Pope Joan, a 2009 film based on Donna Woolfolk Cross’s novel of the same name, shares the story of Joan, female pope in the Roman Catholic Church, with a modern audience.
Some believe that Pope Joan was a real woman who reigned as pope in the 9th century. Though modern historians and the Church alike have declared Joan’s papacy a hoax, Joan the female pope continues to inspire popular imagination, as she has since the Middle Ages.
Who Was Pope Joan
According to a 13th century legend, Pope John of Mainz, an Englishmen, occupied the papal seat for nearly three years in the mid 9th century. Pope John, “Johannas” in Latin, was hereafter known as Joan, the female version of John.
How Did Joan, a Woman, Become Pope
Legend describes Joan as a talented and beautiful English maiden who traveled to Athens with her lover. For protection, she dressed and acted as a man.
Highly educated, it's said she excelled as both student and teacher, thriving in the male world as a cross dresser. Joan trained for the Church and taught in Rome, so impressing the local clergy that they elected her pope, thinking she was a man.
How The Church Finds Out Pope Joan is a Woman
How the Church learned of Pope Joan’s gender is indeed worthy of fiction. According to legend, Joan became pregnant by one of her attendants and actually gave birth to the child during a procession between St. Peter’s and the Lantern, somewhere between the Coliseum and St. Clements. Exposed, it's said that Joan lost the papacy.
What Happens to Pope Joan When She's Discovered
There are two different endings to Pope Joan’s story. A thirteenth century legend says that Joan died giving birth in the middle of the procession and is buried under the road.
An earlier legend from the eleventh century has a much nastier ending. The crowd watching Joan’s procession stoned her to death in anger, but her son lived to adulthood and eventually became a bishop himself.
Did Pope Joan Really Exist?
Throughout the Middle Ages, many in the Church believed in the legend of Joan, the female pope or popess. Popes still traditionally avoid the road where Joan supposedly bore her son, and a chair with a hole in the seat to test the gender of the new pope is part of the Vatican Museum’s collection. Political instability during the 9th century and two months between the death of Leo IV and the installation of Benedict III in 855 also give credulity to Pope Joan’s reign.
Yet modern secular and Church historians both agree Joan’s story is a fanciful legend. Besides stories written hundreds of years after Joan's supposed papacy, no other evidence of her exists. The dates of Joan's papacy also clash with those of Benedict III, who is documented in contemporary sources as being pope.
Pope Joan Legend and Anti-Catholicism
The Pope Joan legend has an unfortunate history of being used for anti-Catholic propaganda. Many Protestants during the Reformation used Joan’s tale as proof of the corruption of the Church and its clergy.
Pope Joan was commonly pictured riding the beast in Revelations as the Whore of Babylon. In the centuries since, the Pope Joan legend has been a weapon that some continue to wield against the Church.
What Does the Church Think About Pope Joan
The L’Avvenire, the Italian Bishops Conference's newspaper, declared the 2010 Pope Joan film and the historical Joan herself “a hoax” (Child, Guardian, 2010). This is not surprising, giving that the Church has denounced Pope Joan’s existence in recent centuries.
Pope Joan’s identity as female pope contradicts Church teaching, that only men are called to be priests, bishops, and popes, and her story likely gains attention due to its revolutionary nature. The Church views Pope Joan as a fictitious legend from the early Middle Ages, a time when fantastic tales about saints and religious leaders were orders of the day.
Whether Pope Joan was a real person or not, the female pope has captured the attention and imaginations of believers and the world curious about the woman who tricked the Church into making her pope.
Sources:
Child, Ben. “Female Pope Film Sparks Vatican Row.” Guardian. Tuesday, June 22, 2010.
Kirsch, J.P. “Popess Joan” The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910.
Melissa Roberts - A trained hospital chaplain, Melissa is a freelance writer, teacher, retreat leader, and spiritual director.
