There are times, I am afraid, when we think that our modern age is the first to encounter controversy and colorful characters. But even in the pre-internet age, even in the first centuries of the life of the Church, life was messy and complex, as was the case with Saint Callistus, the sixteenth Pope. I guess it goes to show you that the more things change, the more they stay the same.
The life of the sixteenth Pope is clouded by history, but one account tells us he was born a slave of Carpophorus, a Roman banker, who did a lot of business with the somewhat unpopular Christians of the early third century. There is some indication that Callistus became a Christian, as Carpophorus put him in charge of the monies which Christians had collected for the care of widows and orphans.
But then the young Callistus made a terrible mistake. He lost the Christians’s money. And we don’t know how. Perhaps he just misplaced it, perhaps he mis-spent it or maybe the bank went bankrupt. But, in any case, he lost the money and decided to run away to escape facing a charge of larceny.
He only got as far as the port of Ostia, not far from the Rome airport of today, where be was arrested and thrown into jail. The merciful Christians, however, convinced the judge that Callistus was good for the money and should be released and given the chance to recover their funds. No sooner was he released, however, at least according to one account, than he was rearrested at the Jewish synagogue where he tried somewhat too forcefully to either borrow money or collect debts from some of his friends.
So, he’s now in his 30’s and once back in prison, where he was denounced as being a Christian, which under the Emperor at the time got him sentenced to hard labor in the salt mines of Sardinia. Within a few years he was a broken man, but then, by the grace of God, he was finally released with some other Christians at the request of a priest who was close to the favorite mistress of the Emperor Commodus. Go figure.
Two successive popes, then recognized his piety and scholarship, and so he was ordained a Deacon at the age of 39 and placed in charge of the first piece of real estate owned by the Church, a cemetery on the Appian way called to this day, the Catacombe di San Callisto.
Nine popes were buried there and there is an indication that Callistus became an able administrator and valued advisor.
So, in 217, when Callistus was about 57, he was elected Bishop of Rome. But the controversies of his life were to continue.
Callistus, perhaps because of the three times he got out of jail, had a keen appreciation for mercy. And up until then, those who committed adultery and murder were thrown out of the Church for good. No change of forgiveness for adultery and murder. But Callistus decided to admit them to the Order of Penitents and eventually reconcile them. He faced a lot of push back for this controversial stance, including the election of a less merciful rival as the first anti-pope, who claimed an equal claim to the Papacy until well after Callistus’ death.
Callistus was to remain pope for only five or six years in all, at which point an anti-Christian mob threw him into a well, where he died. Ironically they had to pull the body of he who had been the manager of the first Christian cemetery out of a well in the middle of the night in order to give it a proper burial.
So, since the days when Paul would describe himself as a slave, called to be an Apostle of the Gospel of Christ Jesus, through the extraordinary struggles of the first martyr Popes and even to our own day, the Christian life is a messy business. But a messy business in which good and holy men, imperfect but holy men, sought to give their lives to the one who died to save them on Calvary hill.
Saint Callistus, pray for us!
