Useful Notes / The Popes

6 Following

St. Peter

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An Apostle of Jesus, traditionally the first pope, as well as the first Bishop of Antioch, potentially the longest-serving pope (though historians usually discount him from the ranking because the exact start and end points of his papacy have never been verified), and one of the Patron Saints.

Originally named Šimʕōn (Simon), was nicknamed Kêfâ‎ ("rock") by Jesus, translated into Greek as Petros, hence "Peter". Said to have fled Nero's Rome, but saw a vision of Christ going in the opposite direction towards the city and asked, "Domine, quo vadis?"("Lord, where are you going?") to which Jesus answered, "I am going to be crucified again." Peter regained his courage and returned to the city where he was immediately crucified, according to legend upside-down, feeling he was not worthy to be martyred in the same way that Jesus died. Because of this an upside-down cross in Catholic and Christian tradition is called "The Cross of St. Peter" and represents submission and humility before God. ^note While, despite its modern connotations, this isn't inherently a Satanic symbol, an inverted crucifix very much is.

According to another legend, he was not executed during persecution but due to him not thinking things through. Simon Magus challenged Peter to a magic contest before Nero, his court, and the Senate, and used demons to make himself fly. Peter then banished the demons, making Simon plummet to his death. This violated the law against using magic to cause harm and carried an automatic death sentence. Nero had him promptly captured and executed.

St. Linus

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The second Pope, and according to some early Christian writings, may have been mentioned in the Bible in Paul's second letter to Timothy.

St. Clement I

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Considered the first of the "Apostolic Fathers", so called because they are said to have personally known the Apostles. In fact, it is possible he was the "fellow-worker" St. Paul mentioned in Philippians 4:3. Said to have written two letters to the Corinthians, but the first letter (written to address a schism in the Church of Corinth) is considered authentic. The letter was kept in Corinth and read for many years, though not enough clerics regarded it as Scripture, and for that reason, it was not included as part of the Biblical canon.

St. Evaristus

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The last Jewish pope. He was even born in Bethlehem, of all places.

St. Eleutherius

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Pontificated during the time of the Montanists, a rigorist sect within the Church in which its adherents claim to speak not as messengers, but rather described themselves as possessed by God and spoke in His Person. Eventually, they claimed their prophecy is of a higher order than even those of the Apostles and Christ. Tertullian, an ecclesiastical writer who left the Church and became a Montanist, wrote a polemical work called Against Praxeus, saying that the Bishop of Rome at the time was inclined to approve their prophecies, even addressing them in some conciliatory letters, until Praxeus, the object of attack, dissuaded him. Tertullian did not name this bishop in question, but he may or may not be St. Eleutherius.

St. Victor I

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An African of Berber stock who played a role during the first phase of what is called the "Easter Controversy", a dispute regarding the proper time to observe Easter between those who observed Easter on a Sunday and the Quartodecimans, so-called because they observe Easter (or the Passover) on the fourteenth day of Nisan, which might occur on any day of the week.

He also pontificated during the time of the Montanists, and he may or may not be the bishop Praxeus dissuaded in Tertullian's polemical work Against Praxeus.

St. Pontian

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First pope to resign. He and Hippolytus of Rome, who was an antipope at the time, were exiled and forced to labor in Sardinia by emperor Maximinus Thrax. He managed to receive Hippolytus back into the Church before they both died in the Sardinian mines.

St. Fabian

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Elected when a dove flew down on his head. He was initially well-regarded and managed to return the bodies of Pope Pontian and Antipope Hippolytus (both saints) for burial, but he eventually died in prison during the Decian persecution.

St. Dionysius

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First papal saint not to be given the title of martyr, though not the first to die in peace; that would be either Pope St. Hyginus or Pope St. Lucius I.

He was tasked with reorganizing the Church after the persecutions of Emperor Valerian I and the edict of toleration by his successor Gallienus. He also restored the churches of Cappadocia, which have been ransacked by marauding Goths.

St. Sylvester I

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Died during New Year's Eve, which caused the day to be named after him in some countries. In Brazil, there's a running race held on his homage every New Year's Eve.

Liberius

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The first pope not to be deemed a saint in the Catholic Church (though the Orthodox Church deems him one).

He defended St. Athanasius, the Bishop of Alexandria and one of the Fathers of the Church, from attacks by the Arians, but he was imprisoned and tortured by Emperor Constantius II, himself sympathetic to the Arians. Eventually, Pope Liberius cracked and was forced to sign the Second Creed of Simbrium (which was deliberately ambiguous so it could be interpreted in a manner that supports the orthodox faith or the Arian heresy) and excommunicate St. Athanasius. For the record, the excommunication was illegitimate because Pope Liberius issued it against his will, and St. Athanasius did not hold the coerced excommunication against him. When Liberius got back to Rome in 358, he distanced himself from the semi-Arian concessions, and when Constantius II died in 361, he reaffirmed the Catholic faith and re-recognized St. Athanasius as a legitimate Bishop of Alexandria.

St. Innocent I

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Tried to mediate between the Visigoths and the emperor of Rome to avoid the looting of 410 without succeeding.

St. Leo I

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Most famous for successfully convincing Attila the Hun not to sack Rome (possibly by citing a serendipitous plague-outbreak). One of only a handful of pontiffs to regularly be referred to as "the Great".

St. Gelasius I

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Apparently, Gelasius was his birth name. A prolific writer and strict traditionalist who stressed the importance of a single central Church authority. Legend has it that he was black because he came from Africa. More likely, he was born in the part of the Roman Empire that extended into northern Africa.

Anastasius II

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A pope whose efforts in attempting to end the Acacian schism, brought about the Laurentian schism. He insisted in the removal from the diptychs the name of Acacius, the Patriarch of Constantinople who refused to accept the Chalcedonian Creed, but recognized the validity of his sacramental acts, an attitude that displeased the Romans. He also was said to give Communion to Photinus of Thessalonica, a disciple of Acacius, in an attempt to ease tensions, which backfired.

The medieval Church damned him as an apostate and a traitor, saying that his death was divine retribution. He also has the dishonorable distinction of being the first pope to not be considered a saint, in either the Catholic or Orthodox Churches.

John II

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Worth a mention for being the guy who started the tradition of Popes taking a new name upon getting the job since he thought his birth name (Mercurius, the Roman god Mercury) would be inappropriate for one of the most prominent Christian leaders.

St. Gregory I

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One of the four great Latin Fathers of the Church (along with St. Augustine, St. Ambrose, and St. Jerome). Thoroughly reformed and strengthened the church. He was responsible for modifying Evagrius Ponticus' list of logismoi (temptations) into the Seven Deadly Sins as we know them today. He also reformed Catholic liturgy and the music to be used during Masses. "Gregorian chant" is named after him (although it is a later invention).

He was also a major slaveowner in a time period when slavery was common and rife across Christian Europe. He's documented to have owned hundreds of slaves. He started missions in England to convert the pagan Anglo-Saxons, whom he famously called "non Angli, sed Angeli" ("not Angles, but Angels") after seeing some young English slaves at the auction in the Roman forum.

Honorius I

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Honorius was sympathetic to the Monothelites - who believed that Jesus, despite having two natures (human and divine), had only one will (divine) and not two (also human and divine) - and expressed these in private letters, though he never stated this ex cathedra. Regardless, his sympathies for the Monothelites was enough to enrage exactly everybody, and Honorius got anathematized after his death for his negligence.

Pope-Elect Stephen / "Stephen II"

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As the dates may indicate, the shortest-reigning Pope. Three days after his election, he died of a stroke. Due to the fact that he was never formally installed (and in fact, as a priest, had not even been ordained a Bishop), this causes a bit of a problem over whether he actually was officially Pope or not, and so depending on whose count you use, Pope Leo XIV is either the 267th or 268th Bishop of Rome.

If he is included in the list of Popes, he is Pope Stephen II, and all later Popes named Stephen have their regnal numbers increased by one (for instance, the above-mentioned Pope of the Cadaver Synod would be identified as Stephen VII).

Leo III

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Protected by Charlemagne from the supporters of his predecessor Adrian I, Leo III subsequently strengthened Charlemagne's position by crowning him Emperor (though still in a manner that implied the Emperor would be subservient to the Pope, which Charlemagne didn't take kindly). The coronation was not approved by Constantinople, although the Byzantines, who were busy with their own conflict with the First Bulgarian Empire, were in no position to offer much opposition to it.

Stephen VI

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Largely infamous for the Cadaver Synod, where he put his predecessor Pope Formosus on trial for a number of crimes… despite the fact that Formosus had been dead for about a year. He was later incarcerated and soon found dead by strangulation.

Sergius III

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As violent and convoluted as the times he lived in, this Pope kept the Church together in a time of warring aristocratic factions by any means. Among other methods, he ordered the murder of his two immediate predecessors, Leo V and Christopher; his pontificate was called "efficient and ruthless." His illegitimate son would later become Pope under the name of John XI.

Lando

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The last Pope prior to John Paul I to use an original name (which was his birth name, not an adopted name), and, before Pope Francis, the most recent pope to not have his regnal name reused by a subsequent pope. Given that the name is now more well-known due to a certain fictional scoundrel, it's highly unlikely that there will ever be a Pope Lando II.

John XI

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Quite probably the only illegitimate son of a prior pope to become one himself (his mother Marozia was The Mistress of Pope Sergius III, although some chroniclers preferred to identify his father as her first husband Alberic I of Spoleto). His acclimation at age 20 or 21 was certainly engineered by his mother who at that point controlled Rome and its environs, and according to some he officiated at her third wedding.

John XII

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Son of Prince Alberic II of Rome, his father engineered his "election" at 18, when he also inherited his dad's title. Nephew of the earlier Pope John XI.

Characterized as a dissolute teenager by historians, he did have it together enough to get actual work done. However, he was more of a prince than a Pope. Contemporaries complained about his hunting, gambling, boozing and possibly incestuous relationships, and at the Roman Synod they threw the book at him. Nonetheless, a lot of people liked him. He crowned Otto the Great as Holy Roman Emperor.

Deposed in favor of Leo VIII, he returned with an army and retook the papacy. He actually put his girlfriend Rainera in charge of some papal decisions. He died at 27 while having sex with another (married) friend, either as the result of apoplexy or at the hands of the outraged husband. What a way to go!

Sylvester II

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The first French Pope, he had studied science with Arabic scholars, spoke Arabic and introduced a lot of Arabic knowledge in Europe, including, some say, the Arabic numerals (0-9), which replaced the Roman ones (I, II, III, etc.). This gave him a reputation of being a sorcerer in league with the Devil; rumors that his family had until recently been Jewish didn't help (this might well have been true, not that it really matters). He's sometimes credited with the invention of the first clock (likely a water clock).

It is said that the rattling of his bones in his grave in St. John Lateran heralds the ruling pope's imminent demise. The tradition of playing and firing fireworks to ring in the New Year was initiated after the End of the World had not come in the year 1000 and the pope appeared in his window as usual (the belief that the World would End that year was not propagated officially by church, but most people believed it anyway).

