Pope

• 1. Introduction

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  White smoke from a narrow chimney above the Sistine Chapel is how the world learns that a new pope has been chosen. The pope is the bishop of Rome and the head of the Catholic Church, which has 1.4 billion members. The most recent man to take the office is Leo XIV, elected on the 8th of May 2025, the second day of a conclave.

  The papacy ranks among the oldest continuous institutions in the world. The pope also leads the biggest provider of schools and health care outside any government, backed by a vast network of charities. How did the bishop of a single city come to guide so many people? Why does a title once given to many bishops now belong to one man? And how did an office that once rivalled territorial rulers become one focused largely on religion? The answers start with a rock and a set of keys.

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• 2. Peter and the Keys

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  In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus tells Peter that he is the rock on which the church will be built. He then hands Peter the keys of the kingdom of heaven. The promise continues with the words "whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." Catholic teaching reads this passage as the root of the papal office. Two other texts are cited beside it. In Luke, Jesus says he has prayed that Peter's faith will not fail and tells him to strengthen his brothers. In John, he says "Feed my sheep."

  Some Protestant writers have argued that the rock means Jesus himself, or the faith that Peter voiced. Critics of that idea point to Cephas, the masculine Aramaic form of the word for rock, which the Bible uses as a name for Peter. A standard reference work notes that the great majority of scholars today take the rock to be Peter in person.

  The Catholic Church also sees the pope as a new Eliakim, an Old Testament official who ran the royal court, managed the palace staff and handled affairs of state. In Isaiah, Eliakim receives the key of the house of David on his shoulder. "What he opens, no one will shut, what he shuts, no one will open." The book also compares him to a peg driven into a secure place, just as Peter is compared to a rock.

  Historians ask harder questions about how this worked in practice. Irenaeus, writing around 180 AD, believed that Peter founded and organized the Church at Rome. A letter from the Church of Rome to the Corinthians, traditionally credited to Clement of Rome around 96, praised Peter and Paul as the "good apostles." Ignatius of Antioch wrote soon afterward that he would not command the Romans as Peter and Paul had. Emperor Constantine built the Old St. Peter's Basilica over the place held to be Peter's tomb. Many scholars therefore agree that Peter was martyred in Rome under Nero, though some argue for Palestine.

  Other scholars caution that the episcopal see in Rome can be traced no earlier than the 3rd century. Some writers think a single ruling bishop did not appear there before the middle of the 2nd century. In their view, Linus, Cletus and Clement may have been prominent presbyter-bishops rather than sole leaders. Even so, a letter from the bishop of Antioch called the bishop of Rome "a first among equals."

  Later writers kept building the case. Irenaeus listed the Roman bishops from Peter down to Eleutherius, who served from 174 to 189 AD and held the twelfth place from the apostles. Augustine of Hippo, in his Letter 53, listed 38 popes from Peter to Siricius. His list puts Clement before Anacletus, while Irenaeus reverses them. Cyprian of Carthage, around 251, wrote to Pope Cornelius and described Peter's chair as an office that stayed filled by the will of God. Tertullian said the church in Rome could claim the authority of the apostles and recorded that Peter had ordained Clement. Optatus of Milevis, writing in 367 about the Donatist schism, called the Roman chair the one chair in which unity is kept by all.

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• 3. A Title Takes Shape

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  Heraclas, the patriarch of Alexandria who served from 232 to 248, is the earliest figure on record to be called pope. He was already dead when a writer used the word of him. In those early centuries, the title was given especially in the East to bishops and senior clergy in general. By the early 3rd century, it was an honorific for any bishop in the West.

  Marcellinus, who died in 304, is the first bishop of Rome that sources show being called pope. From the 6th century, the imperial chancery of Constantinople normally kept the word for the bishop of Rome. In the West it narrowed to him from the early 6th century, and the practice was firm by the 11th. The reservation is linked to the reign of Leo I, who ruled from 440 to 461, though it became official only in the 11th century. The word reached English in the mid-10th century, in an Old English translation of Bede, where it described the 7th-century Roman pope Vitalian. Alexandria still uses the word for its own bishop, so Eastern Christians often say "pope of Rome" to be clear.

  The word pontiff has a pagan ancestor. In ancient Rome, a pontifex belonged to the chief college of priests, and the name literally means "bridge builder." The head of that college was the Pontifex Maximus, a post held by Julius Caesar and then by the emperors until Gratian, who gave it up between 375 and 383. Christians applied pontifex to bishops generally, and since the 11th century it has pointed mainly to the bishop of Rome. Popes began to use the full title regularly only in the 15th century. It still appears as "Pont. Max" or "P.M." on papal buildings, statues and coins.

