Pope is the head of the Roman Catholic Church. The church regards the pope as its visible head and Jesus Christ as its invisible and supreme head. Roman Catholics believe that Jesus established the office of pope when He said to the apostle Simon, who was also called Peter:
Loading the player...And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it (Matthew 16:18)
Matthew 16:18
Except for brief periods of vacancy, there has been an unbroken line of popes beginning with Peter. Francis, who became pope in 2013, is generally considered the 266th pope.
The word pope comes from the Greek word pappas, which is a child’s name for its father. The pope is also called the pontiff, from the Latin word pontifex, a term used for a member of the council of priests in ancient Rome.
The word papacy refers to the office of the pope. It is also used for the government of the Roman Catholic Church with the pope as supreme head. The papacy is also called the Holy See or Apostolic See. See is a term for the official home of a bishop. Holy See is especially used as a term for the papacy when referring to its functions and jurisdiction (authority).
In early church history, bishops in general were often called pope. Beginning in the early 500’s, the title in the Western Church came to be used only for the bishop of Rome. According to tradition, Peter traveled to Rome and became the city’s first bishop, giving special status to Rome and to its office of bishop. The pope usually lives in the Vatican Palace in Vatican City, an independent country that lies within the city of Rome.
The pope is elected for life. He can resign, but he cannot be deposed (forcibly removed from office). Officially, any practicing Roman Catholic male is eligible to be elected pope. However, since the 1300’s, the pope has always been chosen from among high-ranking clergymen called cardinals. Together, the cardinals make up the Sacred College of Cardinals and serve as the pope’s chief advisers.
Almost all popes have been Italian. In 1978, John Paul II became the first non-Italian pope since 1523. John Paul was born in Poland. His successor, Benedict XVI, was born in Germany.
The powers of the pope
The pope has two basic types of powers: spiritual and temporal. Spiritual powers are concerned with faith, morals, religious practices, and church government. Temporal powers involve the civil administration of Vatican City as an independent country.
Roman Catholics believe that the pope is infallible (incapable of error) on the rare occasions when he speaks for all the church on matters of faith and morals. The pope is not considered infallible on other aspects of church affairs. However, he does have absolute jurisdiction. For example, he can make laws for the entire church. He appoints cardinals, appoints or removes bishops, establishes and divides dioceses (church districts headed by bishops), and approves new religious orders (brotherhoods or sisterhoods).
For a period during the Middle Ages, the pope exercised considerable temporal, as well as spiritual, power. From 756 to 1870, the papacy controlled provinces and cities in central Italy, including Rome, called the Papal States. Today, the pope’s temporal responsibilities are limited to ruling Vatican City, the smallest independent country in the world. Vatican City has an area of 109 acres (44 hectares) and a population of about 1,000. It has its own flag, coins, stamps, public works, and communications systems. The pope sends representatives, called nuncios, to other independent states and receives foreign diplomats.
As the leader of more than 1 billion Roman Catholics around the world, the pope can speak as an influential international leader. Popes have spoken on a variety of religious and secular (nonreligious) subjects. Modern popes have issued strong, sometimes controversial, statements on such issues as government tyranny, and on abortion, birth control, same-sex marriage, and other matters involving the family.
Titles, clothing, and symbols
The pope is addressed as “Your Holiness.” He speaks of himself in official documents as “servant of the servants of God.” Each man who is elected pope traditionally takes a new name for use during his reign. Most popes choose the name of an earlier pope whom they admire.
Like other clergy, the pope wears distinctive religious clothing. In general, his garments are the same style as those worn by a bishop. The pope’s everyday clothing includes white trousers, a collarless white shirt, a clerical collar, a white skullcap, and a long white garment called a simar with a sash. For public appearances, the pope may wear a short red cape called a mozzetta; and a circular collar of white wool, called a pallium, which rests on the shoulders. The pallium is embroidered with six black crosses. The pope also wears low red shoes.
The pope wears a cross made of a precious metal, called a pectoral cross. The pope’s jewelry also includes a ring known as the fisherman’s ring. It shows Peter in his occupation as a fisherman and symbolizes the pope’s role as a “fisher of men.”
The daily life of the pope
The pope lives in the Vatican Palace most of the year. During the summer, he moves to the papal villa in the small town of Castel Gandolfo in the Alban Hills southeast of Rome.
The pope puts in a long day devoted to prayer, administrative work, and ceremonies. His day may start about dawn and extend nearly to midnight. The pope attends meetings and briefings with various Vatican officials, such as the secretary of state. He also holds private audiences (receptions). Visitors to Rome and people who have business with the Holy See attend these audiences. The pope also holds general audiences that attract up to 12,000 people indoors and more than 40,000 outdoors in St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City.
