What abuses did the Church suffer in the tenth century?

Answer 1

A:The tenth century was probably the most decadent century in the entire history of the Catholic Church. Concubinage and simony were rife, and misappropriation of Church funds and murder were not uncommon - even murder of popes and murder by popes.

The aristocratic Theodora and her daughter Marozia effectively controlled the papacy during much of the tenth century, in some cases placing their lovers or sons on the papal throne.

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Catholic Answer

The tenth century was a very bad time in Europe, it was the very end of the "Dark Ages" (as named by secular scholars) and Charlemagne's empire was divided into thirds, with the western part (the future France) ruled by one grandson, the eastern part (the future Germany) by another grandson, and the third grandson taking the Middle Kingdom, which would be fought over by its neighbors into the twentieth century. In the meantime, the Vikings were invading most of Europe and people were fleeing inland only to meet a worse fate: the Magyars. In all this turmoil, the Church was in worse shape (as Diane Moczar said "the Church mirrored the chaos in society, while in Rome the interference of the quarreling hairs of Charlemagne in papal politics, along with the meddling of powerful Italian factions, dragged down the papacy even as friction with the church in Byzantium increased.") With all of these invasions, and the increasing isolation of peoples, feudalism (or manorialism) emerged as the way that people dealt with it. The clergy were dragged into these protection scheme and it would become a centuries-long struggle against domination by temporal powers. Among the abuses in the Church itself at this time were, especially among the Franks, bishops and other ecclesiastical officials were from noble families and often possessed large properties. One of the problems was that the temporal goods and goals were engendering worldliness and laxity among the clergy AND the lands and wealth of the church were starting to look pretty appealing to local Lords and Kings. The practice of simony was widespread with prominent bishops and abbots paying large sums to feudal lords for choice posts. The ignorance of the clergy increased with lay control as did clerical immorality with priests, more or less openly, being "married" or having concubines. But early in the tenth century a "miracle" occurred, a wealthy layman founded a monastery in Cluny - from purely spiritual motives, and then, in an almost unprecedented surprise renounced all control over it. It probably would have gone the way as the other monasteries, but its first abbot was a saint, and was succeeded by a long line of saintly abbots, all of them canonized or beatified. Thus began the story of Abbey of Cluny which eventually absorbed most of the monasteries in Europe and sparked a Church-wide renewal that saved the Church and society. This was known as the Cluniac reform and eventually brought about Church-wide renewal.