Julius III (1487 – 1555), was a career diplomat who became pope and head of the Papal States from 1550 until his death five years later. As pope, he took some half hearted stabs at reforming what had become a notoriously corrupt Catholic Church, but he much preferred to spend his time in the pursuit of pleasure instead. In his case, pleasure meant devoting himself to carnal relations with adolescent boys. Julius III’s predilections tarnished his reputation and that of the Church. Below are some highlights – or more like lowlights – from the life and career of this unholy Holy Father.
A Depraved Holy Father
The future Pope Julius III was born Giovanni Maria Ciocchi del Monte. He was a nephew of an influential archbishop and cardinal, who helped him ascend the church hierarchy. He became a cardinal in 1536, and a papal legate who undertook various diplomatic missions on behalf of the Holy Father. In 1550, he was elected pope as a compromise candidate, after the College of Cardinals deadlocked between rival French and German candidates. He assumed the name Julius III. Once on the papal throne, he exhibited little interest in papal affairs.
Instead, Julius looted the Church treasury to renovate his mansion in Rome. At least he had good taste: he splurged the Church’s money on the best, including commissioning Michelangelo to transform his residence into a magnificent palace, the Villa Giulia. However, that was not the most scandalous thing about his pontificate. That distinction goes to his love of young boys and carnal lust for kids, which was abundantly clear to all who set foot in the papal residence. Julius’ mansion was full of statues and frescos of boys engaged in intimate acts with each other, as the pope flaunted his depraved passion for children.
The Pope’s Notorious Obsession With Boys
The greatest of Julius’ controversies was the “Innocenzo Scandal”, named after a handsome thirteen-year-old beggar with whom Julius fell passionately in love. He had the street urchin adopted into his family, then made the uncouth and barely literate Innocenzo a cardinal and showered him with church offices and benefices. The boy shared the pope’s bed, and on the rare occasions when Innocenzo was absent from Rome, Julius fretted with all the impatience of a lover pining for a mistress, until the boy returned. The besotted pope also openly boasted of Innocenzo’s prowess in bed, and ignored all advice that his unseemly passion for the teenager opened him to ridicule as an old pervert.
Julius III made Innocenzo a cardinal as a reward for his bravery, because he did not cry after he was bitten by one of the pope’s pet monkeys. The pope’s contemporaries wrote that it was his “costume … to promote none to ecclesiastical livings, save only his buggerers”. As to Innocenzo, he became a huge headache to subsequent popes after Julius III died in 1555. The former urchin, derisively nicknamed “Cardinal Monkey”, led a “voluptuous and indecent” lifestyle that embarrassed the Church. He once murdered two servants – a father and son – and spent years imprisoned in various monasteries as a result. He was also tried for trying to force himself upon two lower class women, but escaped punishment. Church leaders must have breathed a sigh of relief when Innocenzo finally passed away in 1577.
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Some Sources & Further Reading
History Halls – Unholy Holy Fathers: Sergius III Murdered Two Previous Popes Before He Became Pope
O’Malley, John W. – A History of the Popes, From Peter to the Present (2009)