Benedict IX

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Possibly the youngest Pope, he served three terms (the only pope to serve more than once), beginning from the age of about 18. His main qualification was being connected to an extremely powerful family. Once installed as Pope, he used his power to satisfy his reportedly insatiable and depraved carnal desires; contemporary reports accuse him of adultery, rape, pedophilia and bestiality. His first term ended in 1044 when he was forced out of Rome. He returned briefly, only to sell the office of Pope to his godfather. He returned for a third term until finally deposed for good and excommunicated for good measure.

St. Leo IX

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Selected as successor at a convention, but only accepted the office after the population and Cardinals voted for him. He had served as Bishop of Toul prior. His legate to Constantinople started the Great Schism by excommunicating the Patriarch of Constantinople, which he shouldn't have been able to do since Leo had died a few months earlier.

Nicholas II

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Designated the College of Cardinals the sole body of pope electors in the document In nomine Domine.

Alexander II

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Formerly Bishop of Lucca. Involved in the Pataria reform movement, he also sanctioned the Norman Invasion of England.

St. Gregory VII

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A well-known scholar from the famous Order of Cluny, he was involved in the Investiture Controversy with Emperor Henry IV of Germany, dealing him a spectacular Humiliation Conga by excommunicating the whole Empire along with him and forcing Henry to wait for forgiveness barefoot and almost naked by the palace gates at Canossa, where the Pope was staying. Later double-crossed by Henry and died in exile.

Bl. Urban II

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Started the First Crusade at Clermont in France, inspiring his audience to pronounce the words "Deus vult!" ("God wills it!"). (There is a report, much beloved by Larry Gonick, that the two Orthodox priests the Byzantine Emperor had sent to watch the proceedings fainted on the spot from so much air coming out of the unwashed mouths of the Franks).

Callixtus II

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He was a younger son of the Count of Burgundy. Outraged by the massacre of Jews during the First Crusade, he issued the bull Sicut Judaeis, which sought to protect Jews from violence, forced conversion, or other forms of hatred. This would last several hundred years, though seldom applied.

Adrian IV

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To date the only English pope, and until the election of Leo XIV in 2025 the only one to speak English as his native tongue. A canon lawyer and longtime member of the Church's diplomatic service, noted for his skill at negotiating. He may or may not have issued the possible papal bull Laudabiliter which might have given the okay for Henry II to invade Ireland and thus arguably indirectly responsible for the launch of The British Empire. He crowned Frederick Barbarossa as Holy Roman Emperor, and proceeded to spend the rest of his papacy in awkward situations with the Emperor.

Innocent III

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His papacy was the height of the Popes' temporal power. He was the last Pope who could give orders to any king in Europe and expect to be obeyed without question. Only thirty-seven years old when he (reluctantly) accepted the decision of the College of Cardinals, he was a highly intelligent and dynamic man who played Medieval Europe like a chessboard. He convoked the Fourth Lateran Council; confirmed the foundation of the Dominican and Franciscan orders; excommunicated King Philip Augustus and laid France under Interdict for Philip's rejection of his wife Ingeborg; received England as a Papal fief from King John; excommunicated the entire army of the Fourth Crusade when it sacked Constantinople. He crowned Otto IV as Holy Roman Emperor.

Played by Alec Guinness in Brother Sun, Sister Moon. Available as an Action Figure.

Celestine IV

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Noted for having one of the shortest papal reigns in history, having reigned for only 17 days before dying of old age. Celestine died before his coronation as Pope could be carried out.

Innocent IV

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Was famous for opposing antisemitism in his time and infamous for approving the usage of torture to obtain heresy confessions.

Bl. Gregory X

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Former Archdeacon of Liège. Most notable for the cardinals taking almost three years to elect him due a combination of political divisions, two compromise candidates deciding they weren't worthy and running away as fast as they could and just plain laziness, until the people of Viterbo (where the election was being held) took matters into their own hands and locked them in the Popes' Palace, forced a bread-and-water diet on them, and removed the roof. After being elected, Gregory decided that the people of Viterbo had the right idea and codified their solution (minus the roof removing) in the Papal bull-enforced Conclave, still in force with minor adaptations.

St. Celestine V

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Born a simple but intelligent farmer, Pietro became a hermetic monk who was famous in Rome for the great lengths to which he went to punish himself for sin. He founded monastic order that would later be named the Celestines after his election. After the College of Cardinals spent two years arguing about who to elect (between the scions of two powerful Roman families), he sent them a letter warning them of divine retribution if they didn't hurry up. Fed up with the fighting, the dean of the College of Cardinals nominated Pietro and the conclave quickly agreed. As three bishops brought him the good news, he promptly tried to run away.

Out of his element from the start, he fell under the sway of the King of Naples and was detested by most Italian nobility. On the other hand, he was very much beloved by the Italian people, being the first "spiritual" Pope after centuries of "political" Popes.

He famously issued a decree that said the Pope was allowed to resign, so that he could do just that after only five months as Pope. After he resigned, he attempted to return to a solitary monastic life, but was imprisoned by his successor, Boniface VII, who feared he would be reinstalled as Pope (and had been the one who counseled Celestine to resign). He was imprisoned for the last year of his life and died under suspicious circumstances.

Canonized only 18 years after his death, when his supporters outvoted those of the family of Boniface. He may or may not be the shade who made "The Great Refusal" in The Divine Comedy.

Boniface VIII

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Remembered as the Pope who started the tradition of jubilees (special years of remission of sins and universal pardon) in the year 1300. Perhaps accordingly, he infamously ordered the city of Palestrina to be destroyed and its inhabitants killed due to an aristocratic enmity, supposedly claimed that indulging in pederasty "wasn't any more sinful than rubbing a hand against the other," and was rumored to have an incestuous relationship with his daughter.

A strong supporter of the idea that the Pope held supremacy over all Christian monarchs; said monarchs disagreed strongly, and he was dramatically taken captive by the Chief Minister of the French king shortly before the end of his life. A political enemy of Dante Aligheri, who included a few take thats against Boniface, regarding his postmortem destination, in his The Divine Comedy.

Clement V

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The French pope who had The Knights Templar condemned for heresy, mainly as a favor to King Philip IV of France, and they both died within the year (allegedly, he and the King were cursed by the last Templar Grand Master, Jacques de Molay, as he was burning at the stake).

He previously served as Archbishop of Bordeaux. Moved the Papal court away from Rome and eventually settled in Avignon, where the Papacy would stay until 1403.

Benedict XII

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The "Accidental" Pope. During Papal Conclaves, it was common for the cardinals to vote for someone who had no chance of actually winning the papacy on the first ballot, solely to gauge the leaning of the other voters (plus, the other candidate, the Bishop of Porto, was unwilling to promise the Conclave that the papacy would not be moved back to Rome). The strategy backfired miserably as 15 of the 16 electors (except Fourier) all independently voted for Fourier on the first ballot (Fourier's responsed to the Conclave with "You have elected a fool."). "And the last shall be first" indeed.

Clement VI

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The Black Death reached Europe during his papacy and killed somewhere between one third and half of the continent's population, which reshaped Europe for centuries. Miraculously, he never caught it himself. Oversaw some planning to care for the sick, absolved the sins of all who died of the Plague, and defended the Jews against accusations that they caused it. At one point, because so many people were dying that they couldn't bury them all, he had to bless the Rhône River so people could throw the dead bodies into it.

In a less awesome moment, he lived a very lavish lifestyle (calling himself "a sinner among sinners") even while so many poor people around him were dying; he had an undisclosed but probably amazing number of lovers and got infected with gonorrhea at one point.

Gregory XI

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The last universally accepted French-born Pope^note (it is generally accepted that Leo XIII's birth while his Lazio hometown was annexed to Napoleonic France does not count), he was an early opponent of the reformer John Wycliffe but also took action against the most corrupt monasteries. He is far more famous for moving the Papacy from Avignon back to Rome in the winter of 1377-78 in large part due temporal conflicts with Florence and Milan.

His death the following March led to a 40 year schism.

Urban VI

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He was the last Pope to not be a Cardinal prior to his election as Pope. He was chosen in the midst of a mob who protested the move to Avignon and wanted a Roman Pope chosen. Those opposed to his election chose the Antipope Clement VII, starting the Western Schism.

Boniface IX

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The second Pope to be elected during the Western Schism, he resisted calls by his allies to abdicate after Antipope Clement VII died and was succeeded by Benedict XIII.

Innocent VII

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The third Pope to be elected during the Western Schism, again with Antipope Benedict XIII serving as his opposition. At the time of his election, he was Camerlengo of the College of Cardinals and had previously served as Bishop of Bologna and Archbishop of Ravenna.

Gregory XII

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Former Titular Patriarch of Constantinople. Had the misfortune to be on the Papal throne during the Western Schism, facing down now fewer than three antipopes: Benedict XIII in Avignon, and the Pisan Alexander V and John XXIII^note By the way, if you're wondering, yes, there are two John XXIIIs. Given that the first was declared an antipope, he doesn't count, but is still referred to as such making it mildly confusing. Thankfully, the other John XXIII, now Saint John XXIII, reigned some 550 years after the antipope, making the confusion slight. Was ultimately forced to abdicate to end the Schism, and is the last pope to have resigned prior to Benedict XVI 600 years later. Following his resignation, he served as Bishop of Macerata-Tolentino for the remainder of his life.

Martin V

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His election marked the end of the Western Schism. Convened the Council of Bassel and kicked off the Hussite Wars.

Eugene IV

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Nephew of Gregory XII and uncle to Paul II. A founding member of the Canons Regular of San Giorgio in Alva (an Augustinian order), he transferred the council of Bassel to Ferrera, and an outbreak of bubonic plague forced another transfer to Florence. Issued a papal bull rescinding recognition of Portuguese right to conquer parts of the Canary Islands still pagan, and excommunicated those who enslaved newly baptized Christians. He crowned Sigismund as Holy Roman Emperor.

Nicholas V

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Former Bishop of Bologna. Under his pontificate, Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Turks. Nicholas attempted to call a crusade against the Turks in response which never panned out. Also a key figure in the Roman Renaissance, and ordered designs for the future St. Peter Basilica. He crowned Frederick III as Holy Roman Emperor.

Callixtus III

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Uncle to the more notorious Alexander VI, who has his own page. Helped finish off the Western Schism by negotiating the abdication of the Avignon/Aragonese Papal Claimant and reconciliation with the Papacy. He served over 25 years as Bishop of Valencia. Was picked as a compromise candidate due to his advanced age and a stalemate in the conclave in the hopes he would die soon and not do much so the powers that be could return. That proved half-true.

He notably appointed many of his relatives to religious offices (including his nephew, the future Alexander VI) as was de rigeur, but he also ordered a retrial of Joan of Arc, in which she was vindicated. He tried to herd cats for a crusade against the Ottoman Empire with little success, but did help finance several successful victories over them, including in the Siege of Belgrade, which due to timing and logistics resulted in being the reason why the bells of Catholic churches (and some others) ring out at noon even today.

