Question: Is it true that the current Pope Benedict is the oldest pope in history?

Answer: To give a quick answer to this question put to me by a student – no. While Pope Benedict XVI is of venerable years, being 85 years old, he is still not the oldest pope. He was born April 16, 1927, as Josef Aloisius Ratzinger in Marktl, Germany. In fact, at this time, he is only the fifth oldest known pope, but all being well, by the end of this year he will move into fourth place.

The record holder for seniority in the papacy is Pope Leo XIII, who died at age 93 after a reign of 25 years in the year 1903. The current pope has just surpassed the age of his predecessor, John Paul II, who died at the age of 84. The most senior popes at the time of their deaths, after Leo XIII, have been Clement XII (87 years), Clement X (86) and Pius IX (85).

The oldest pope at the time of his election was Pope Clement X, elected at the age of 79 in the year 1670. I note that these popes and their ages are all of relatively modern origin, as the records are much less clear in ancient times about how old the earlier popes were. Exact records of their ages have been kept only since 1295, so there may have earlier pontiffs who were older, but given the medical care in earlier times, that is not particularly likely.

What is much more colorful than the oldest popes is, of course, the youngest ones. The youngest person ever to be made pope was Benedict IX, who was elected to the papacy in A.D. 1032. His official age was declared to be 18, but many historians believe him to have been much younger, perhaps as young as 11.

He was born as the son of an Italian noble named Alberic III, who got his son selected for the job through political connections. By all accounts his younger life was immoral and corrupt, and a later pontiff, Pope Victor III, who ruled from 1086 to 1087, said of young Benedict, “His life as a pope so vile, so foul, so execrable, that I shudder to think of it.” That said, whatever his personal life, Benedict was very orthodox in his public statements and his theology.

Benedict IX was run out of Rome twice by political rivals, but abdicated the papal throne in 1045 to get married, and arranged for his godfather to get the job in exchange for a generous personal gift.

Apparently married life was not all it was cracked up to be and the ex-pope returned to the city of Rome in a short time with enough armed men to take possession of the Holy See to reclaim his old job. His godfather, now Gregory VI, refused to recognize Benedict’s claims. The German Emperor Henry III occupied the papal states and deposed Benedict IX, and also another rival who called himself Sylvester III, and obliged Gregory VI to resign.

A new pope, Clement II, was appointed to end the confusion. Benedict refused to recognize his own deposition, and when Clement II died, Benedict reappeared and claimed to be pope once again. Whatever happened to Benedict IX is not clear but it seems eventually he stopped trying to get his old job back. If one accepts all three of his attempts to serve, he is the only person to have been pope on three separate occasions. I think it would be fair to say that he represents a low moment in ecclesiastical history.

Benedict’s great rival, both in youth and in colorful personal life, was Pope John XII, who was elected pope in A.D. 954 at age 18. For all practical purposes John XII was an Italian prince who used the papal office for his own advantage as a warrior and a politician. He was noted for his sexual misconduct, gaming, love of hunting and immoral language.

The chroniclers were also appalled that he declined to celebrate matins, or morning prayer, at the correct hour, refused to make the sign of the cross during important rituals, and had his personal confessor blinded. The German Emperor Otto attempted to end the scandalous regime by removing him from office, but John died before this could be finally accomplished.

One account says that John was killed by the husband of one of his special female friends at a very delicate moment. It is also worth noting that the medieval legend of the supposed existence of a “Pope Joan” has its origin in John’s reign. There was no female pope named Joan, but one of John XII’s favorite mistresses was named Joan and she exerted considerable influence over him, giving rise the colorful legend.

Accounts of medieval popes make for colorful reading but it is worth noting that of the 265 accepted popes, fewer than a dozen lived lives which would be of a similar character to the two young blades mentioned here. Stories of very holy popes do not always make for very interesting popular reading.

Paul VI, of recent memory, wore a hair shirt studded with metal against his skin under his clothes all of his adult life and his entire collection of personal effects at the time of his death fit into half a suitcase. Saintly John XXIII was so poor all of his life that it was not until he was a cardinal that he could afford to buy his elderly parents a home of their own to live in.

John Paul II spent more than an hour a day on his knees in prayer each morning before the Blessed Sacrament. But it is a lot more colorful to the popular mind to read about the fact that King Manuel I of Portugal gave a delighted Pope Leo X a live white elephant named Hanno as a coronation present in 1514, but that the poor elephant died of constipation in 1516 after having been given a laxative laced with pure gold.

So perhaps this is why in more recent centuries, the leaders of the church have tended to elect older and wiser men to be the supreme pontiff than in times past.

Gregory Elder, a Redlands resident, is a professor of history and humanities at Moreno Valley College and a Roman Catholic priest. Write to him at Professing Faith, P.O. Box 8102, Redlands, CA 92375-1302, email him at askfathergregory@verizon.net or follow him on Twitter at Fatherelder.