Italian philosopher Umberto Eco claims papacy was traditionally anti-German

Martin Luther's revolt against the Church of Rome gained firm purchase among the German people in part due to the perception that the papacy was traditionally biased toward the German nation.

Here is an excerpt from an interview with Eco published Sept. 28 in La Nacion, one of the main Argentinean dailies based in Buenos Aires:

"Responding to a question as to whether he was surprised that the pope, for the first time in more than a millennium, was not a European, Eco recalled that 'it (the papacy) went out of Italy' with the election of Karol Wojtyla (John Paul II) in 1978, and prior to that the last non-Italian pope was Hadrian V from Utrecht in 1552.  “When it happened with Wojtyla it was something new that showed that the Church was no longer an Italian power against the Germanic empire, as it had been in the previous centuries, it was something universal."

www.lanacion.com.ar/1624017-umberto-eco-francisco-es-el-papa-del-mundo-de-la-globalizacion

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