Pius II

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Wrote The Commentaries, which is notably the only autobiography written by a reigning pope. Condemned slavery of newly-baptized Christians, and attempted to organize a Crusade at the Congress Of Mantua, which never got off the ground, dying of illness shortly thereafter.

Paul II

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Nephew of Eugene IV. Rose rapidly through the Church to get the top spot in 1464, after having served as Bishop of Vicenza. Notoriously abused the practice of creating cardinals without publishing their names. In spite of his own opposition to humanist learning, he oversaw the introduction of printing in the Papal States.

Sixtus IV

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He previously served as Minister General of the Order of Friars Minor. A benefactor of The Spanish Inquisition, though worried about preventing abuses therein. Infamous for his nepotism and number of lovers, among them his own sister, he created a special tax on prostitutes and priests who had their own lovers.

He more or less supported the murder attempt on Lorenzo the Magnificent in Florence – in the city's cathedral no less – in the (in)famous Pazzi Conspiracy in 1478, which failed.

In a better light, he was famously tolerant towards homosexuals, fueling modern speculations that he was a bisexual. He also ordered the construction of a large chapel in the Vatican, which became known as the Sistine Chapel ("Sistine"="of Sixtus") after his death, though the famous frescoes and other artworks were not made until much later (the ceiling, for instance, was not even begun until the reign of Julius II, and The Last Judgment was commissioned by Celestine VII over 50 years after Sixtus died).

Innocent VIII

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The Pope of the Burning Times. Formerly Bishop of Molfetta. Wrote Summis desiderantes which recognized the existence of witchcraft and appointed inquisitors to hunt down and kill all witches. (He did not, however, condemn cats, as popularly reported.) The book Malleus Maleficarum came out of this.

First pope to openly acknowledge having a mistress. Had 16 illegitimate kids, marrying them off to nobility to start a dynasty. When he was dying and in a coma, supposedly was made to drink the blood of three young boys to try and heal him (though this could just be an anti-Semitic rumor, as his doctor was Jewish) and was rumored to have demanded a wet nurse to breastfeed him in his deathbed.

Alexander VI

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The first pope to be elected in the Sistine Chapel (Conclaves were held in other places before, mostly at the Apostolic Palace). He was from Spain, serving as Archbishop of Valencia and Dean of the College of Cardinals, and Italians did not take kindly to that fact. Bribery and Nepotism were the norm in those days (he and rival Cardinal Rovere both were elevated by papal uncles) but it's even worse when a foreigner does it, right?

He let Rome fall into a state of decay. Much of his modern-day infamy comes from the writings of Johann Burchard, the Vatican Ceremoniere for all of his Papacy. Many of Burchard's more scandalous observations were colored by his own views, as he had a known dislike of the Borgia family. Burchard wrote several books on official Vatican events of the day and his own observations, some of which were published in his lifetime and others not until centuries after his death. Burchard is the main source for modern image of Alexander as a corrupt schemer, commonly thought of by popular audiences today, such as the story of a little party called the Banquet of Chestnuts (which, to borrow the words of Stephen Fry, revolved around a night of naked prostitute racing in the Vatican).

Of his 10 known children (all illegitimate, of course), his four children with Roman businesswoman Giovanna "Vannozza" dei Cattanei are about as (in)famous as Alexander himself — most notably the eldest, Cesare, who cast off the cardinal's hat his father arranged for him and became the clever, ruthless warrior who inspired Niccolò Machiavelli's The Prince; and Lucrezia, who played her part in the intrigues of her father and brother, and even after their downfall, remained powerful and respected as Duchess of Ferrara, ruling alongside her third husband Duke Alfonso over one of the grandest artistic courts in Italy. (Lucrezia likely didn't poison anyone, though everyone from Victor Hugo to Agatha Christie likes to believe the rumors that she did. The rumors about her relationship with Cesare were started by her first husband, Giovanni Sforza, who was forced to declare himself impotent in the divorce). One of his descendants was a Jesuit named St. Francis Borgia; another is actress Brooke Shields, whose paternal grandmother was an Italian princess.

Usually prone to being subjected to a Historical Villain Upgrade, altogether, Alexander was a man of his times: a Pope better than some but worse than others who plotted to form a family dynasty, but had that same family clouded by rumors and scandal throughout his life and on through the present day.

Pius III

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Elected following the death of Alexander VI, at 26 days his was one of the shortest papal reigns in history. He was the nephew of Pius II (born Enea Silvio Bartolomeo Piccolomini). By the time of his election he was in poor health, and died of a septic ulcer in his leg a few weeks later.

Julius II

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The Warrior Pope, famous for commanding troops at the front, wearing armor and directing siege works, as well for acquiring syphilis due to an excessive sex life. Called for war against every nation necessary to keep the political balance in Europe (under the Vatican's control, that is) and was planning a crusade against the Muslim Ottomans before dying.

Nephew of a previous Pope, Sixtus IV, who gave Giuliano his cardinal's hat. He was Archbishop of Avignon for nearly 30 years before his election. Bitter enemy of Alexander VI. Also famous for overseeing Michelangelo Buonarroti when the artist painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

Played by Rex Harrison in The Agony and the Ecstasy opposite Charlton Heston as Michelangelo, by Colm Feore in The Borgias, by Matthias Koeberlin in The Conclave, by Serbian-Danish actor Dejan Čukić in Borgia and by Massimo De Francovich in Sin.

Leo X

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The son of Lorenzo the Magnificent, who got Pope Innocent VIII to make Giovanni a cardinal, but not until he turned 17 and finished school (he was 13 at the time of the promise). He and Cesare Borgia were students at Pisa University at the same time in 1491, the year before Giovanni's father died and Cesare's father was elected pope (see Alexander VI below), although no indication survives regarding how they saw each other.

Giovanni became pope at only 37 years old, and was the last man elected Pope to not already be an ordained priest at the time of his election, thus requiring him to be ordained as a priest and then consecrated as a Bishop before he could take the job. He patronized art and literature in Rome to an extraordinary extent and established a papal court that was the envy of Renaissance Italy, even owning a Indian elephant gifted by King Manuel I of Portugal.

However, he is mainly remembered for promoting the sale of indulgences for money to such an extent that it sparked The Protestant Reformation in the 16th century, which he supposedly called "some quarrel of monks".

He supported Holy Roman Emperor Charles V against Francis I of France during the Four Years' War, although he didn't live to see its end, dying of acute pneumonia, which was claimed to be the result of getting overexcited with a victory over the French.

He is traditionally believed to have been an enemy of the Borgias, but like many other aspects of their Historical Villain Upgrade, historians aren't so sure anymore. A few works show them as friends, including Borgia (Giovanni is played by John Bradley), and Cesare - Il Creatore che ha distrutto which focuses on their school life in 1491-92 and has Giovanni as a major character.

Adrian VI

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Hailing from Utrecht, Adrian remains the only Netherlander pope and the last non-Italian pope until John Paul II was chosen 475 years later. He was the tutor of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and even acted as regent of Spain in his name before reaching Papacy. At the time of his election, he was serving as Bishop of Tortosa.

He didn't enjoy his new position and came to outright hate it: he had been chosen in absentia against his will, and although he and Charles shared a goal of uniting Christendom against Islam, a rift soon opened between master and disciple because they differed in their approach (Charles wanted to lead the Christians, while Adrian believed he should not be partial to him).

Hailing from outside the usual papal orbit, he was also noted to be too dependent on the cardinals' advice. Launched the Counter-Reformation, although he obtained little success.

One of only two popes in the past thousand years (along with Marcellus II 32 years later) to keep their birth name as their papal name.

Clement VII

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Son of Lorenzo the Magnificent's younger brother Giuliano, and thus first cousin of Leo X. He previously served as Archbishop of Florence. He brought to the papal throne a high reputation for intelligence, culture and political ability, though he was notoriously bad at decision-making.

He showed indifference to the perceived dangers of The Protestant Reformation, and although he did try to negotiate a peaceful end to the Italian Wars in order to unite Christendom against the Turks, he accidentally ruined it himself by calling a league against one of the contenders, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. When Charles decided Clement needed a warning, he besieged Rome and accidentally caused the 1527 Sack of Rome when his troops (many of which were Protestant mercenaries) mutinied. The glorious sacrifice of the Swiss Guards allowed Clement to take refuge in Castel Sant'Angelo, but the Pope ended up still greatly disturbed by the experience. In 1530, he officially crowned Charles as Emperor, the last such coronation of a Holy Roman Emperor.

He was rumored to be the biological father of his illegitimate grand-grandson Alessandro de' Medici by a Moorish slavewoman. Nowadays the bit about the Moorish slavewoman is considered to be slander based on Alessandro's dark complexion, but the idea of Clement being the father is a bit more supported; he favored Alessandro to the point of appointing him Duke of Florence, which was scandalous for an illegitimate heir and caused much turmoil. In another marriage-related affair, Clement's subsequent refusal to rule on the validity of Henry VIII of England's marriage to Catherine of Aragon, Charles' aunt, despite years of arguments, set the stage for the English Reformation.

He went to be considered "the most unfortunate of the Popes" due to all of his mistakes and their consequences, although historians believe he would have made a fine Pope had he simply lived in a less chaotic era.

Paul III

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Became a cardinal as a result of the efforts of his famous sister Giulia, Alexander VI's mistress, which made Farnese unpopular and earned him several jeering nicknames. Ironically, this was also the reason why he was elected Pope — he was considered a fair, impartial candidate because no faction got along with him. He still proved intelligent and competent in the job, patronizing names like Michelangelo and Copernicus.

He was initially tolerant with Islam, but due to the growing threat Ottoman Empire, he called Christendom to be united and give the Ottomans a spanking. His first obstacle was the perennial war between Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and King King Francis I of France, but Paul managed to nudge them into a temporary truce. However, his attempt to call a Holy League in 1538 only led the Christian infighting From Bad to Worse, with its two main members, Charles V and Venice, sabotaging each other before disbanding. Afterwards, Paul made another attempt of an international alliance against the schism of Henry VIII of England, but by this point nobody listened to him.

The Catholic Church was also in the middle of the Reformation, and upon insistence by Charles V, Paul called the Council of Trent and starting the Counter-Reformation in earnest. He proved to be quite good at it, with his papacy seeing groups like the Jesuits and the Roman Inquisition starting up, although he ultimately failed to reconcile the Protestants, and eventually supported Charles going at war against them. Their tentative alliance then went off the window when his illegitimate son Pier Luigi Farnese, whom Paul had granted the Duchy of Parma, was assassinated by the emperor's Italian allies to steal his lands. Weary of watching his projects fail, he reportedly died of a heart attack while yelling to his eponymous cardinal nephew.

Overall, another complicated pope who lived complicated times. He did succeed in making his family filthy rich, and his grandson Ottavio was eventually given back Parma with Charles' blessing.

