Popal Fiction

In 897 AD, the Catholic Church put a dead pope on trial.

No, that's not the setup to a joke.

This week, we dig up the bizarre story of the Cadaver Synod, when Pope Stephen VI ordered the corpse of his predecessor, Pope Formosus, exhumed, dressed in papal robes, and hauled into a courtroom to answer charges from beyond the grave. What followed was a spectacle of political revenge, ecclesiastical chaos, and one of history's most jaw-dropping examples of a grave abuse of power.