  A synod in 495 gave the first recorded use of "Vicar of Christ" for a bishop of Rome, speaking of Gelasius I. For centuries, other bishops, kings and even judges were called by the same phrase. Its firm link to the pope appears in the 13th century, tied to the reforms of Innocent III. The Second Vatican Council called all bishops vicars of Christ for their own local churches. The pope is vicar of Christ for the whole Church. "Vicar of Peter" belongs to the pope alone. Saint Boniface used it of Gregory II in an oath of fealty in 722.

  Gregory the Great made "servant of the servants of God" a papal habit. He reportedly used it as a lesson in humility for John the Faster, the patriarch of Constantinople, who had taken the title "ecumenical patriarch." By the 12th century it was reserved for the pope, and it appears in papal bulls. Pope Theodore I first used "patriarch of the West" in 642. The Vatican's yearbook, the Annuario Pontificio, carried it from 1863 to 2005 and again in 2024. On the 22nd of March 2006, the Vatican explained the omission as a matter of ecumenical usefulness. It gave no explanation for the return.

  The pope's own favorite word does not appear on the official list. The yearbook lists Bishop of Rome, Vicar of Jesus Christ, Successor of the Prince of the Apostles, Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church, Patriarch of the West, Primate of Italy, Archbishop and Metropolitan of the Roman Province, Sovereign of the Vatican City State, and Servant of the servants of God. The name "pope" is missing, yet documents carry it in the abbreviation "PP." Sources disagree on whether those letters mean "papa," "papa pontifex" or "pastor pastorum," shepherd of shepherds. Paul VI signed as "Paulus PP. VI."

  The name a pope takes is not his legal name. Leo XIV was born Robert Francis Prevost, and his documents keep that name. Local languages translate the papal name, so he is Leone XIV in Italian and León XIV in Spanish. For canonizations and decrees of ecumenical councils, a pope signs without any numeral, in the formula "Ego Leo Episcopus Ecclesiae catholicae," meaning "I, Leo, Bishop of the Catholic Church."

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• 4. Smoke and Ballots

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  Until 1059, the pope was chosen by senior clergy living in and near Rome. In that year the vote passed to the cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, and in 1179 every cardinal's vote was made equal. Today only cardinals who have not reached 80 on the day before a pope's death or resignation may vote. The winner need not be among them. Any baptized Catholic man could be elected, though he must be ordained a bishop before the result is announced. Gregory XVI in 1831 was the last elected before becoming a bishop. Leo X in 1513 was the last who was not yet a priest. Urban VI in 1378 was the last who was not a cardinal.

  The Second Council of Lyon opened on the 7th of May 1274 to fix the rules. It was a reaction to a three-year vacancy after the death of Clement IV in 1268. The council ordered electors to meet within ten days and stay shut away until they chose someone. Since 1878, the election has happened in the Sistine Chapel in a sequestered meeting called a conclave, from the Latin cum clave, "with key."

  The process is tightly choreographed. Three cardinals chosen by lot collect votes from sick electors, three count, and three check the count. Each elector writes a name and says aloud that he votes for "one whom under God I think ought to be elected." He drops the folded ballot onto a plate over a chalice, then tips it in, which makes extra ballots hard to slip through. The 2005 conclave used a special urn in place of the chalice. If the count of folded ballots differs from the number of electors, they are burned unopened and the vote is repeated. Otherwise the presiding cardinal reads each name and pierces the ballot with a needle and thread, stringing the papers together.

  Voting continues until one man has a two-thirds majority. The 1996 document Universi Dominici Gregis allowed a simple majority after twelve days of deadlock. Benedict XVI revoked that in 2007.

  The dean of the College of Cardinals then asks the winner whether he freely accepts election as supreme pontiff. The single word "Accepto" begins his reign at that instant. Next comes the question of what name he will take. When Benedict XVI was elected in 2005, the vice dean asked, because the dean himself had won. The new pope goes to the Room of Tears, where white vestments wait in three sizes. Back in the chapel, the camerlengo gives him the Fisherman's Ring, and the other cardinals come forward in turn to offer their first obedience.

  The world follows the vote by smoke. Spent ballots from a failed round are burned with a chemical compound to make black smoke, called fumata nera. Wet straw once did the same job but was not fully reliable. A successful vote is burned alone, sending white smoke, fumata bianca, up the chimney. Church bells have also rung to announce a result since the 2005 conclave. Soon after, the cardinal protodeacon steps onto a balcony over Saint Peter's Square. He announces in Latin a great joy and declares, in English, "We have a pope," before giving the new pope's name.

  Until 1978, a coronation followed within days. A great procession led to Saint Peter's Basilica, where the pope received the triregnum, the papal tiara, and gave the blessing Urbi et Orbi, "to the City and to the World." A bundle of flax was set alight on a gilded pole, flared and died, while a voice said "Sic transit gloria mundi," or "Thus passes worldly glory." Another traditional warning was "Annos Petri non-videbis," a reminder that he would not live to match Peter's 35 years, the longest reign on record. Now the new pope instead celebrates an inaugural mass in Saint Peter's Square.

