A mentally unstable woman in a bright red coat jumped a barrier and tackled Pope Benedict XVI during Christmas Eve mass at St. Peter’s Basilica. Benedict survived the attack but an examination of papal history reveals that strange and horrible deaths are actually quite common.
Pope Formosus died in 896. Six months later, his successor, Stephen VI, had his corpse brought to trial for capital crimes. Formosus was found guilty and his cadaver was stripped of its papal vestments, dragged through the streets of Rome and dumped in the Tiber River.
A book has even been written on the topic, The Death of the Popes: Comprehensive accounts, including funerals, burial places, and epitaphs. The following are some of the most disturbing and unknown papal deaths..
Pope Saint Clement I – He was born in the first century A.D., became bishop of Rome and rose to the pontificate during a schism at Corinth. Not much beyond that exists in the written record, but according to legend a riot arose in Rome and a city official named Mamertinus put it down and arrested Clement. The Emperor banished him to Pontus, a city on the shores of the Black Sea, where he was condemned to work in a marble quarry. Clement gained the respect of his fellow convicts and began preaching the word of God. The group took their water from a faraway spring but one day Clem
Feliciano
Misleading history!!! It might have been Stephen as pope, but it was Lambert, son of Gui, that had the body exhumed and tried. It was during the feudal years; Pope Formosus had tried to oust Lambert, whom he did not want to crown as emperor but was forced to. These were times of struggle between the emperors and popes. Stephen might have acted, but it was under the influence of Lambert and others.