Julius III

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A compromise candidate, who it was hoped would continue Paul III's reforms. Instead, he largely ignored them and spent his time occupied with Italian politics and a young teenage Street Urchin named Innocenzo who he adopted as a nephew (according to rumors, the Pope originally hired him to take care of his pet monkey after seeing the boy fight a peddler's own monkey in the street) and made a cardinal despite him being illiterate.

Needless to say, this did not help the stature of the Papacy. It helped it even less when Cardinal Innocenzo killed two men for insulting him, though Julius was thankfully dead by that point.

Marcellus II

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He is the last Pope so far to use his birth name as his regnal name, as well as the last to be called Marcellus. He was formerly Bishop of Gubbio and Chief of the Vatican Library. Unlike his predecessor, he intended to be a real reformer when he sat in the throne, but his fragile health, coupled with the sheer pressure of the challenges thrown at his feet, killed him 22 days later.

Giovanni Pierluigi de Palestrina dedicated one of the crowning achievements of Renaissance polyphonic music to him.

Paul IV

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A former head of the Roman Inquisition, whose creation he promoted while he was a cardinal, and Dean of the College of Cardinals, Paul IV was chosen in hopes that he would prove an effective reformer. Unfortunately, he instead proved to be a complete killjoy, making him extremely unpopular in Rome.

More dangerously, he passionately hated the Spanish, who at the time ruled most of Italy, to the point that he rumoredly only accepted the Papacy to screw them. He hated Jews harder than usual at his time, and part of his hatred of the Spanish was because of the high number of conversos, Spanish Christians of Jewish blood, whom he had found while serving as a nuncio in Spain. Ironically, this resembled the Protestants' own views on them, even although he also accused the Spanish of being secretly in league with Protestants to weaken Rome.

He joined the French against the Spanish during the Italian Wars. Due to the old Franco-Ottoman alliance, this marked effectively the first time in history the Pope and the Ottoman Empire were in the same team. However, the war didn't go exactly well, with the army of The Duke of Alba paying a visit to Rome and forcing him to declare neutrality or else. This cemented Paul's historical reputation as a man who didn't know how to choose his battles.

Making a bunch of his nephews cardinals likewise damaged his reformer credentials — the fact that most of them proved horribly corrupt just sunk them, forcing him to banish them himself. He also issued uniquely harsh laws against the Italian Jews, causing the creation of the Jewish ghetto of Rome and walling it off. Oh, and he engaged in censorship with equally unprecedented fervor, starting the first Vatican Index of Forbidden Books and ordering Michelangelo Buonarroti to repaint his nude figures in The Last Judgement more modestly.

After his death, a citizen uprising threw his statue to the Tiber with a mock trial, assaulted the inquisitorial dungeons to free the prisoners, and vandalized all properties of his family. So, definitely not a guy making many papal top ten lists.

Pius IV

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Another Medici, only not from the Medici from Florence, but an unrelated Milanese family — which was retconned into the same anyway when their members gained enough prestige. A fair, reasonable man, he spent much of his papacy cleaning Paul IV's mess, trying his nephews for their various crimes and compensating their victims. He also patronized artists and made a few public works in Rome which, for a change, actually benefitted people. Like many popes, he made a nephew a cardinal, but unlike most popes, this nephew was genuinely competent AND went on to become a saint, St. Charles Borromeo.

Unlike his predecessor, he was friendly to the Spanish, as his late brother Gian Giacomo had been an accomplished general for Charles V. The brothers used to work as a Sibling Yin-Yang team, with Angelo being the diplomatic cardinal who pulled strings and Giacomo the ruthless warlord who beheaded people. Some cynical voices believed Angelo wasn't so much a Nice Guy as someone who simply kept his hands clean, although at least he did try to moderate his brother whenever he could.

He helped Philip II with the relief force of the Great Siege of Malta, about which Pius had warned beforehand, begging Christian nations to be united against the Ottomans. The operation was a big happy win, although the Maltese were again disenchanted with the Pope, believing he talked a lot but had done little to help them. Otherwise, his papacy was relatively peaceful, restarting the Council of Trent and managing to advance the Counter-Reformation with great finesse.

Arguably, an underrated pontiff, which probably doesn't attract enough attention due to the lack of colourful misdeeds in his resume.

St. Pius V

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Standardized the Mass for about four centuries in the Council of Trent and fought heresy big time, excommunicating Queen Elizabeth I and calling for her removal, which went unheeded because everybody in Europe was busy with something else (The Duke of Alba infamously replied Pius was insane).

Had way more success with the Turks, though, to the point he might be considered one of the most badass Popes due his part in assembling the Christian coalition against them. He presided over the great naval victory over the Muslims at the Battle of Lepanto, after which he became a fan of the hero of the day, John of Austria, at least until John's playboy ways ruined his image. The battle greatly revived the prestige of the politically faltering Church, as it did Pius' work to reform it, which included getting rid of the most extravagant luxuries previous Popes had maintained.

Gregory XIII

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A promoter of arts and sciences, he is best known for promulgating the calendar used in the western world to this day and ordering calendar reforms that cemented the Leap Day.

Had a pet project of uniting Spain, France and the Holy Roman Empire against the Turks in order to follow on the victory of Lepanto, but it failed miserably (as always), so he instead put his energies in the the Counter-Reformation: he worked hard to put into practice the principles of the Council of Trent, fostered multiple conspirations and spywork in the attempt to dethrone Elizabeth I, and supported King Philip II of Spain in his own ventures against the Dutch and British Protestants (Gregory even tried to get John of Austria to invade England). He also expanded and supported the Jesuit-run Roman College, moving its philosophical and theological faculties to a new facility on what is now the Piazza Collegio Romano, now home to the Pontifical Gregorian University, named in his honor.

He and Philip also received the first Japanese embassy in Europe.

Sixtus V

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A Franciscan monk, he was a member of the order's hardliner faction. As in, he was the Inquisitor General of Venice before he became Pope, and was so severe the Venetians threw him out. On becoming Pope, he made his first order of business bringing order to the Papal States, and did so with gusto, with numerous decapitations.

His foreign policy was likewise very much "us against them", with the "them" being Protestants and Muslims. Sixtus supported the Spanish Armada and spent a lot of time trying to get a crusade against the Ottomans off the ground, although neither were successful.

His other big project was beautifying and improving Rome, which he did, being responsible of public works such as the first modern aqueduct in Rome — albeit frequently by demolishing the houses of the meddlesome poor who were cluttering the place up. He also ruled that abortion, rather than merely being a grave sin, was automatic grounds for excommunication.

On his death, mobs tore down his statue, which says enough about his popularity, as it does the fact that he was the last pope to take the name Sixtus. Modern history has been a bit kinder to him, although he is still considered an over-ambitious and unpersonable example of a Pope.

Urban VII

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A former apostolic nuncio to Spain, known for his moderation and integrity, he was elected on September 15, 1590, with Spanish support. He might have had great ambitions, but died only 13 days later, making him the shortest-reigning pope in history (John Paul I came close).

Was responsible for the world's first public smoking ban, as he threatened anyone who took tobacco near a church with excommunication.

Gregory XIV

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Sickly and old, he was chosen from a list of seven candidates favored by the local Spanish ambassador the Count of Olivares, who wanted to maintain the Church's support. Gregory, then serving as Bishop of Cremona, didn't want the job, as he was fairly certain he wouldn't be up to it, and in fact cried in despair when he was elected.

His prediction proved to be right, as he lacked political experience and had to leave much of the running of the Church to his subordinates, but he surely supported Spain with ardor as they wanted, excommunicating Henry IV of France during the French Wars of Religion and trying to install King Philip II of Spain as their new king (he did rule against abuse of natives in the Spanish Philippines, though).

Overall, being given the Papacy did not do wonders for his mental health, and he subsequently suffered fits of nervous laughter, even Corpsing while he was crowned. Died within a year.

Innocent IX

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Chosen to replace Gregory XIV, he was another pro-Spanish Pope, who'd been a major figure in Gregory XIV's administration. Spain hoped that he would keep up their anti-French program, and he did — but only for a month before dying. He was formerly Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem and was serving as Prefect of the Apostolic Signatura when elected.

Clement VIII

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The Coffee Pope. When the coffee craze hit Europe, Clement, a scholarly type who must have pulled plenty of all-nighters, became a fan. He was urged to condemn coffee because it came from the Islamic world (the first European to taste it, Spanish Jesuit Pedro Páez, had been forced to do so disguised as a Turk in Africa), but he blessed it instead. Today, you can get mugs with his picture on them.

Elected by cardinals tired of Spanish interference, he, formerly Apostolic Penitentiary, was an impartial pontiff and tried hard for the umpteenth time to unify Europe against the Ottomans, for which he accepted Henry IV of France's return to the Catholic Church, mediated between Henry and Philip II of Spain, and put peace among some other quarreling countries and religious orders. His resultant Holy League managed to stop the Ottoman advance in Europe, although they failed to reconquer lost ground. Less sympathetically, he was harsher than usual on Jews.

Leo XI

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The final Pope from the Medici family, he had once of the shortest papacies in history at only 27 days, earning him the nickname "the Lightning Pope". He was Prefect of the Congregation of Bishops and Regulars at the time of his election and had previously served as Archbishop of Florence.

Paul V

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A former Bishop of Jesi and serving as Cardinal Vicar of Rome at the time of his election, he financed the completion of St. Peter's Basilica. He also allowed Galileo Galilei to continue his studies so long as he didn't defend Copernican heliocentrism.

Gregory XV

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A very brief but influential Pope, he canonized many modern popular saints like Ignatius of Loyola, Francis Xavier and Teresa of Ávila, and gave birth to the modern use of the word "propaganda" when he created the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, an organization conceived to strengthen the Church against Protestantism.

He tried to get together a Holy League to wage war on the Ottoman Empire, but with the entire Europe busy with the Thirty Years' War, he was soundly ignored. Going with the flow, he supported the Catholic side of the war and also sent help to the Polish against the Turks, achieving some satisfaction in both.

He also opened up about the old topic of witchcraft, lessening punishments and ordering that death penalty was limited for those who were proven to use magic to kill. Being already old and ill, he died in two years. He was Archbishop of Bologna prior to his election.

Urban VIII

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Pope during the height of the Baroque period, he was essentially a Warrior Poet. He wrote poetry and hyms in his free time and was a big patron of writers, artists and architects like Bernini and Borromini (his name and crest can be seen on numerous monuments in Rome today, including the decorations on St. Peter's Basilica, and the house of the powerful Barberini family is now the Italian National Gallery of Art).

A very politically active Pope, he disapproved the Thirty Years' War, wary of the warring sides and of the danger of a disunited Europe against the Ottomans, but in turn he also expanded the military power of the Vatican States, if only at the cost of utterly massive debts his succesors would have to suffer. He previously served as Prefect of the Apostolic Signatura.

