The rosary is the scourge of the devil.
~ Pope Adrian VI
Learn more about the (only!) Dutch pope here:
Wikipedia entry about the 16th century Pope Adrian VI
The 1908 edition of the Catholic Encyclopedia characterised the task that faced him: “To extirpate inveterate abuses; to reform a court which thrived on corruption, and detested the very name of reform; to hold in leash young and warlike princes, ready to bound at each other’s throats; to stem the rising torrent of revolt in Germany; to save Christendom from the Turks, who from Belgrade now threatened Hungary, and if Rhodes fell would be masters of the Mediterranean – these were herculean labours for one who was in his sixty-third year, had never seen Italy, and was sure to be despised by the Romans as a ‘barbarian’.
In Utrecht they still point out this house to strangers,And name it after him: the house of pope Adrian,Still his bust stands in its façade. Less elevatedWas the ancestry of this pope, the son of a boat builder,His name is still proudly spoken by thousands of tongues,Only briefly, but with honor, he wore the papal crown.
