amy: Popes of Avignon

I began to see how little I truly understood about the complexity within the Catholic Church when Garrett Severson first informed me about there being more than one pope. When Garrett Lambur’s group spoke on the divide between the French and Roman pope, I found out how much there is to know on that subject. It enlightened me as to the function of the church at that time period. The church was the political power. This explains a lot. Not to say that I never understood the Catholic Church was involved in politics, I just never realized how much. Back in those days, and even somewhat today, Catholicism had the power to control entire societies. When Rome and Avignon began disputing over which pope is the “right one,” they hit a major crisis within the religion as a whole. This is interesting to me because the Catholic papacy was as interested in maintaining power over Europe as Napoleon or any emperor within western history. I also find it very sad. As much as Catholicism tries to create a cohesive set of rules for the average person, this point in history goes against everything Christ preached. When Peter tries to start a revolution in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus rejects his physical revolution and goes with the soldiers peacefully. Christianity is never supposed to be a physical revolution, but an inward, spiritual revolution through Christ. It becomes evident the leaders of the time became so focused upon maintaining power that they were not able to focus on the real problems happening within the church. Most of the reformers did not want a rift within the European church, but the papacy was unable to make the proper adjustments in the church because of their distraction of politics.