Also went into history for being the Pope who condemned Galileo Galilei, his onetime friend. He became unpopular for his large expenses, to the point that at least one conspiracy had tried to dispose of him, and when he actually died (reportedly, of chagrin for not having achieved his regional goals), an angry mob destroyed his statue.

Innocent X

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Great-great-grandson of Alexander VI and a former nuncio to the court of King Philip IV, he was chosen as a wartime compromise between Spain and France because opinions of France had soured and he was still not the biggest Hispanophile in the room. At the time of his election, he was serving as Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for the Clergy and Camerlengo of the Holy Roman Church.

He was a capable, shrewd and very politically ambitious Pope, even waging a private war or two, although he had an infamous Hair-Trigger Temper whenever something didn't go his way, which happened often. It was also rumored that his sister-in-law and possible lover Olimpia was the one calling all of his shots, leading to jokes that she was the first female Pope in history. He condemned Jansenism, essentially a Catholic adaptation of Calvinist soteriology into Catholicism, as a heresy with the publication of Cum occasione.

Alexander VII

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He was a grandnephew of Paul V and member of the noble Chigi family. He was Cardinal Secretary of State prior to his election. He was initially opposed to nepotism, though he later gave his relatives jobs, and was a supporter of the Jesuits. He reaffirmed the condemnation of Jansenism with the publication of "Ad sanctam beati Petri sedem", when Jansenists, notably Blaise Pascal, claimed that they were being misrepresented.

Clement IX

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Previously Cardinal Secretary of State, he was a patron of the arts and known for mediating in European conflicts. Despite coming from a noble family, he didn't partake in nepotism. As did his past two predecessors, he condemned Jansenism with Unigenitus, published in 1701.

Clement X

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Former Bishop of Camerino, he was nearly 80 years old at his election. He suspended the Portuguese Inquisition.

Bl. Innocent XI

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Despite coming to power in the Baroque period, he was an Affluent Ascetic who doubled-down on both Curia excesses and the nepotism that had been hollowing the Papal State inside-out. He got things in order in just few years, often getting personally involved to judge various embezzlers and familial relations of bishops and cardinals.

On a less sympathetic note, he was a monumental sourpuss who considered fun the worst evil of the world (banning theaters and fledgling opera as sinful), and, much worse, his policies eventually led to Louis XIV being roped into a crackdown against Huguenots and bunch of religiously-themed skirmishes, which had disastrous consequences for just about everyone in the end.

Alexander VIII

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Vice-Dean of the College of Cardinals at the time of his election, he did his very best to demolish all his direct predecessor's positive reforms of the Curia within his short, two-year reign. He also condemned the doctrine of philosophical sin.

Innocent XII

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Took a hardline stance against nepotism, issuing a papal bull outlawing it, continuing the policies of his predecessor to the name, Innocent XI. Also, he was the last pope to have facial hair. He served as Archbishop of Naples before his election.

Clement XI

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He was a benefactor of the Vatican Library, and patron of the arts and science. The rescue of much of Rome's antiquity is due to his personal interest in archaeology.

Clement is perhaps best known for the Chinese Rites Controversy, in which he forbade Jesuit missionaries from taking part in honoring Chinese philosophers such as Confucius or ancestor worship, seeing them as religious, rather than secular actions. This attitude of "pure Catholic teachings" was then enforced to all missionary work, which completely defanged Jesuit efforts across the globe and remained an active policy for centuries to come to completely trample over local beliefs from now on - with predictable results on the conversion rates.

Innocent XIII

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The fourth pope from the Conti family and former Archbishop of Viterbo e Tuscania, he was reform-minded and sought to nepotism and end excessive spending.

Benedict XIII

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Final pope from the Orsini family. At the time of his election, he was Vice-Dean of the College of Cardinals and Archbishop of Benevento. He retained a monastic lifestyle as pope and wasn't adept in political administration, leaving control in the hands of a deputy, who proceeded to commit embezzle the Papal Treasury.

Clement XII

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Was elected at the shockingly advanced age of 78, with no pope being older at election day, and was already almost blind and bedridden when he started. He was Prefect of the Apostolic Signatura at the time of his election. Thanks to his experience in all possible offices in the Church, though, he achieved an economical resurgence of the Church, which he invested in erecting buildings and making needed reforms. He was also politically ambitious, at one point disputing the throne of Naples with its recent re-conqueror Charles of Bourbon, but was eventually forced to accept him when Charles threatened to invade the Papal States too. Was also the first Pope to condemn Freemasonry.

Benedict XIV

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One of the greatest intellectuals among all the Popes, promoted all sorts of scientific, artistic and literary advances, though that didn't stop him from also being famously foul-mouthed and a compulsive gambler. He was Archbishop of Bologna at the time of his election.

Built solid ties with Naples, reprimanded the Portuguese Empire for allowing the slavery of Brazilian natives, and reduced the power of the Company of Jesus, which people around the world were starting to consider excessive. Overall, he was popular enough that even Protestants highly esteemed him.

Clement XIII

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Formerly Bishop of Padua, he became a strong defender of the Society of Jesus and resisted pressure to suppress them. He was also more open to dialogue with Protestants.

Clement XIV

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The only Franciscan friar in the College of Cardinals at the time of his election, his reign saw the suppression of the Jesuits.

Pius VI

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Previously served as General Treasurer of the Apostolic Camera. His rule saw the French Revolution, which he condemned. The Papal States were invaded and occupied by Napoléon Bonaparte in 1796. Pius VI refused French demands to give up control of his territory and was taken prisoner in France. He died while in captivity.

Pius VII

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Perhaps most famous for presiding over Napoléon Bonaparte's self-coronation as Emperor of the French at the Notre-Dame de Paris Cathedral, and subsequently being imprisoned by him. His dignity of bearing during his imprisonment convinced the Congress of Vienna to restore the Papal Estates which had been seized by Napoleon. He was Bishop of Imola when elected, a position he didn't relinquish until 1816.

Remarkably tolerant of the idea of democracy, and once remarked that the United States "had done more for the cause of Christianity than the most powerful nations of Christendom have done for ages." He said this after the American Navy defeated Muslim pirates along the Barbary Coast almost single-handedly, after the major powers of Europe had sat back and let the pirates control the seas for over a century.

Leo XII

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Previously served as Vicar-General of Rome. Said to have been elected due to his poor health, even supposedly warning other cardinals that they "would be electing a dead man," Leo XII made a full recovery and was able to lead an unpopular Papacy. Those around him remembered him as being a notably frugal man who lived a simple life, though was noted for allegedly killing a man in an argument over sports and leaving the treasury a confused wreck.

Papal bulls issued by Leo XII included the limiting of traditionally Jesuit studies, requiring them to be under the direct supervision of the church and performed in Latin, as well as severely limiting the property rights of the Jewish population, leading to their emigration from Rome and rekindling the medieval attitude towards Judaism in the church for some time.

Pius VIII

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Reigned for just over a year and a half. He previously served as Major Penitentiary of the Apostolic Penitentiary.

During his reign, Pius VIII held suspicious views over the perceived perversion of Catholic teachings, especially in common language, fearing that differing from the church's Latin may result in information being Lost in Translation or, worse, allow for subversive teachings. He also cast a critical eye towards the marriage of Catholics and Protestants, only permitting priests to perform ceremonies when the children of the unions would be raised Catholic.

A conspiracy theory holds that his death was brought on by poison.

Gregory XVI

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Elected during a time of violent political upheaval in southern Europe, much of the early months of Gregory XVI's reign was spent dodging bombings, shootings and other assassination attempts. He was formerly Prefect of the Congregation for Propagation of the Faith.

A deeply conservative and traditionalist pope, Gregory XVI fought tooth and claw to oppose liberal reform movements to the Church across Europe, both within the Church and in the governments of Catholic nations seeking democracy. He wrote Mirari vos, denouncing these liberal attempts at reform as stemming from religious indifferentism, and he followed up with Singulari nos. The ideas of Fr. Félicité Robert de La Mennais, a priest who sought to reconcile political liberalism and Catholicism, were addressed in Mirari vos, though Fr. La Mennais was not mentioned by name, but the follow-up encyclical was much more direct. He was also noteworthy for opposing technological innovation such as gas lamps and the railroad system.

That said, in 1839, he did write a scathing condemnation of the Atlantic slave trade, declaring that opposition to slavery was an inherently Christian value and denying the aid of the Church to anyone involved in the slave trade.

To date, Gregory is the last Pope to not have already been a Bishop upon election, requiring him to be consecrated as a Bishop before he could take office, which he did four days after his election.

Bl. Pius IX

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Having reigned for 31 years, his papacy is the longest verifiable one in the history of the Roman Catholic Church^note Peter's reign is estimated to have been even longer, at anywhere from 34 to 38 years, but historians have never been able to pin down the exact number. He was the first Pope to visit The Americas during his lifetime, having been part of a diplomatic mission to Chile as a young priest. He was serving as Archbishop-Bishop of Imola when elected Pope.

Pius IX was also the last pope to be secular ruler over Rome and its surroundings. In his early reign he seemed to have somewhat liberal and Italian nationalist leanings, to the point where he briefly became a symbol of Italian unity, and some Italians dreamed of an Italy ruled as a constitutional monarchy with the Pope as its head of state. However, events during the Revolutions of 1848 affected his position, and he ended up something of a bitter enemy of both the liberal and nationalist strains of Risorgimento. Pius IX's reign, during which the Italian government conquered Rome and ended the Church's temporal authority, marked the beginning of a nearly 60-year period in which the popes, referring to themselves as "Prisoners in the Vatican", refused to leave the Apostolic Palace in order to avoid being treated as subjects of the Italian crown.

Often known as "Pio Nono", even by non-Italian speakers^note ironically, Italians nowadays tend not to refer to popes by their regnal names - they'll typically talk about "Papa Wojtyla" rather than "Papa Giovanni Paolo" (and allegedly giving name to a Spanish sweet and streets in Chile and Montreal).

Called the First Vatican Council (1869-70), which confirmed the Pope's supremacy over the Church and Papal infallibility. This had been a longstanding issue in the Church, with many arguing that only a Church council could opine definitively on faith and morals (the Pope's role in this being in executing and interpreting the councils' decisions and in calling the councils themselves); these had been supported heavily by Catholic monarchs who, having already claimed the power to appoint bishops, wanted to limit the Pope’s influence as much as possible. The First Vatican Council ended these debates, though by that point most of the states that advocated the opposite position had either lost interest (see: France) or power (see: Spain). He also officially declared the Virgin Mary's Immaculate Conception^note  Which simply means she was conceived without Original Sin. It is not the same as the birth of Christ to her while a Virgin; that is called the Virgin Birth. The Immaculate Conception was a generally accepted concept in the Church—it is rooted in the theology of Saint Augustine and had been posited by Saint Ambrose—but many theologians doubted its necessity to Catholic soteriology. (The Eastern Orthodox generally express skepticism about the doctrine on the grounds that it is not based on any clear text and that it is not logically required to have Mary bear the Savior, though because they do not deny it outright it’s kind of a moot point.), based on the Lourdes apparitions, a dogma, or rooted in divine revelation and therefore something that must be accepted by all the Christian faithful. Often accused of being quite the Hot-Blooded jerk in person. He is also a Blessed and the first pope to have been photographed.

