How evil and power hungry was Pope Boniface VIII (1294-1303)?

After massacring the entire population in the Italian town of Palestrina where he killed 1000s of civilians after promising them mercy in and stub 1297, Boniface VIII indulged in threesomes with a married woman and her daughter and became renowned through Rome as a shameless pedophile. 

He famously declared that having sex with young boys was no more a sin than rubbing one hand against the other — which should make him the patron saint of the pedophile Catholic priests of today. Fortunately, poet Dante reserved a place for him in the eighth circle of Hell.

Note: Boniface VIII was still alive when Dante — who had been personally exiled by the Pope for supporting papal limitations — wrote his famous Divine Comedy. 

And then there was his nepotism, where he enriched his Caetani family while suppressing their opposition. And he engaged in Simony, selling church offices, and fraud. 

And with this track record pope Boniface VIII decreed Unam Sanctam, claiming absolute authority over every living soul and taxation requirement. Primacy of the pope in summary. 

The king of France Philip IV had other plans despite his excommunication from the church and intention to strip him of the crown. Philip sent a band of mercenaries to show Boniface who is boss at Anagni. They demanded the pope resign and assaulted him. The pope’s army then secured the perimeter of the palace and locked the French soldiers out. 

This conflict with France led to the transfer of papal power from Rome to France, thus the Avignon papacy. The pope returned to Rome and died a month later in October 1303. 

Other posthumous charges brought by Philip IV included accusations of heresy, blasphemy, and immorality, the usual.

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