The pope prays daily at his private papal chapel. He may say Mass early in the morning, often with invited guests. The pope’s day may end with a final visit to the chapel for night prayers called compline.
The election of a pope
Early days.
During the history of the papacy, procedures for electing a new pope have varied. Until the 300’s, popes were elected by a kind of local election involving clergy from Rome and nearby areas. For many centuries, kings, emperors, and other secular leaders interfered in the election process and tried to influence the outcome. At various times, an antipope set himself up in opposition to the pope who had been elected legally. An antipope is a man determined to have improperly claimed to be or served as pope. Sometimes emperors or factions within the church itself supported antipopes.
Major features of the present electoral procedure date back to 1059, when Pope Nicholas II (1059-1061) declared that papal electors must be cardinals. In 1179, Pope Alexander III (1159-1181) presided over the Third Lateran Council, which established that all cardinals had an equal vote, and election required a two-thirds majority. In 1274, Pope Gregory X (1271-1276) took steps to prevent election delays by requiring all cardinals to meet within 10 days of a pope’s death. They had to remain together in strict seclusion from the outside world until they elected a new pope. By the late 1500’s, most electoral procedures now in effect had been adopted.
Present procedures.
When a pope dies or resigns, the dean of the Sacred College notifies all cardinals of the vacancy. They are called to a conclave (meeting) at Vatican City that must begin no more than 20 days after the death or, in the case of a pope’s resignation, on a designated date.
The election process is carefully controlled. Blank ballots are prepared and distributed. By lot, the cardinals choose from their group three who collect the ballots of the infirm, three tellers (counters of the votes), and three reviewers of the results. After these officials are chosen, each cardinal writes the name of one preference on a ballot. Then each cardinal, in order of seniority, approaches an altar to pledge his integrity of purpose. He then places the folded ballot in a receptacle covered by a plate. Only cardinals under the age of 80 may vote. After all the votes are submitted, the three tellers read each ballot. The last teller reads the results aloud to the cardinals. Two votes are taken every morning and two every afternoon until one man receives two-thirds of the votes. If the number of electors is not divisible by three, the winner must receive two-thirds of the vote, plus one.
After the required majority has been reached, the dean asks the man selected if he accepts his election. If he does, he immediately has full and absolute jurisdiction over the entire church. The dean asks the pope what name he chooses and announces the name to all the cardinals. The cardinals then pay their respects to the new pope.
A large crowd usually gathers in St. Peter’s Square to await the outcome of the election. They follow the balloting by watching the smoke that comes from a chimney on the roof of the Sistine Chapel. All ballots are burned after counting. If the necessary majority is not reached, the ballots are burned in a way that creates black smoke. After the final vote, the ballots are burned in a manner that creates white smoke to signal the election. The oldest cardinal announces the choice to the waiting crowd, and the pope delivers his first blessing to Rome and to the world. An installation ceremony is held later.
History
The early papacy.
During the early years of Christianity, each local church was independent and led by its own elected bishop. Bishops communicated with one another through letters and personal visits, but they did not have to consult one another on religious questions. Consulting the bishop of Rome was not required, but many churches did so because of Rome’s special place in Christian history. As early as the 90’s, Pope Saint Clement I (about 92-101) was asserting the Roman See’s primacy (superior authority) over other churches.
Christians gained freedom of worship in the Roman Empire during the reign of Constantine the Great in the early 300’s. The status of the bishop of Rome increased as a result. However, Constantine established a new imperial capital at Constantinople (now Istanbul, Turkey) in 330. After this move, some church leaders in the East came to believe that the See of Constantinople should have equal authority with Rome. Pope Saint Leo I (440-461) argued for the primacy of the Roman See. He believed that through divine and Biblical authority, the bishop of Rome inherited a “fullness of power” from Peter and was the apostle’s legitimate and legal successor.
The early Middle Ages.
By the 400’s, the Roman Empire in the West was collapsing. Barbarian (non-Roman) tribes invaded Italy several times in the 400’s and 500’s. These invasions reduced papal authority, which was also weakened by the growth of heresy —that is, doctrines opposed to accepted church teachings—among Christians in large parts of Africa and Spain.
Pope Saint Gregory I (590-604) defended Italy from barbarian attack. He organized papal lands throughout Italy and Sicily, and collected enough taxes to feed the Roman population and pay Roman soldiers. In the 590’s, Gregory made peace with the invading Lombard tribe, which was threatening Rome. Gregory’s leadership established the temporal power of the papacy. The conversion of England to Christianity was begun during his reign, and he strengthened the church in Spain, France, and northern Italy.
Hundreds of years of conflict between the Eastern and Western churches led to a historic dispute between Pope Saint Nicholas I (858-867) and Photius, the patriarch of Constantinople. A complete schism (split) between the Eastern and Western churches took place in 1054, during the papacy of Pope Saint Leo IX (1049-1054).
