In January 897 CE, Rome witnessed the strangest trial in the history of the Church. Pope Stephen VI ordered the corpse of his predecessor, Pope Formosus, dug up from its grave. Formosus had been dead for about nine months. His body was dressed in papal vestments and propped upon a throne in the Lateran basilica. A trembling deacon stood beside the corpse and answered questions on its behalf. The dead pope was charged with perjury and with violating canon law. He was, unsurprisingly, found guilty. His election was declared void. His acts were annulled. The three fingers of his right hand, the fingers of consecration, were hacked off. The body was then flung into the Tiber.

History remembers this spectacle as the Cadaver Synod. It settled nothing. It disgusted Rome, provoked an insurrection, and Stephen VI himself was imprisoned and strangled within months. Successor popes reburied Formosus with honour and burned the record of the trial. The lesson has endured for centuries. A tribunal that sits in judgment over someone who no longer holds the office it can take away does not do justice. It performs theatre, and the theatre degrades the tribunal more than the accused.