His reign was also noted for the Mortara case, in which Pius IX abducted a Jewish boy named Edgardo Mortara from his family in 1857; the family's Christian housekeeper baptized him because he reportedly fell ill as an infant and was in danger of death, and Papal States law stipulated that a baptized child must be raised Catholic. Thus, Edgardo was taken to Rome. The Mortaras, citing St. Thomas Aquinas, submitted a two-part document arguing for the return of their son because the Church prohibits baptizing children of unbelievers without the consent of their parents. However, the Vatican denied the request and, also citing St. Thomas, argued that Edgardo’s baptism was valid and that he therefore belonged to the Church. This event might have helped precipitate the fall of the Papal States.

Leo XIII

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The oldest reigning pope (beaten in age by Benedict XVI at 95, though Benedict abdicated at age 85; three others are traditionally believed to have served at an even older age, though their birthdates cannot be verified), he passed away at age 93 and had the third-longest pontificate. He was Archbishop-Bishop of Perugia and had recently been appointed Camerlengo of the Holy Roman Church at the time of his election.

A big devotee of the Virgin Mary, his nickname was "the Rosary Pope". Very concerned for social welfare and justice, his best-known encyclical is Rerum Novarum, in which he strongly defends the rights of workers. He also wrote "Aeterni Patris", an encyclical that shows how the Church has made use of philosophy in explaining its doctrines and calls for the revival of Scholastic philosophy, especially that of St. Thomas Aquinas. He also was pope during much of the Dreyfus Affair, when Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish artillery officer, was wrongfully court-martialled for trumped-up charges of treason. The anti-Dreyfusards, who supported the condemnation, were predominantly Catholic, but Pope Leo XIII, though he rarely commented on the controversy, spoke with the editor of the Paris newspaper Figaro on March 1899 and expressed support for Dreyfus, likening his plights to Jesus on Calvary.

Also, the first Pope whose voice was recorded, the first Pope ever caught on film, and probably the earliest-born person caught on film (being born during the The Napoleonic Wars in 1810). A rather nice and funny guy, too. He was the last Pope to not be buried within Vatican City until Francis was buried at the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome (per Francis' personal request) in 2025, Leo's tomb being within the Archbasilica of St. John Lateran.

St. Pius X

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Previously the Patriarch of Venice. Chosen pope when the Austrian Emperor claimed his veto against another cardinal just as the conclave began.^note This veto, known as Jus exclusivae, was never formally recognized by the Church but had been claimed by the Kings of France, Spain, and the Holy Roman and later Austrian Empires in the past, and had been respected out of diplomatic necessity. Upon becoming pope he immediately and explicitly denounced the practice and declared that any monarch claiming to veto a candidate for pope would be excommunicated.^note Initially, Sarto considered refusing his election, as he resented the Austrian Emperor's interference and also had doubts of his worthiness. The latest pope to have been canonized so far until John XXIII and John Paul II.

Extremely conservative, he condemned the Modernist heresy for undermining the nature of divine revelation, and like Pius IX he could be a blunt jerk at his worst; on the other hand, he also was known for his almost unlimited charity, as when he let the refugees from the Messina earthquake stay around the Vatican until they got official government help. He was also a reform machine, issuing a new Catechism, giving new guidelines on liturgy, and encouraging frequent reception of the Eucharist. His 1910 encyclical Quam Singulari was about lowering the age of first Holy Communion to about seven, citing Jesus' "Let the little children come to me and forbid them not." This decree was met with resistance by clergy adherent to the Jansenist movement which wanted to restrict Holy Communion for everybody, with the idea that only a select few adults really understood and appreciated what it was^note The fact that little children were capable of knowing the importance of the Eucharist became significant in the visitations of Our Lady of Fátima, especially when it was revealed that nine-year-old St. Jacinta had repeatedly pleaded for and been denied Communion before her death by a Jansenist chaplain.

Was actually a Country Mouse, coming from a small village where his dad was the local post office worker; his legend says that, as a kid, he'd rather walk barefoot to school than have his parents buying him new shoes needlessly.

Said to have succumbed to Death by Despair after not having been able to prevent World War I. His name was later adopted by a controversial (and, at some points in its history, schismatic) traditionalist group, the Society of St. Pius X.

Benedict XV

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The former Archbishop of Bologna and pretty much the only sane man in Europe during World War I, repeatedly calling for peace and doing all he could to help the conditions of prisoners of war and other refugees. He issued the first ever Code of Canon Law of the Roman Catholic Church in 1917. His last concern was the emerging persecution of the Church in the Soviet Union and the famine there after the revolution.

Benedict XV was an ardent mariologist, devoted to Marian veneration and open to new perspectives of Roman Catholic Mariology. He also supported the mediatrix theology and added the phrase "Queen of Peace" to the litany of Mary. Devotees of Our Lady of Fatima point out a famous letter in which he practically begged her to do something. The apparitions — in which she specifically discussed Russia and the horrors of war — began eight days after this letter was published, although the kids who saw her had had visitations of Portugal's guardian angel the year before.

Pius XI

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A brilliant scholar and diplomat, though parts of his diplomatic record remain controversial. Most notably, historians argue that the 1933 Concordat negotiated with Nazi Germany provided early moral legitimacy to the dictatorship, though he later fired off some beautiful tirades against Adolf Hitler and Nazism, including the first papal encyclical not in Latin, which was secretly printed and then read from every Catholic pulpit in Germany on Palm Sunday. In 1929, he signed the Lateran Treaty with Benito Mussolini's government, which established Vatican City as a sovereign nation and ended the "Prisoner in the Vatican" era.

Before that, as Papal Nuncio to Poland, he became the first representative of the Church in centuries to face down Catholicism's enemies on the battlefield, when he blessed Polish troops in the trenches outside Warsaw during the Polish-Soviet War. He was Archbishop of Milan at the time of his election as Pope.

Spoke out in favor of fair wages, social justice and even civil rights in America (he'd read Uncle Tom's Cabin) — President Franklin D. Roosevelt spoke very favorably of him and often quoted his encyclicals. Brought radio to the Vatican in 1931 with the installation of shortwave, callsign HVJ, which now broadcasts around the world in dozens of languages.

Pius XII

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A member of a very high-class Roman family. In 1920s, he was the Papal representative to Germany, and as such, inadvertently helped thwart the Beer Hall Putsch, as the sole minister in Bavarian state government who was not taken hostage by the Nazis was away from the Beer Hall having dinner with the future pope.^note It should be noted that the putsch mainly fell apart because the Nazis failed to take key positions in the city and let some of their hostages escape, so Pius didn't singlehandedly stop Hitler from taking power. The missing guy probably didn't help, though. As Secretary of State for the Vatican, he negotiated the controversial 1933 Reichskonkordat with Nazi Germany.

Elected pope in 1939, he reigned during World War II. In 1936 the future Pius XII became the first Pope to visit the United States in his lifetime. A competent, well-read, stoic, and popular pope, but accusations, made by some historians, that he did not not do enough to save the Jews during the Holocaust have made him a controversial figure after his death (though part of the controversy was also stirred by Soviet psyops). However, several sources, including Israeli scholars, estimate that as many as 860,000 European Jews were saved from death through concealment in Church facilities, issuance of fake Baptismal certificates, public appeals, secret exfiltration networks and other methods he ordered: this means, he didn't speak up in public a lot but did work like crazy behind the scenes. Still, the guy used to be anti-Judaic, and he once referred to the Munich chapter of the German Communist Party as "chaotic, filthy and full of Jews.", though he later changed his mind and was in good terms with the Roman Jewish community.

Known as "the Pope of Fatima" for his devotion to the message of Our Lady of Fatima. Made plans for the Vatican II Council, but died before he could call it. While he was dying, he repeatedly attempted to get up and say Mass, bless pilgrims (in their original languages), and feed his favorite bird that lived near the estate.

St. John XXIII

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Originally a Country Mouse and Impoverished Patrician. Also was the Patriarch of Venice by the time he was elected.

Considered more liberal and progressive for his time, compared to his immediate predecessors. He was aware that he was considered papabile (a candidate for the job) but as he was 76 years old, he expected his age to work against his candidacy. Upon his election there was some confusion over whether he would be known as John XXIII or John XXIV due to there being an anti-pope named John XXIII several centuries earlier. John himself put an end to the confusion by immediately declaring he was John XXIII. He was a man of such great size that even the largest cassock prepared for the eventual Pope couldn't fit him; it had to be split up, let out, and eventually held together with bobby pins (that fact is amusingly brought up in Conclave). Even after being elected, John was expected to rule for only a short, uneventful term, but revolutionized the office by his warm down-to-earth approach to the job.

He called the Second Vatican Council, which would end up renewing Catholicism as a whole, and was finished by his successor Paul VI. Generally known as "The Good Pope" for his easy smile and gentleness. In addition to calling the Council, he would sneak out at night to explore Rome and interact with the city's inhabitants, much to the consternation of his security people. He met with Archbishop Geoffrey Fisher in 1960, who was Archbishop of Canterbury at the time. Their meeting was the first between a Pope and an Archbishop of Canterbury in over five centuries.

In what they described as a 'very specific' case, the Vatican waived the requirement for a second miracle and canonized him in April 2014, alongside his successor, John Paul II.

St. Paul VI

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Archbishop of Milan, who had already been this close to be The Pope due to having been a close collaborator of Pius XII. He was the last pope to have a coronation.

An intellectual type, he oversaw the Second Vatican Council (Vatican II for short), which introduced numerous sweeping reforms to Church practices, and he also was an advocate for social justice. Also famous for being the first Pope in centuries to travel outside the Vatican more or less regularly, starting with a trip to the Holy Land in 1964. Paul also was the first office holder to visit the United States as Pope. ^note He and Pius XII visited the United States prior to being elected Pope. He's also famous for releasing the encyclical Humanae Vitae, which reiterated the Church's opposition to artificial birth control (birth control that's not NFP or total abstinence). Was beatified in October 2014 and subsequently canonized in October 2018.

Bl. John Paul I

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Former Patriarch of Venice and the first Pope who chose a composite name (to honor his two immediate predecessors), and the first one with an original name (well, quasi-original, given that it's composite) that actually affixed "the First" to it.^note He was thinking about calling himself Pius XIII, which would have been really ironic given what happened to him.

Threw out tradition right and left: refused to wear jewel-encrusted tiara and initially refused to be carried around in a chair, although he relented after being convinced that being carried on the chair was the only way people could see him. He insisted on an installation instead of a coronation, wouldn't use Royal "We", taught against private property and that God was both Mother and Father. As an archbishop, he used to direct his priests to sell gold and jewel church decor donated by parishioners and give the money to the poor. He wanted to give comparatively scandalous donations to the Third World and threatened to expose (actual) Church corruption related to Vatican Bank (you don't get to be Patriarch of Venice by being stupid.)^note He seems to have been something of a Beware The Nice Ones under that sparkling exterior.

