The Lady Pope

ARTICLE

by Diane

Transvestites have figured in some pretty fan- tastic stories, but none quite so improbable as the strange career of Pope Joan, Some historians con- tinue to contest her papacy, but there are more than sixty authors of the day who wrote of her. Some of these were official Papal chroniclers and several are recognized saints of the Catholic Church! The story was universally accepted during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.

Iona or Joan was born in the early years of the Ninth Century and as was so often the case in those cruel times, her mother died giving her birth. The child was fortunate to be adopted by a Greek soldier named Macaire who was a wonderful father to her. He taught her to be literate in Greek, Latin, and sev- eral European languages, in a day when most people could not even speak their own language correctly. He also tutored her in Greek philosophy, and poetry as well as stressing the soldierly virtues of courage and prudence.

Life was always precarious during the Dark Ages and one day Macaire was killed by a band of roving knights. Joan fled for her life. Knowing the folly of a young woman trying to travel alone, the nine. teen year old girl put on her adopted father's clothes. With neither money nor name, her only salvation was the charity of the Church. She sought refuge in a monastery where her knowledge delighted the brothers who persuaded her to become a monk. This was Joan's first formal contact with Christian teaching and she soon developed a profound mysticism.

Her story might have ended in a monastic cell

11