Take the Borgias: After his election to the papacy, one member of that infamously power-hungry family, Callistus III, made two of his nephews cardinals. One of them went on to become pope, and once in power he made his teenage son, along with the son’s teenage friend, cardinals. Things got so bad that a later pope had to issue a bull limiting the practice, although it was largely ignored. Blood, it would seem, was thicker than holy water.
