showtime for airing its “sensationalist” show during Lent, concedes that Alexander was an “extortionist who led a life of debauchery.”

During his 11-year papal reign, according to historian Eamon Duffy’s Saints and Sinners, Alexander “was widely believed to have made a habit of poisoning his cardinals so as to get his hands on their property.”

Yet some of Alexander’s shocking behavior is less remarkable in historical context. Bribery and cold-blooded political and diplomatic maneuvering were well-known arts in both the medieval church and state as they struggled to dominate one another.

Even by the relaxed standards of his day, however, Alexander must be judged as one who put his own interests and those of his family ahead of his avowed role as leader of Christendom. Perhaps the most unambiguous evidence: He offered to prevent a crusade to free Constantinople from Muslim rule in return for 300,000 gold ducats from the Turkish sultan.

Source: An article by Francis X. Rocca for Religion News Service