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Who am I? You would dare question! We are Leo, the tenth of that name. The Vicar of Christ, the Pope of Holy Mother Church. We came to sit the throne of St. Peter in the year of our Lord 1513. Before that, we were Giovanni de Medici, scion of the powerful and wealthy Medici family of Florence.
Who am I indeed! What a foolish question. I received my cardinal’s hat when I merely a boy of 14, studying for the priesthood. I ran with the likes of Cesare Borgia and Alessandro Farnese, the royal sons of Rome in those years. Hellions all, we tore up and down every tavern and brothel in the city.
Of course, those wild years were cut short when Savonarola arose in Florence. That iconoclastic monster! Drove my family from power. Burned priceless books and paintings in his “bonfire of the vanities.” Claimed God was going to bring down his judgment on his wayward Church. The fool! He dared to stand up to the Vicar of Christ. Dared to challenge the Pope! He burned for his folly.
But childhood came to an end. My brothers and I had to pick up the pieces of our beloved city after Savonarola’s barbarism. By the time I was elected to the papacy, I was well-prepared to sit the throne of St. Peter. After all those hard years, I was determined to enjoy it.
And then...then came Luther. That wild boar of Germany. Another fool in the mold of Savonarola and clearly one who had not learned the lesson of that episode. That heretic, that drunken little German monk who had audacity to defy me!
It began with St. Peter’s, the grand basilica of Rome. Like my predecessors before me, we sought to rebuild the grand cathedral of Holy Mother Church, to make of it a temple to rival Solomon’s in its glory. But to do that, we needed money. My predecessors lived in difficult times. Wars consumed the Papal treasury as my fellow Pontiffs supported France against Spain, England against France, Italy against itself, and all of them against the Muslim Turks marching across old Byzantium to threaten all of Europe. Only the Germans seemed to stay out of much of the fray. They were a fruit ripe for the plucking.
Into the German provinces I sent Johann Tetzel with a simple message. Give your moneys to the Church and God will forgive you your sins. Give generously and more sins will be forgiven. Purgatory can be avoided. Your relatives, beloved of your family, can escape hell’s damnation. All it takes is a little coin.
Luther objected to our little scheme. He said the Holy Scriptures tell of grace, that salvation is won through Christ alone.
Who is he to interpret the Holy Scriptures? Am I not the Vicar of Christ? Have I not inherited the throne of St. Peter? The audacity of this man to think he alone is intelligent enough to divine God’s will from the Bible. That’s my job! My task! I tell everyone what the Scriptures mean. Not him.
For his defiance of the Church’s teachings, I called him to task. I had brought before the Inquisitors, but clever demon that he is, Luther secured from the Emperor a promise of safe conduct. He came unmolested, defended his writings. “Here I stand, I can do no other.” He made no effort to recant. No effort to apologize for his affront to our person and our title. But we could not touch him. He had Emperor’s protection, at least for a time.
But then he disappeared. Vanished into thin air. Squirreled away by his many supporters among the rabble of Germany. “German money for a German church.” they would bellow, denying what should rightly belong to me.
This poison continues to spread throughout the Church. I’ve have tried to silence this man. He is anathema, excommunicated, yet he still speaks. He is under threat of death and yet he still speaks. His writings are more popular than ever. He writes in that vulgar tongue German and has even dared to translate the Scriptures into it.
What an abomination. Now anyone can read God’s Holy Word for himself. They can decide what they wish it to mean without the guidance and instruction of the Holy See. They can discover God’s will...without me.
I have armies. I have hundreds of scholars, all willing to see things my way. I have wealth beyond the dreams of avarice. I am the Pope. But against Luther, against his preaching, against his honesty and sincerity, against his defiance, I am nothing.
“You will know the truth and the truth will set you free.” Our blessed Savior once taught that to his disciples. Against the truth my armies are powerless. Against the truth, my scholars are meaningless. Against the truth of God’s Holy Word, I can do nothing.
How dare he do that to me!
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