  For centuries after 1378, the men elected were mostly Italian. Adrian VI of the Netherlands, elected in 1522, was the last outsider before the Polish-born John Paul II in 1978. The German-born Benedict XVI followed, and then the Argentine Francis. Francis was the first pope from the Americas and the first born outside Europe in 1272 years, since Gregory III. Leo XIV extends the pattern. He was born in the United States, is a naturalized citizen of Peru, and spent about 20 years there as an Augustinian priest and bishop. Before his election he had also spent almost 20 years studying and serving in Italy and the Vatican.

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• 5. The Vacant Seat

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  Sede vacante, Latin for "vacant seat," names the gap between a pope's death or resignation and the election of his successor. John Paul II set the present rules in 1996. During the gap, the College of Cardinals shares responsibility for governing the Church and the Vatican under the camerlengo. Canon law forbids them from introducing any innovation, so any decision needing a pope's assent waits for the next one. The term also gave its name to sedevacantism, the view held by some dissident Catholics that no legitimate pope has been validly elected.

  Resignation is highly unusual. The 1983 Code of Canon Law requires that it be made freely and properly shown, but not that anyone accept it. Benedict XVI left the Holy See on the 28th of February 2013. He was the first to do so since Gregory XII resigned in 1415.

  In recent centuries, the camerlengo reportedly confirmed a death by tapping the pope's head three times with a silver hammer, calling out his birth name each time. That ritual was skipped for John Paul I and John Paul II. The camerlengo takes the Ring of the Fisherman and cuts it in two before the cardinals, and the pope's seals are defaced so they can never be used again. His apartment is sealed. The body lies in state for several days. All popes who died in the 20th and 21st centuries rest in Saint Peter's Basilica, except Francis, who asked to be buried in the Basilica of Saint Mary Major. A nine-day period of mourning called the novendialis follows the burial.

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• 6. Power and Schism

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  In 195, Pope Victor I excommunicated the Quartodecimans, who kept Easter on the 14th of Nisan, the day of the Jewish Passover. Historians see this as an early exercise of Roman authority over other churches. Easter on a Sunday, the pope's position, is the practice that survived.

  The Edict of Milan in 313 freed all religions in the Roman Empire. In 325, the First Council of Nicaea condemned Arianism and, in its sixth canon, recognized a special role for the sees of Rome, Alexandria and Antioch. Liberius was exiled to Berea by Constantius II for his Trinitarian faith. Damasus I also defended that faith. In 380, the Edict of Thessalonica made Nicene Christianity the empire's state religion. In the East, the civil power controlled the church, and the patriarch of Constantinople held great power. In the West, the bishops of Rome grew stronger. Clovis I, king of the Franks, became the first important barbarian ruler to join the mainstream church rather than Arianism, and he allied himself with the papacy.

  Gregory I, who lived from about 540 to 604, came from an ancient senatorial family and ran the church with strict reform. His popular writings were crowded with miracles, relics, demons, angels, ghosts and the approaching end of the world. His successors were largely dominated by the exarch of Ravenna, the Byzantine emperor's representative in Italy. Stephen II turned away from Emperor Constantine V and asked the Franks for protection. Pepin the Short beat the Lombards and gave Italian land to the papacy. When Leo III crowned Charlemagne in 800, he set a precedent that no man would be emperor in Western Europe without a pope's crown.

  The years from 867 to 1049 were the papacy's low point. The Counts of Tusculum made and unmade popes for fifty years. Popes were imprisoned, starved, killed and deposed by force. John XII, a great-grandson of one such count, was deposed by a church court called by Emperor Otto I, which elected a layman as Leo VIII. John mutilated the imperial representatives in Rome and had himself reinstated. In 1049, Leo IX toured Europe's major cities to confront simony and clerical marriage and concubinage in person. His long journey restored the papacy's standing in Northern Europe.

  Between 900 and 1050, the Abbey of Cluny became the most important center promoting church reform. Gregory VII, elected in 1073, drove a series of measures called the Gregorian Reform against simony, abuse of civil power and clerical marriage. The fight with rulers such as the Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV and King Henry I of England is called the Investiture controversy. It ended in 1122 at the Concordat of Worms under Callixtus II. Alexander III soon began the reforms that led to canon law. In 1095, Byzantine emperor Alexios I Komnenos asked Urban II for military aid, and Urban called the First Crusade at the council of Clermont.

