During the 19th century, the Catholic Church engineered one of the worst examples of human cruelty, in history.

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For hundreds of years, in the choirs of the Vatican, the Pope and his buddies were quite fond of great singing voices.

There was just one problem with a beautifully voiced youth — they’d hit puberty and age out of it. Your balls drop, your voice drop, and poof! it’s gone.
Someone discovered that in men who were castrated at an early age, the voice tends to remain high-pitched.

But just a shrill voice alone won’t do — it has to be a trained voice, belonging to a trained singer.
Choir masters began to seek out the most talented boys, and promise them and their parents a glorious, financially secure future… surely their careers would last forever, if they kept that youthful timbre?

There was but one condition…
The boy would have to be castrated. Many of the young, talented singers were convinced.

There was a lot of money to be earned, and many came from poor families. The money was just too good to refuse.

Whether the boy agreed or not mattered little; the parents had the final say.
There were often many more siblings to feed and clothe and the choice seemed easy enough. So the boy would be tied up and emasculated.
Not all castrato singers made it big. Despite the promises of great wealth, many of them remained mediocre at best or never quite reached the heights they dreamed of reaching.
As middle age set in, their appearances grew ever-more bizarre, their limbs overly stretched, ribcages overgrown, fingers long and slender.

They developed breasts. Brittle bones. No body hair, no facial hair, no testosterone, often no erections.
Eventually the Vatican officially forbade the practice somewhere in the 19th century, but not before many young lives were forever destroyed.

All that pain and suffering just for a damn choir!

Alessandro Moreschi, who died in 1922, was the last castrato singer of the Vatican.

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