Alexander Borgia

[zunshynn]

How could it have been valid for Alexander Borgia to have sold his papacy and gotten it back and then sell it again? Because wouldn't that be simony--and if so, why wouldn't that make it invalid?

[phatcatholic]

[quote name='zunshynn' date='Nov 25 2005, 06:31 PM']How could it have been valid for Alexander Borgia to have sold his papacy and gotten it back and then sell it again? Because wouldn't that be simony--and if so, why wouldn't that make it invalid?
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i'm assuming you're referring to Rodrigo Borgia, who later became Pope Alexander VI? if so, it appears that the charge of simony may in fact be difficult to prove. here is a paragraph from the [b][url="http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01289a.htm"]New Advent article[/url][/b] on his life:[list]Borgia, by a bare two-thirds majority secured by his own vote, was proclaimed Pope on the morning of 11 Aug., 1492, and took the name of Alexander VI. [For details of the conclave see Pastor, "Hist. of the Popes", (German ed., Freiburg, 1895), III, 275-278; also Am. Cath. Quart. Review, April, 1900.] That he obtained the papacy through simony was the general belief (Pastor, loc. cit.) and is not improbable (Raynaldus, Ann. eccl. ad an. 1492, n. 26), though it would be difficult to prove it juridically, at any rate, as the law then stood the election was valid. There is no irresistible evidence that Borgia paid anyone a ducat for his vote; Infessura's tale of mule-loads of silver has long since been discredited. Pastor's indictment, on closer inspection, needs some revision, for he states (III, 277) that eight of the twenty-three electors, viz. della Rovere, Piccolomini, Medici, Caraffa, Costa, Basso, Zeno, and Cibò, held out to the end against Borgia. If that were true, Borgia could not have secured a two-thirds majority. All we can affirm with certainty is that the determining factor of this election was the accession to Borgia of Cardinal Ascanio Sforza's vote and influence, it is almost equally certain that Sforza's course was dictated not by silver, but by the desire to be the future Pontiff's chief adviser.
[/list]i hope that answers your question.

pax christi,
phatcatholic