It was in 1032 that Benedict IX was elected pope at the age of fourteen years.⁸ “He was a disgrace to the Chair of Peter,” The Catholic Encyclopedia tells us.⁹ Others report that he “was one of the most profligate ever to occupy the post.”¹⁰ Because of his “dissolute life,”a one of the factions in Rome drove him out of his office in 1044, and “amid the greatest disorder” elected Sylvester III as pope. But Benedict IX returned the same year and succeeded in expelling the newly elected Sylvester III.⁹

Concerning this situation The Catholic Encyclopedia states: “The condition of Rome in particular was deplorable. In St. Peter’s, the Lateran, and in St. Mary Major’s, sat three rival claimants to the papacy. Two of them, Benedict IX and Sylvester III, represented rival factions of the Roman nobility.

German King Henry III, emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, was scandalized by this situation. He refused to acknowledge any of the three rival claimants as pope but marched to Rome with a large retinue of religious and political dignitaries and convened a synod at which two of the rival popes were deposed and the third, Gregory VI, who had bought his office, was prevailed upon to resign.