With this current Pope Francis, it may be time to share some soundbites about the Papacy. Again, I do not expect anyone to memorise all these but most people would find it really interesting. It is normally useful to have them on hand when the children ask questions or if you are preparing a special session on the subject. So, here goes.
Who is the Pope? The head of the Catholic Church is Jesus Christ (note the head of the Catholic Church is not the Pope!!). There are 1.2 billion Catholics throughout the world and Jesus needs help to take care of all 1.2 billion of us. So, Jesus has the Pope to help him with the job.
The current Pope is Pope Francis. He was formerly the Archbishop of Buenos Aires in Argentina, Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio.
The Pope's name As with the norm, the Pope took on a new name when he became Pope. The tradition of popes picking a new name started with a pope whose birth name was Mercury, the name of a Roman god. A Pope Mercury in those days would sound as odd as a Pope Buddha today and so he changed his name. Since then, many Popes have chosen names of someone they respected, like a saint or a previous pope. Often, the name indicates the direction of the papacy he envisages. Pope Francis took on the name Francis in imitation of St Francis of Assisi, a champion of the poor. This choice has set the theme to his papacy with his emphasis on social justice. He is the first and thus, the only pope who has taken on the name of Francis. So, there are no numbers after papal name, as there were with most of the previous popes.
The Pope's titles When we meet the Pope, we call him 'Holy Father'. The common way to refer to him formally is His Holiness. He has many many other titles and I will run through a few of them here.
Bishop of Rome, Archbishop of Roman Province, Primate of Italy
He is the Bishop of Rome. This means that he is a bishop like all other bishops, with a job of taking care of all the Catholics in his diocese. In his case, the Pope is responsible for all the Catholics in Rome. That means he performs baptisms, says mass, hears confessions just like our own bishop would. But, as Rome is a huge diocese and the Pope has the rest of the Catholic Church to take care, he would have bishops and priests to help him. They are led by a Cardinal called the Vicar of Rome.
In addition to being the Bishop of Rome, the Pope is also the Archbishop of the Roman Province and the Primate of Italy. The Roman Province includes six other dioceses in the suburbs of Rome, which now exist mostly in name only and is mostly under the Roman diocese. A Primate is the leading bishop in a particular country, often the bishop of the first city on that country to have a bishop. See article on bishops to understand these titles.
Vicar of Christ, Supreme Pontiff, Successor to the Prince of the Apostles
The Pope is also the Vicar of Jesus Christ, the Supreme Pontiff and Successor to the Prince of the Apostles. The word Vicar means representative and so, the Pope is the representative of Jesus Christ on earth.
In the Catholic Church only a priest (which is what the word Pontiff means) can perform the sacrifice at mass and so, the highest sacrifice that the Catholic church can offer is the Papal High Mass by the Pope, the Supreme Pontiff.
The Prince of the Apostles was Peter, the first Pope and so, the Pope is the successor to St Peter.
Sovereign of the Vatican City The Pope is also the sovereign of the Vatican City. This means that he is head of the country called the Vatican City. That makes him the equivalent of president or a king or a prime minister in other countries. More on that later.
Servant of the Servants of God
The last title is the most interesting. He is the Servant of the Servants of God. A long time ago, Pope Gregory was upset at the Patriarch of Constantinople for taking on a grand title, calling himself the Ecumenical Patriarch which means Patriarch of the whole church. Pope Gregory then took on the title of the Servant of the Servants of God is an example of humility to the Patriarch.
How the Pope became the leader of the Church In the early days of the Church, the 12 Apostles (the original 11 plus Matthias) went to different countries to evangelise the Gospel. They were very much acting on their own independently. Still, because the memory of Jesus' teachings was strong in them, what each apostle taught was the same as the others. The 12 Apostles were the first bishops.
Later, as the Apostles died off one by one, the bishops they consecrated continued the teachings of Jesus. But by then, there were many other people who had different ideas about what Jesus taught. The Church needed someone to be the arbiter of what was truly the teachings of Jesus. Naturally, they turned to the most senior bishop around, the bishop of Rome and successor to St Peter, the Pope. The Roman Church also had a reputation of being very conservative and distrustful of new ideas (somewhat like today). This conservatism was instrumental in preserving the original faith from non-Christian ideas that came in later.