His pontificate lasted just 34 days. Reports about his death, earlier health and even personal life were very confusing, so assassination conspiracy theories abound.

After a lot of bureaucratic slowness, his cause for sainthood was finally turned in on his 100th birthday, October 19, 2012. Pope Francis recognized his Heroic Virtues Nov. 7, 2017. Two possible miracles credited to him are being investigated.

He was a fan of The Adventures of Pinocchio, to the point that he wrote a letter to its protagonist. This was one of a series of sermons in the form of whimsical letters to fictional and historical figures including Charles Dickens, G.K. Chesterton and Mark Twain, later published as a book, Illustrissimi (The Illustrious Ones).

St. John Paul II

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The first East European Pope ^note was the Archbishop of Krakow, Poland, before being chosen, when elected he asked if he could call himself Stanislaus after the Polish saint, but was told that wasn't Roman enough, and the first non-Italian in the job in centuries.^note 455 years, to be exact. Adrian VI, a sixteenth-century Dutchman, was the last before him. Also known, especially after his death, as Pope John Paul the Great. Unusually young for recent history when chosen (he was fifty-eight years old), partly out of a desire not to have to hold another conclave for a decade (they managed almost three). Had the third-longest papal reign in history — a little over 26 years.

Staunchly conservative, he had great publicity and charisma as well as a very large presence, not to mention he traveled through the whole world (hence his nickname "The Pilgrim Pope" and one reporter making a pun on the title "Bishop of Rome"). He created the World Youth Day, an international event for young pilgrims. One such trip to the Philippines, in 1995, saw the largest crowd in history gathered to see him (such record even stood for nearly two decades, until Pope Francis' visit to the same country).

Said to have been important in the fall of the various Communist governments of the Cold War towards the end of The '80s; Mikhail Gorbachev once admitted to the Pope that the Iron Curtain never would have fallen without his efforts.

Famously was almost assassinated in May 1981, then forgave and visited his assassin in prison.

• Because of the unusual longevity of his papacy (more than a quarter of a century from the late 1970s to the early 2000s) to many people he became simply the Pope. He effectively defined the institution for the modern times. When he died, there were people up in their early thirties who couldn't remember another person being Pope.
• In one example of his publicity, he had a music video on MTV as one way to reach out to youth, one of the things he was known for.
  • It's not every Holy Father who gets a song about him written by Frank Zappa.
• He was required to take a second doctorate so he was 'out of the way'. His biography calls it "another doctorate", italics included.
• In an interesting bit of trivia, one of the people beatified in his final years was the man he was named after: Karl Josef von Habsburg, better known as Charles I and IV, the last Emperor of Austria-Hungary. "Karol Jozef" happened to be the Polish version of that name, given by his patriotic father (Wadowice, where he was born, had been in Austrian Silesia until a few months before he was born). It's been said that he did so as a sign of gratitude to his namesake. In fairness, it's not like Karl was not deserving: he was the Only Sane Man among state leaders during World War I—advocating that everyone just give up and go home to rebuild— and Anatole France called him "a saint" decades ago.
• He volunteered himself in the 1990s as the first pope to have a sit-down TV interview with a journalist when he didn't know the questions beforehand. Eventually, he couldn't make the dates work, but he kept the journalist's questions on his desk and gave such detailed extended answers that it was released as a whole book.
• His canonization in 2014, makes him the latest pope to be declared a saint, along with John XXIII (canonized at the same time). At his funeral, young people chanted "Santo subito!" (saint immediately) and Benedict XVI put his predecessor on the fast track by waiving the traditional 5-year waiting time before official sainthood inquiries begin. On the flip side of the coin, JPII consecrated and beatified more people than every pope in the last 5 centuries combined. (The Onion had their own theory as to why.)
  • His record has been supplanted by Pope Francis in 2013, who made 802 saints in one single day.
  • Several of his beatifications/canonizations, however, have been very controversial. For example, he beatified the Croatian cardinal Aloysius Stepinac (accused of having collaborated with the brutal Nazi-inspired Ustaše regime that ruled Croatia in World War II, which led to quite an impasse with the Serbian Orthodox Church) and the Spanish priest Jose Maria Escriva de Balaguer (founder of Opus Dei, an institution that seeks to help its members grow in holiness in their everyday occupations. He and the institution have been the subject of a lot of controversy, and Escrivá in particular has been suspected of supporting dictators like Hitler, Francisco Franco and Augusto Pinochet).
  • Additionally, John Paul's own canonization has been called into question due to his enthusiastic public support to Father Marcial Maciel (later exposed as a drug addict and serial pedophile who molested hundreds of boys, teens and young men — and a few young women^note two of whom had children by him, six in all, and he later molested them, too — in his Legion of Christ and Regnum Christi organizations) and Cardinal Theodore McCarrick (whose similar sexual proclivities had also been widely known for decades). John Paul had chosen to dismiss the warnings as rumors and put both men as examples of holiness, perhaps not coincidentally with the fact that both Maciel and McCarrick were extraordinary fundraisers for the Church.
• He was also good friends with the Dalai Lama.
• In 1996, he made a statement (in a very complicated wording) along the lines of "Evolution is not just a theory, but more. A reality."
  • In an audience with a monsignor who was devoted to St. Francis and allowed people to bring their pets to Mass, John Paul stated his belief that "the animals possess a soul, and are as near to God as men are." Cue the frantic spinning by Vatican officials, "Errr, what His Holiness really meant to say was..."
• In the days before he died, tens of thousands of people gathered in St. Peter's Square to pray for his health. When he was told of this, Pope John Paul II said "I have searched for you, and now you have come to me, and I thank you."
• John Paul II has also been credited for helping to end the Cold War. On the other hand, he has also been accused of strengthening the hold of the Catholic Church on Polish society to almost asphyxiating degrees (not for nothing do we say that Poland's politics are "a few ticks to the right" of the rest of Europe).
• He wrote stage plays, including The Jeweller's Shop, which was adapted into a movie.
• He was also known to be a very, very avid technophile.
• At the beginning of his reign he was a relatively young 58 years old, and in great physical condition at the time. He regularly exercised, much to the consternation of his staff who said tourists could see him exercising. John Paul had a swimming pool installed at his summer residence and when asked about the cost said it was cheaper than another conclave. He enjoyed skiing and according to his longtime friend and aide Stanisław Dziwisz John Paul was very happy the first time they successfully gave the Swiss Guard the slip and headed to the mountains near Rome to ski.
  • The May 1981 assassination attempt had been far more damaging to his health than was publically known. John Paul suffered a cardiac arrest after the shooting and it damaged his intestines. He recovered from the shooting and remained in good shape throughout The '80s, and continued to exercise as well. However, the long-term effects of the shooting began to catch up with him in the mid-1990s, along with other longstanding medical conditions.
  • In 2001, a surgeon confirmed John Paul had Parkinson's disease. By then he had osteoarthrosis and hearing problems. Even with all those health problems, he continued traveling the world, with his last international trip about eight months before his death.
  • During the last few years of his life, some people who met him said that despite his physical problems he was fully mentally alert. However others such as Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams disputed that, saying John Paul seemed to have memory problems during the last months of his life.^note  After John Paul's death, Williams said he met John Paul in early 2003 and the Pope had no memory of his own earlier writings, and British author John Cornwell claimed that the Pope had no idea who Williams was after the meeting.

Benedict XVI

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He hailed from Bavaria, Germany. He was conscripted in the Hitler Youth as a kid during World War II (it was mandatory back then, and his family—which was anti-Nazi because of their deep Catholic faith—tried to avoid sending him there as long as they could) and was Archbishop of Munich and Freising. At the time of his election as Pope, he was Dean of the College of Cardinals. Was very well-known as a scholar and intellectual before his ascension. Before becoming pope, he was the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith since 1981^noteNot quite as sinister as it sounds. In a way, the organization acts as a kind of ecclesiastical internal affairs division, backchecking priests and their teachings to make sure their teachings reflect proper Catholic doctrine and not any heretical or schismatic ideas. They also investigate the more purely religious crimes committed by clergy that might not fall under legal crimes; i.e., defiling the Eucharist, violations of priestly orders, breaking of the confessional seal, etc. (previously known as the Holy Office, or more importantly, the Roman Inquisition^note This is definitively NOT the same as the more well-known Spanish Inquisition, though at several points of history it was actually worse).

Conservative and not too good with getting the media to accurately express his views. He affirmed the taboo of condoms, and reconciled (de-excommunicated) four traditionalist bishops who were illicitly ordained. Among them was Bishop Richard Williamson, a Holocaust denier^note The Holy See clarified that the Pope hadn't known about this when rescinding the excommunication, and that Williamson was still suspended from exercising legitimate ministry until he recanted his antisemitic views. Williamson, for his part, never recanted them, and was even expelled from the SSPX for his extremist views later. He relaxed the rules on when the Tridentine Mass (traditional Latin Mass) can be performed, to the glee of some Catholics and the dismay of others, and the new English translation of the Roman Missal was implemented under his watch.

He resigned the papacy on February 28, 2013, making him the first pope to leave office during his lifetime since Gregory XII abdicated in 1415 in order to end the Western Schism and the first to do so voluntarily since Celestine V in 1294. Benedict is the longest-lived pope in the Catholic Church's history (though not the longest-lived while reigning, as he took the mantle of Pope Emeritus in 2013; the longest-lived while reigning remains Leo XIII), at 95 years and 212 days up until his passing on December 31, 2022.

