Power Hungry?

The reading this week on the Papacy in Avignon brings up again the rivalry in powers between the king and the pope and then between popes. The part that interested me the most the was the Great Schism. It started with two rival popes, one Italian the other French. Each had their own college of cardinals, own curia and there were two religious governments. They each excommunicated each other. Thirty years later, we have the same problem, only now it has escalated to THREE popes, their colleges, and their curia. None of them willing to back down. Talk about some serious power hunger. No wonder a council was called again. The purpose was to fix the problem of three popes. The council disposed of all three popes but none of the seemed to want to let their power go. Especially Pope Benedict, retiring in Spain but still excommunicating everyone against him until he died( A sad way to go if you ask me). Even after this popes still ignored councils, side stepped them left and right and avoided them all together. I assume this was because they were afraid that a reform in the church would take away their power. It seemed they weren't even willing to talk about it at all, they just wanted to reassert and hold on to that power of being the pope. The sad thing was that Christians were now seeing the pope as a threat to the church. Ouch. Serious trouble in the church and all over having the power.