By the time of Pope St Clement, the third bishop of Rome, some Christians in Corinth appealed to him to settle some disputes in their church. We know this because we still have letters that Pope St Clement wrote to the Corinthians, just like St Paul did. These letters were very much treasured, read in churches and almost made it into New Testament. (They were probably dropped because St Clement wasn't a direct disciple of Jesus, even though the letters taught proper Catholic teachings.)
Later, when Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire, the Pope naturally became the head of the Church, being the bishop of the capital city and closest to the Emperor. More importantly in the view of the rest of the Church, Rome was the city of Saints Peter & Paul and the Pope is the successor of the Prince of the Apostles. When the Empire fell and there was no longer any single central government in Western Europe during the Dark Ages, the Pope provided sorely needed leadership.
In fact, he became so powerful that he was the one who crowned kings and emperors. This gave the popes a lot of political power and the papacy attracted a lot of people with questionable motives. With his own extensive country called the Papal States, one pope even led an army. Many wielded temporal power and was involved in European international politics until the Reformation.
Today, the Pope has long given up on the exercise of temporal power. His involvement in international politics is limited to furthering the values of the Gospels and occasionally mediating in wars & disputes. For the last five centuries or so, popes have focused on providing spiritual guidance and evangelising Gospel values.
What the Pope wears
There are two famous items reserved only to the Pope that no other bishop will wear. As the world started to move away from the pomp and awe of past centuries to a simpler and more accessible papacy, many of these papal items and vestments are reserved for ceremonial moments, if used at all.
Papal tiara
The first is the Papal Tiara, a three-level crown that is no longer worn since Pope Paul VI, who laid the tiara on the altar of St Peter Basilica as an act of humility. Since then, there was no longer any papal coronation, starting with Pope John Paul I. The Tiara, called the Triregnum, still appears on the Papal Coat of Arms though, which together with the two keys of heaven and hell that Jesus gave Peter, the first Pope, are the symbols of the papacy. So, when you see something with a triple tiara logo, you know it is to do with the Pope.
Papal ring The other famous item is a ring. All bishops wear a ring but only the Pope has the Ring of the Fisherman. The fisherman refers to St Peter, the first pope. The ring have a depiction of a fisherman casting his net out to sea. All previous popes had rings made of gold but Pope Francis has a ring made of silver.
In the past, rings were used to seal documents, just like signatures today. As such, when a pope dies, one of the first thing they do is to break the ring so that no one can preetend to be the dead pope and the new pope will then get a new one. Pope Francis broke with tradition and uses a ring previously owned by another bishop in Rome. He wears the papal ring only on public occassions. When we meet the Pope, we show our respect by kissing his ring.
Papal vestments
There used to be a number of mass and other public vestments worn only by the Pope but but their use has been discontinued since the liturgical reforms of Vatican II. Today, generally the Pope wears the same papal vestments that any other bishop wear except that it is white all over whereas other bishops generally wear purple.
The only papal item he carries different from other bishops is a papal staff called a Papal Ferula (which just means rod in Latin), a tall staff, usually topped by a cross. It is not a litugical item and so there is no set form of the ferula. Indeed, Pope Francis recently used one given to him by a group of young people, which consisted of a staff with nail through a wooden knob at the top.
The throne
The imagery many of us have of popes was very much like this picture here: a man in awesome golden robes carried on an elaborate sedan chair. The sedan chair is known as the sedia gestatoria and required twelve men in red uniforms to carry it. It is accompanied by two large white fans made of ostrich feathers, called flabellum, the last remainder left of the feathers used to keep flies away from the communion during masses in early history. When the Pope stands up on the chair to bless the faithful, his extra-long vestments draped over the chair, making him look taller than he actually is.
Today that picture is long gone and belongs to a bygone era when the Church inspired awe more than anything else. Use of the sedan chair was discontinued by Pope St John Paul II, who was more often seen in his Popemobile, bullet-proofed since his 1981 assisnation attempt.
It is probably quite apt as the Popemobile is the vehicle of the pastor Pope who brought our Catholicism to us, making the religion more accessible to millions of Catholics throughout the world, and millions more non-Catholics as well. We now no longer use many of these items of grandeur designed to inspire awe but we still appreciate how they form part of our heritage and our story of the Church that we love.
