By RAY CAVANAUGH
Before John Paul II, you have to go back almost five centuries to find a non-Italian Pontiff. A Dutchman, Pope Adrian VI, was a compromise choice between quarreling factions of the papal conclave.
His brief papacy was at an especially tumultuous time: Rome was beset by the plague; the Ottoman Empire was menacing Eastern Europe; a newly excommunicated Martin Luther was on the schismatic warpath; the Church treasury had been decimated by lavish spending; and the Roman hierarchy and populace largely resented him.
Adrian died 500 years ago on September 14, 1523, just 20 months into his pontificate. He was so unpopular at the time of his death that his doctor received bouquets of flowers as gratitude for failing to keep him alive.
This reaction was unfortunate. Adrian had worked honestly and tirelessly at his duties throughout his life. A carpenter’s son, he was born Adrian Florensz Boeyens in Utrecht on March 2, 1459. He received his early education from priests associated with the Brethren of the Common Life.
At age 17, he enrolled at the University of Leuven, where he spent 12 years studying theology. Toward the end of this period, he was ordained a priest. He later became a theology professor and “the most important Leuven theologian of his time,” according to the university’s website, which adds that, “People came to him from far and wide to ask for advice on theological issues.”
Hearing that a colleague was having an affair, Adrian urged him to end it. He then fell victim to a poisoning attempt and would have died but for medical intervention. It remains unclear if the colleague or the colleague’s mistress (or perhaps both) was behind the attempt on his life. This incident was not the last time Adrian would suffer for being a righteous man.
In the early 1500s, Adrian served as a private tutor to the future Charles V, who would later reign as Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain. Adrian himself would eventually serve as the bishop of the Spanish Diocese of Tortosa.
After Pope Leo X’s sudden death on December 1, 1521, Rome became very divided about whom to select as a successor. So, after a period of quarreling and upheaval, on January 9, 1522, the cardinals settled on a compromise choice.
This compromise choice was Adrian. He was not present at the conclave. In fact, Adrian, then age 63, had never been to Rome. Nor did he speak Italian, though he was of course fluent in Latin.
Almost immediately after making this selection, the cardinals began to second-guess themselves. Adrian was, of course, a total outsider. And his personality was a mismatch: In a Rome that was the center of Renaissance humanism and saw high-ranking Church officials living rather like Medici princes, Adrian embraced a spartan way of life and shunned opulence. On a personal level, at least, he likely would have gotten along far better with Martin Luther than he would with most cardinals of that era.
According to a 1969 volume of Archivum Historiae Pontificiae, Adrian was “a man of solid piety and simplicity of life…austere and ascetic to a degree that was alien to official Rome.”
Even though Adrian was certainly a compromise choice, he would not compromise on issues involving corruption.
“As soon as the conclave was over, the cardinals realized they had elected a dangerous man,” according to a 2010 article in the journal Fragmenta.
In a sense, however, Adrian was an exceedingly apt choice. The Church, having become financially bankrupt and morally compromised, needed an outsider, particularly one who valued austerity.
After finishing up his endeavors in Spain, Adrian undertook a voyage on the Mediterranean, arriving in Rome on August 29, amid a raging outbreak of plague.
Adrian showed considerable pluck by using his birth name as his papal name. Since the early centuries of the Church, only one other Pope (Marcellus II) has flouted the tradition of adopting a new papal name.
Adrian’s first homily as Pope was delivered on September 1, when he promised to serve as a vigilant shepherd watching his flock and gathering any sheep that went astray.
In accordance with tradition, he would proceed to hold papal ceremonies during his tenure. But these events were far simpler than those of his recent Predecessors.
Instead of focusing on ceremony, Adrian sought to sort out a Church ridden by scandals and schisms. Specifically, he wanted to prohibit the sale of offices in the Church hierarchy, limit the sale of indulgences, and reconcile princes who were warring among one another and leaving much of Christendom increasingly vulnerable to Luther’s influence and perhaps even Ottoman invasion.
Rome wasn’t yet ready for a reformer, though. Adrian saw himself thwarted and resented at every turn. Exhaustion was essentially the cause of his death on September 14, 1523, at age 64.
Though much of Adrian’s official papers went missing after his death, enough information remained for history to vindicate him.
The Archivum Historiae Pontificiae describes his brief pontificate as “a repudiation of the legacy of the Popes of the Renaissance” and one that “cast the first hopeful rays of the reformed papacy.”
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