  The East-West Schism of 1054 split the Eastern Orthodox and Catholic churches for good. Politics caused it more than small differences of creed. From 1309 to 1377, the popes lived in Avignon, in a period known for greed and corruption, when the pope was effectively an ally of France. Indulgences, which reduced time in purgatory, slid from gifts accompanying contrition into simple payments, and popes short of money could not control the abuse. Conciliarism, whose leading voice in the 15th century was Jean Gerson, held that a general council outranked the pope. During the Western Schism from 1378 to 1417, rival claimants appeared, and the Council of Constance ended it by deciding among them. Reunion with the East was tried at the Second Council of Lyon and again at the Council of Florence, which met from 1431 to 1449. Neither worked, and in the 15th century the Ottomans captured Constantinople.

  Protestant reformers attacked the papacy as corrupt and called the pope the antichrist. Paul III opened the Council of Trent, which ran from 1545 to 1563 and sealed the papacy's victory over those who sought compromise. For about 1,100 years, from the 8th century until 1870, the pope also ruled the Papal States. In 1870, Victor Emmanuel II of Italy seized Rome and largely completed Italian unification. In 1929, the Lateran Treaty between Fascist Italy and the Holy See created Vatican City as an independent city-state.

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• 7. Infallibility and Its Limits

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  On the 18th of July 1870, the First Vatican Council defined the pope's status and authority. Its canons declared Peter chief of the apostles and said the Roman pontiff holds the full and supreme power of jurisdiction over the universal Church, not just a role of inspection. Each canon ended with the phrase "let him be anathema" for anyone who denied it. The council also proclaimed that when the pope speaks ex cathedra, meaning "from the chair," and defines a doctrine of faith or morals, he teaches with infallibility. Such definitions are unalterable from themselves, not from the Church's consent.

  That power has been used only once since. In 1950, Pius XII defined the Assumption of Mary as dogma.

  The Second Vatican Council, in its 1964 Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, called bishops authentic teachers endowed with the authority of Christ. It also asked for a special "religious submission of mind and will" toward the pope's teaching, even when he is not speaking ex cathedra. It added that infallibility also belongs to the body of bishops when they exercise the supreme magisterium together with Peter's successor.

  On the 11th of October 2012, the 50th anniversary of the council's opening, 60 prominent theologians issued a declaration, among them Hans Küng. They said that Vatican II's aim of balancing authority had not been achieved. "A principal source of present-day stagnation lies in misunderstanding and abuse affecting the exercise of authority in our Church."

  The primacy of Peter still divides east and west and separates Protestants from Rome. In the Ravenna Document of the 13th of October 2007, theologians chosen by the Catholic and Orthodox Churches agreed that Rome occupied the first place among the patriarchs in the undivided Church. They disagreed on what the bishop of Rome's rights as first actually were, a question already understood in different ways in the first millennium.

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• 8. Regalia and Residence

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  The Ring of the Fisherman is a gold or gilt ring showing Peter in a boat casting his net, with the pope's name around it. The umbraculum, called the ombrellino in Italian, was a canopy of red and gold stripes carried above the pope in processions. The sedia gestatoria was a mobile throne carried by twelve footmen in red uniforms. Two attendants bearing flabella, fans of white ostrich feathers, walked beside it. John Paul I stopped using the flabella, and John Paul II stopped using the sedia gestatoria.

  Every pope has his own coat of arms. For several centuries, two keys crossed in an X have sat behind the shield, one silver and one gold, tied with a red cord. Above them sits a silver triregnum with three gold crowns. In 2005, Benedict XVI kept the keys but replaced the tiara with a mitre marked with three horizontal lines, and he added the pallium beneath the shield. In 2013, Francis kept the mitre but dropped the pallium. The arms of the Holy See itself, with the tiara, were unchanged.

  The yellow and white flag of Vatican City, adopted in 1808, is the flag most associated with the pope. The previous flag was red and gold. The Holy See's arms sit on its white half, and the tiara stays there even though Benedict XVI dropped it from his own arms.

  Pius V, who reigned from 1566 to 1572, is often credited with starting the custom of papal white, because he kept wearing his Dominican habit. In fact, the Ordo XIII, a book of ceremonies compiled around 1274, already described papal dress as white. Later books add a red mantle, mozzetta, camauro and shoes over a white cassock and stockings. Portraits of Pius V's predecessors in the 15th and 16th centuries show them in similar white.

  The pope's official seat is the Archbasilica of Saint John Lateran, the cathedral of the Diocese of Rome. His official residence is the Apostolic Palace, and he has a summer residence at Castel Gandolfo, on the site of the ancient city of Alba Longa. The word "see" comes from the Latin sede, meaning seat or chair. The Holy See, the pope's jurisdiction, is a sovereign entity under international law with diplomatic relations with many states. According to the Latin saying ubi Papa, ibi Curia, the Church's central government is wherever the pope lives. The Avignon years earned the nickname "Babylonian captivity."

  As of 2024, the pope's salary was 30,000 euros a month. Francis, a Jesuit, refused to collect it and gave the money to the poor.

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