The first Pope
The first pope was St Peter. He was the only pope made pope by Jesus Christ. The Bible tells us that Jesus made him the leader of the Apostles and changed his name from Simon to Peter, saying that on this rock he will build his church. He was referring to Peter whose name means rock. He also gave Peter the keys to the kingdoms of heaven and hell. This is why the sign of the two keys is the sign of the Pope.
Peter went to Rome to preach the Gospel because as the head of the church, he went to the capital city of the Empire. He was martyred and when he was crucified, he told the soldiers to crucify him upside down because he was not worthy to be crucified upright like his Lord Jesus. So he was crucified upside down and to this day an upside down cross is known as the Cross of St Peter.
After he died, the soldiers cut off his head and he was buried headless. Christians built a church over the place where he was buried. Many many centuries later, in the 1950s, workmen digging under the high altar of St Peter's Basilica in Rome found the skeleton of a man with no head. The bones were those of a heavy-set built man in his sixties, which fitted the traditional description of St Peter. Could these be the bones of St Peter? It could be but we will never know for sure
Pope Francis is the 265th successor to St Peter and we know the name of each and every one of them. This is important because we Catholics believe that the faith of Jesus Christ, as taught by Apostles has been handed down in an unbroken line. Therefore, the faith we hold is the same faith of Jesus Christ.
The Vatican City
The Pope is the head of an independent country called the Vatican City. It is the smallest country in the world, only 44 hectares in size. That is the size of about 60 football fields. Six Vatican Cities can fit into one square mile: not very big.
The Vatican City is in Rome. It includes St Peter's Basilica, the huge church where all the big Catholic ceremonies take place and St Peter's Square outside as well as a few other buildings in Rome. A basilica is an important church with the four Papal Basilicas being the most important.
There is a line in white in St Peter's Square to demarcate the boundary between the Vatican City and Italy. It was painted during the Second World War by the Germans to tell a priest in the Vatican, who helped escaped prisoners of war that if he crossed that line, he will be killed.
Vatican as a sovereign nation
Having an independent country of his own helps the Pope to make independent decisions for the Catholic Church without being influenced by anyone else. He will not be subject to laws or have any obligations to another country. As an independent country, the Vatican has diplomatic recognition of most of the countries in the world and its diplomats are often recognised as among the best trained in the world. It also has its own Internet domain (.va), a radio station, a TV channel and its own newspaper as well as minting its own coins & printing its own stamps .
In addition to having its own fire brigade, police force, there is even an army, called the Swiss Guards. There are 134 guards recruited from single Swiss Catholic men who have done military service. They are not toy soldiers, but trained infantrymen who have served in the Swiss Army.
They serve as the Pope's personal body guard.
The flag of the Vatican City is half in yellow, with the other half in white containing the Papal Coat of Arms. Yellow is therefore the Papal colour. While the Pope is simultaneously the King, President and Prime Minister of the Vatican City, the day-to-day running of the Vatican City is overseen by a commission of seven cardinals, headed by the Governor, while the diplomatic corp report to the cardinary Secretary of State, who is the effectively the foreign minister dealing withe other countries. There is even a court system for secular crime, which is separate from Church Tribunals which administer Canon Law.
The Pope's helpers
The Pope has many people to help him. There are over 100 Cardinals, most of whom work as bishops in diocese throughout the world. Many others are heads of departments in the Vatican which help the Pope to administer the church & its finances worldwide, deal with other countries, religions & international bodies, and minister to the needs of Catholics in the universal church.
In addition, there are over 5000 bishops and archbishops throughout the world. Again, many of them work in Rome as part of the staff of the Vatican, assisted by priests, brothers and nuns. While many of these bishops & priests do work in the liturgy, administering Church law, faith education, etc, like other priests, many others do work we do not normally associate with priests. There are bishops & priests who work as diplomats (Vatican diplomats are often considered the best trained in the world), lecturers in universities, journalists (there is a Vatican newspaper, TV and radio station), astronomers (there is a Vatican Observatory), etc.
In future posts, I will explain the hierarchy of the Church as well on the election of a pope.
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