Other internal threats to the survival of the papacy emerged during the 800’s and 900’s. The papacy’s reputation and influence declined as Roman nobles tried to control the office through simony (selling of church offices), intrigue, and even assassination. Eventually, beginning in the 900’s, monks from the Benedictine monastery at Cluny, France, led a reform movement to eliminate simony and the practice of clergy being married. By religious law, clergy were supposed to be celibate (unmarried).
Pope Nicholas II (1059-1061) supported the Cluniac reforms. He restricted the rights of married priests and issued a decree that papal electors must be cardinals, a move intended mainly to stop simony.
The peak of papal power.
Reforms continued under Pope Saint Gregory VII (1073-1085), who issued strongly worded decrees against simony and lay investiture. Through lay investiture, secular rulers granted church offices to the clergy of their choice. Lay investiture had given secular leaders considerable influence in church affairs and often allowed unqualified people to receive important religious positions. In a document issued in 1075, Gregory claimed that the pope had the power to depose both temporal and spiritual leaders. He stated that the pontiff held legislative and judicial power over all Christians.
Pope Innocent III (1198-1216) was the most powerful of all medieval popes. He influenced the political affairs of much of Europe and encouraged the establishment of the Franciscan and Dominican religious orders. Innocent was a great administrator and jurist (legal expert). He helped make it common practice to refer to the pope by the more exalted title “Vicar of Christ,” instead of such older titles as “Vicar of St. Peter.”
The papal claim to primacy was expressed dramatically by Pope Boniface VIII (1294-1303) in a bull (papal decree) of 1302 called Unam sanctam. In the bull, Boniface claimed that every human being’s salvation depended upon submission to the authority of the pope. Boniface saw the pope as Christ on Earth, the exclusive instrument of salvation.
The troubles of the papacy.
During much of his reign, Boniface VIII came into conflict with the French king, Philip IV. In 1303, soldiers led by a French official took the pope prisoner at his family home at Anagni, Italy. Although the pope was released after three days, the episode symbolized the end of the medieval attempts to broaden papal power over Europe’s secular rulers. From 1309 to 1377, the popes resided at Avignon, in what is now France. They lived there partly because they wished to avoid the civil wars that were disrupting Italy in the 1300’s. In addition, the popes came to be increasingly influenced by the powerful French kings. The period during which the popes resided at Avignon is sometimes called the Babylonian Captivity. This period introduced a time of turmoil in the papacy known as the Great Schism.
The Great Schism lasted from 1378 to 1417. During this time, candidates from Avignon and Rome both claimed to be the rightful pope. In 1409, the Council of Pisa tried to untangle the dispute but instead created a third claim to the office. Finally, the Council of Constance resolved the conflict in 1417. One man abdicated (resigned) and the two other candidates were deposed. A new pope, Martin V (1417-1431), was elected in their place as the single legitimate pontiff.
Renaissance and Reformation.
The Renaissance was a European cultural movement that began in Italy during the early 1300’s and spread throughout western Europe over the next 200 years. It stimulated perhaps the most powerful social force of modern times, the spirit of nationalism. This spirit showed itself in national antipapal attitudes in France and England. Taking advantage of such attitudes, the French and English kings forced the papacy to grant to royalty sizable shares of church taxes and property. The slow loss of church funds resulted in a loss of papal power, which was transferred to secular rulers. National churches in England and France developed as rivals to the international church ruled by the pope.
Many Renaissance popes were sophisticated Italian princes who came from prominent Italian families like the Brogias and the Medicis. Many were educated as diplomats, secular scholars, or patrons of the arts, but not as religious leaders.
A number of Renaissance popes were notable for their questionable moral character. Popes from the Italian nobility often combined worldly attention to the arts with promoting their powerful families. Pope Sixtus IV (1471-1484) was a patron of the arts and scholarship. He also made three of his nephews cardinals. One of them became Pope Julius II (1503-1513). Julius II appeared interested in reform. He was a shrewd administrator and supported the work of the famous artists Raphael and Michelangelo. However, Julius was more concerned with political and military affairs than with the religious life of the church. He achieved no significant reform and did nothing to improve the papacy’s moral image.
Toward the end of the Renaissance, several popes did attempt internal reforms. By this time the church was facing the threat of the Protestant Reformation, a movement that had swept through large parts of Europe. The Protestants did not accept the authority of the pope, and they broke away from the Catholic Church. A Catholic renewal movement known as the Counter Reformation, or Catholic Reformation, developed in the 1500’s and 1600’s. Pope Paul III (1534-1549) called the Council of Trent, which met periodically from 1545 to 1563. At the council, bishops struggled to reform church practices as well as to define Catholic belief. Paul III also formally approved the Society of Jesus (known as the Jesuits), a religious order established in 1534. The Jesuits became an influential group whose members pledged their loyalty directly to the pope.
