The Life and Times of Rodrigo Borgia, Pope Alexander VI Quotes

“That the gross profligacy of the Papal Court gave rise to scandal, is evident, not merely from the published works of contemporary historians and from the private letters addressed by statesmen, diplomats, and others, to their respective governments, or to personages of consequence, but also from the denunciations of the great Florentine, Friar Jerome Savonarola, of the Order of Preachers, who paid for his temerity in reproving the Pontiff, by suffering the dread penalty inflicted upon the excommunicate and the heretic of the time.”
― Arnold Harris Mathew, The life and times of Rodrigo Borgia, Pope Alexander VI

“Borgian apologists, some of them, admit that Pope Alexander was a thoroughly bad man, but they defend him on the ground that he was no worse than his predecessors or than several of his immediate successors in the Papal Chair. This may be true, but it does not excuse the Pope. In accepting the position he held, he, like every other Pope, was bound to be a living representative, a "Vicar" of Christ, and no Pope could ever have been so completely ignorant of the life and teaching of his Divine Master as to suppose he was leading the life and setting the example which the whole Christian world had a right to expect from him when he was living as Alexander lived. In fact Alexander VI., in his better moments, deplored his crimes and shortcomings, confessed them to be worthy of condign punishment, and promised amendment and " the reform of the Church in its head and in its members.”
― Arnold Harris Mathew, The life and times of Rodrigo Borgia, Pope Alexander VI