Francis

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Born and raised in Argentina to Italian-born parents in 1936; he therefore represents both something of a return to old traditions (having the Pope be Italian, or close enough) and a radical departure (having the Pope being a Spanish-speaker born not only in the New World but also in the Southern Hemisphere). Significantly, his family had emigrated due to their opposition to Benito Mussolini's Fascist regime (one of the few commonalities with his predecessor, who was also from a family that opposed fascism due to their Catholicism). Before his election he was Archbishop of Buenos Aires. A member of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits), he graduated as a chemical technician before joining the priesthood and taught literature and psychology in a Jesuit-run high school early in his career. His election in 2013 marked a number of Papal firsts:

• First pope from The Americas.
• First pope from the southern hemisphere.
• First Jesuit pope (up until then, it was widely believed that a Jesuit would never be Pope due to their controversial role in the Church itself).
• First pope since the 15th century to succeed a living pontiff.
• First (excluding John Paul I, who may or may not count) since the 10th century (when Pope Lando reigned briefly in 914) to choose an original name ^note Certainly, he is the first since Lando to avert King Bob the Nth, as John Paul I did indeed call himself Ioannes Paulus Primus^note Patti Smith is not Catholic, but had studied the life of St. Francis and loved the idea of an environmentalist pope who exemplified closeness to nature. Monks at Assisi told her there would never be a Pope Francis (the saint having been too rebellious) or any Franciscan or Jesuit elected. So when the white smoke went up, she and her daughter were "watching and watching, and then they came out, and, lo and behold, they announce the new pope, and it’s Pope Francis. We were like jumping up and down as if we were at the Kentucky Derby and our horse came in."
• First pope not to be born in Europe since the 8th century (Gregory III, a Syrian, died in 741).
• First pope (probably) to speak Spanish (in the sense of Castilian) as his native tongue (the previous popes from Spain all spoke some variety of Catalan).^note The only "accepted" Popes from Spain were the Borgia popes Callixtus III and Alexander VI, who were from Valencia and would've spoken Valencian, which everyone except Valencians and the Spanish Constitution considers a variant of Catalan. Either way it wasn't Castilian. There's also two antipopes from Spain, both of whom were Aragonese and therefore probably spoke Catalan as well.
• First Pope to have been ordained as a Priest after the reforms of the Second Vatican Council.^note In 1969, four years after the Council ended, and unlike Benedict XVI was stricter in granting permission to dioceses and parishes to celebrate the Traditional Latin Mass, since it was often used as a political expression of opposition to said Council and the popes that followed it. That said, he clarified that the religious groups whose purpose is to say the Traditional Latin Mass, specifically those established with ecclesiastical approval like the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter, are not subjected to these restrictions and may continue their ministry as before.
• The first pope to cheer for a team in the FIFA World Cup finals while a retired pope was cheering for the other team.
• Francis was the first Pope to address a joint session of Congress.
• The first Pope in modern times to preside at the funeral of a previous Pope as Pope when Benedict's funeral was held on January 5, 2023.^note Other Popes had presided at the funerals of their predecessors, like Benedict did for John Paul II in 2005, but this was prior to their being elected Pope.
• Francis is the first Pope in over a century to be buried outside the Vatican. Every Pope after Leo XIII ^note Buried within the Archbasilica of St. John Lateran had been buried within St. Peter's Basilica, however Francis chose to be buried outside the Vatican, at the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore. He is also the first Pope buried at that particular Basilica since Clement IX in 1669.

He was known for his personal humility, austerity (he famously refused a limousine as cardinal and instead commuted in Buenos Aires by bus and subway, lived in a small apartment instead of Church-owned residences—a practice he replicated as Pope, preferring to stay in a room in the Vatican guesthouse rather than the Apostolic Palace—and urged his parishioners to donate to the poor instead of making pilgrimages to Rome), commitment to social justice, and his adherence to doctrine, and was also known for his ability to bridge gaps between his own community (the Jesuits) and others like the Communion and Liberation movement. His papal namesake, St. Francis of Assisi, was assumed in homage to that saint's austere lifestyle, emphasis on ministering to the poor and downtrodden, and efforts to reform the medieval Catholic Church from the state of worldliness and decadence it found itself in at the time. Francis also revised the funeral rites in order to simplify them. As part of the simplification, following his passing he was placed and buried in a single wooden zinc-lined coffin instead of the traditional three coffins made of cypress, lead and oak.

He also declared all members of organized crime, specifically Mafiosi, to officially be considered excommunicated from the church. Massively popular (outside Europe, that is); his 2015 visit to the Philippines actually broke the previous record for largest papal Mass set by then Pope John Paul II's visit in 1995 to the same country — estimated at six to seven million compared to five on the previous papal visit. He acted as eparch (bishop) of the Eastern Catholics in Argentina as well. ^{nota bene}His name is "Francis", not "Francis the First" — unlike the John Pauls, he won't be Francis I until there's a Francis II.

He was also a staunch opponent of same-sex marriage and adoption by same-sex couples (though he privately supported an Argentine bill to allow same-sex domestic partnerships for pastoral reasons), abortion, and euthanasia, largely of the same mind as his predecessors. However, he went on record to say that the Church has focused too much on opposing same-sex marriage, abortion, and birth control, and that homosexuals should not be discriminated against; it would appear that his position was, "these teachings matter, but if they don't proceed from a genuine love of God and neighbour, they're empty." He went on record in conversation with a gay Catholic who had suffered from sexual abuse by members of the clergy that, [of the man's sexuality] "God has made you this way and God loves you this way."

As well, he was openly known for being vocal about his disapproval of neoliberal capitalism (including the corruptive nature of private money in politics) and his support to migrants, and being in very much in favor of wealth redistribution and human action on mitigating climate change and restoring and preserving the environment, which is quite the opposite of some evangelicals, especially in the USA. He allowed any priest to absolve people who committed a procured abortion, and made confessions to priests from the Society of St. Pius X to be both licit and valid; first during the Year of Mercy, but then he extended both concessions indefinitely. He also called for massive vaccination against COVID-19, calling vaccination "an act of love". A resolute pacifist, he continuously called for an end to the Russo-Ukrainian war, but a number of his comments on the matter were deemed inappropriate (the lowest point might have been asking Ukraine, the invaded country, to "have the courage of raising the white flag").

Did we mention that he has an official prog-rock album credited to his name?

As a young man, he had part of a lung removed due to respiratory infection. Over the years this removal resulted in Francis being more susceptible to colds and other respiratory ailments. He was hospitalized a few times over the course of his papacy. In February, 2025 he was again hospitalized, the longest of his pontificate, and would prove to be his last. Though he was discharged in late March, and under doctor's orders to reduce the number of official duties as part of his recovery, he eventually succumbed to said complications at age 88, on April 21, 2025 — Easter Monday, mere hours after receiving American VP JD Vance (a Catholic, and only the second Catholic to hold his office). The Vatican later confirmed Francis had died due a stroke which brought about an "irreversible cardiocirculatory collapse." After his death he was eulogized as the "People's Pope" and the "Pope of the Peripheries" for his tireless care for the poor and marginalized.

Leo XIV

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The 267th Pope and the first Pope from the United States of America, being born and raised in Chicago (of French, Italian, Spanish, Haitian, and Dominican descent) and a naturalized citizen of Peru where he had been a missionary since 1985, and served as Bishop of Chiclayo^note His appointment as bishop was the catalyst for his naturalization in Peru; Peru's concordat with the Holy See requires all bishops of Peruvian dioceses to be Peruvian citizens. As then-Father Prevost spoke fluent Spanish and had mostly lived in Peru for nearly 30 years when he became a candidate for a diocese in that country, the authorities had no trouble expediting his application for naturalization so he could take his post. from 2014 until 2023, when he became prefect of the Dicastery of Bishops in Rome.^note The body responsible for vetting all the candidates to become bishops and archbishops for the final approval of the Pope—basically, he was the head of the Church’s executive hiring committee. Going into the Conclave, he was a dark horse candidate, certainly capable and accomplished, but with many factors against him. Many felt that an American would be an unlikely choice as pontiff ^note The U.S.'s status as a world superpower was considered a detriment to any American being elected pope (though he had not lived in the U.S. except for short visits in nearly forty years), but the large increase in African and Asian cardinals raised by Francis in the prior decade left a field wide open with many possible favourites, Prevost came to be seen as a compromise candidate^note Observers after his election summed him up as the "least American of the Americans". Like his predecessor, he is notable for several absolute and recent firsts:

• First Pope born in North America.
• First American (as in, from the United States) and Peruvian Pope.
• First Pope with dual citizenship (besides Vatican citizenship).
• First Pope with provable recent Black/sub-Saharan African ancestry (through his mixed-race—though passing—Haitian/Dominican maternal grandfather Joseph Martinez and Black Louisiana Creole—though also passing—maternal grandmother Louise Baquié).
• First Pope of predominantly French ancestry since Gregory XI (reigned 1370-78).
• First Pope from the Order of Saint Augustine, though several previous popes had belonged to other Augustinian orders as well.^note Speaking very broadly, while the descriptor of "Augustinian" is usually applied to either the Canons Regular or Order of Saint Augustine, as well as their various offshoots, it can also be applied to other orders that follow the Rule of Saint Augustine, but are not otherwise known as Augustinians, such as the Order of Preachers, who are better known as the Dominicans
• First Pope to be a native speaker of Modern English and the first native English speaker period since Adrian IV (r. 1154–1159) (who would have spoken an early form of Middle English).
• First Pope to be born after the Second World War.

Also, having been elevated to the Cardinalate by Pope Francis in 2023, he is the first Pope to succeed the Pope who made him a Cardinal since John Paul I succeeded Paul VI.

Officially, the inspiration for his papal name was the previous Pope Leo: just as Leo XIII vested his interests in workers' and social welfare during the Industrial Revolution, Leo XIV intends to do the same in a modern context marked by technological, political, and environmental changes. He is particularly passionate about the challenge that advanced Artificial Intelligence poses to society. His Haitian/Dominican and Louisiana Creole ancestry have led some to suggest he is also calling back to Leo XIII's commitment to racial equality, that Pope being the first to unequivocally condemn slavery (certainly, many Creole Catholics in New Orleans were quick to call him the first Black Pope, despite his Mediterranean appearance, and were even quicker to claim to be his second or fifth or thirteenth cousin). Some commentators suggested, too, a potential reference to Brother Leo — one of Francis of Assisi's most trusted followers and confidants — implying a continuity with Prevost's immediate predecessor. In an interesting coincidence, then-Cardinal Prevost was also the primary celebrant of the last public Mass Pope Francis attended.

However, Leo XIV revived some of the papal traditions previously abandoned by Pope Francis: wearing the traditional red mozzetta upon his first public blessing from the Loggia of St. Peter's Basilica, choosing to live full time in the Papal Apartments of the Apostolic Palace^note They're not quite as luxurious most people imagine, at least in comparison to the rest of the Apostolic Palace, but the expense of securing both the Apostolic Palace and the Casa Santa Marta during the pontificate of Francis (as while he preferred to reside at the latter, he still mostly worked in the former) was considered redundant, and in the end Leo XIV actually resides in a small suite of rooms on the floor above rather than in the actual Papal Apartments, and spending part of the summer at the Palace of Castel Gandolfo.

Also a fan of the Chicago White Sox (and not the Chicago Cubs, as initially reported); old footage from Game 1 of the 2005 World Series shows him in the stands cheering the Southsiders on, and the Chicago White Sox tweeted a photo of him wearing a White Sox cap, definitively confirming this. (Given that Barack Obama is also a White Sox fan, this makes the White Sox the only baseball team known to count both a President and a Pope as supporters.) He is also a fan of Villanova Wildcats Basketball, having completed his undergraduate studies (in mathematics, much to the confusion of everyone at the time and since^note Given his high school education—at a minor seminary in the middle of nowhere in Michigan—everyone expected him to major in theology, but nope, mathematics. He did take most of the Hebrew and Latin courses he would have taken as a theology/divinity major, at least to the extent compatible with his math major, though.) at Villanova University (a major Augustinian university in Philadelphia's western suburbs, which like many Catholic colleges in the United States has a strong basketball program).