Church efforts at reform extended through the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648) in Europe. According to the Peace of Westphalia that ended the war, a ruler’s religion would determine the religion of the ruled area. This principle, which reflected the nationalism that was dominating Europe, further reduced the influence of the papacy, especially in Protestant Germany. By the mid-1600’s, rulers of the new nation-states were viewing their power in absolute terms and challenging any papal claims to that power.
The 1700’s and 1800’s.
During the 1700’s, the papacy came under attack from several sides. A movement within the German church called Febronianism tried to limit claims to papal power. A similar doctrine, called Josephism, was put into practice by the Holy Roman emperor. In France, the Gallicanism movement had similar goals. At the same time, Voltaire and other French thinkers called the Philosophes were strongly opposed to Christian churches. Their thinking influenced popular opinion against organized religion in general and the Roman Catholic Church in particular.
Pope Benedict XIV (1740-1758) was probably the most admired pontiff of the 1700’s. He gained respect from both Protestants and Catholics for his enlightened reign. Benedict was a skillful administrator and tried to strengthen the moral influence of the papacy. He encouraged education and founded academies for the study of Christian and Roman history.
During much of the 1800’s, the popes joined with conservative political forces who were ruling Europe. These forces supported the church because of its long tradition as a stabilizing social influence. Its conservative alliances put the papacy into further opposition with European liberals, who were often antipapal. The liberals claimed that the church was blocking scientific and political progress.
Pope Pius IX (1846-1878) ruled longer than any pope in history. Pius originally had been a liberal who favored unification of territories like the Italian states. But continued threats to papal power from Italian nationalists turned him into a strong conservative. In his Syllabus of Errors (1864), he condemned what he believed were errors of modern thought, including liberalism, rationalism, communism, and socialism. By 1870, all of the land that had once made up the Papal States was part of the independent kingdom of Italy. The pope’s territory was reduced to the Vatican and Lateran palaces and the papal villa at Castel Gandolfo. Pius shut himself inside the Vatican and considered himself a prisoner. His successors followed the same policy for nearly 60 years, until the Lateran Treaty created the independent country of Vatican City in 1929.
As the political power of the popes decreased, their display of authority within the church grew stronger. The papacy presented itself as guardian of a clearly defined system of beliefs, opposed to Protestantism and the main currents of modern thought.
The papacy today.
The popes of the 1900’s began actively teaching church doctrines and morals. Their encyclicals (pastoral letters) influenced Catholic thinking on a wide range of issues, including social justice, family life, the value of the sciences, and the legitimacy of other faiths. At the same time, Catholic thought came into greater harmony with major intellectual developments, especially in such fields as philosophy, the natural sciences, history, and Biblical studies.
John XXIII (1958-1963) became one of the most popular of all modern popes. He called Vatican Council II to provide a renewal and updating of Catholic religious life and church teachings. The council opened in 1962 and ended in 1965, after John’s death. One of the council’s most challenging themes was collegiality, the idea that authority in the church is shared by the pope and a consensus of bishops and other clergy. John’s successor, Paul VI (1963-1978), presided over the final years of the council. He withdrew controversial questions of celibacy and birth control from the council and reserved action on these topics to himself.
In 1978, John Paul II was elected the first non-Italian pope since Adrian VI (1522-1523) of the Netherlands. John Paul established himself as one of the most active popes in church history. During one of the longest papacies in history, he traveled extensively and was seen by more people around the world than any previous pontiff. He fought communism, regretted the decline of Christianity in Europe, looked to developing countries for church leadership, improved relations with Jews, and held firm to church traditions.
John Paul II died in 2005. The cardinals then elected Joseph Ratzinger, a German cardinal who had headed the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith for 25 years. Ratzinger chose the name Benedict XVI for himself. A theological conservative, he continued many of the policies of John Paul II.
Willingness to deal with important social and political issues has helped increase the prestige of the papacy. But confronting these issues has also created tensions between liberals and conservatives within the church. Some of these tensions center on sensitive social topics, such as abortion, women’s rights, and divorce. Others concern relations between the Holy See and members of the Roman Catholic Church as well as relations with other Christian churches and non-Christian religions.
In 2013, Pope Benedict XVI resigned as pope, citing his advanced age. At that time, no pope had resigned for nearly 600 years. Benedict kept the name Benedict XVI and became pope emeritus. Jorge Mario Bergoglio, an Argentinian cardinal, was elected as Benedict’s successor. Bergoglio, the first pope from Latin America, took the name Francis. He was known for his commitment to social justice and his conservative religious beliefs.
