Pope Benedict Xvi

Alberto Bovone
Alberto Bovone (June 11, 1922 – April 17, 1998) was an Italian Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints from 1995 until his death, and was elevated to the cardinalate in 1998.
Alberto Bovone was born in Frugarolo, and attended the seminary in Alessandria. Ordained to the priesthood on May 26, 1945, he then did pastoral work for a year before continuing his studies from 1946 until 1951 at the University of Turin and the Angelicum in Rome (where he obtained his doctorate in canon law). Bovone entered the Roman Curia as an official of the Congregation for the Council in October 1951, and was later made Undersecretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on May 21, 1973.
Pope John Paul II named him Titular Archbishop of Caesarea in Numidia on April 5, 1984, and Secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith three days later, on April 8. Bovone received his episcopal consecration on the following May 12 from Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, with Bishop Ferdinando Maggioni and Archbishop Luigi Dadaglio serving as co-consecrators. Bovone was the first person ordained as a Bishop by Ratzinger, who would become Pope Benedict XVI.

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Albertus Magnus
Albertus Magnus, O.P. (1193/1206 – November 15, 1280), also known as Albert the Great and Albert of Cologne, is a Catholic saint. He was a German Dominican friar and a bishop who achieved fame for his comprehensive knowledge of and advocacy for the peaceful coexistence of science and religion. Those such as James A. Weisheipl and Joachim R. Söder have referred to him as the greatest German philosopher and theologian of the Middle Ages, an opinion supported by contemporaries such as Roger Bacon. The Catholic Church honours him as a Doctor of the Church, one of only 34 persons with that honor.
Albertus was born sometime between 1193 and 1206 to the Count of Bollstädt in Lauingen in Bavaria. Contemporaries such as Roger Bacon applied the term "Magnus" to Albertus during his own lifetime, referring to his immense reputation as a scholar and philosopher.
Albertus was educated principally at Padua, where he received instruction in Aristotle's writings. A late account by Rudolph de Novamagia refers to Albertus' encounter with the Blessed Virgin Mary, who convinced him to enter Holy Orders. In 1223 (or 1221) he became a member of the Dominican Order, against the wishes of his family, and studied theology at Bologna and elsewhere. Selected to fill the position of lecturer at Cologne, Germany, where the Dominicans had a house, he taught for several years there, at Regensburg, Freiburg, Strasbourg and Hildesheim. In 1245 he went to Paris, received his doctorate and taught for some time as a master of theology with great success. During this time Thomas Aquinas began to study under Albertus.

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Alfonso Muzzarelli
Alfonso Muzzarelli (b. 22 August 1749, at Ferrara; d. 25 May 1813, at Paris) was an Italian Jesuit theologian and scholar.
He entered the Jesuit novitiate on 20 October 1768, and taught grammar at Bologna and Imola. After the suppression of the order in 1773 he received a benefice at Ferrara and, somewhat later, was made director of the Collegio dei Nobili at Parma.
Pope Pius VII summoned him to Rome, and appointed him theologian of the Poenitentiaria. When Pius VII was exiled in 1809, Muzzarelli was also obliged to leave Rome and was transported to Paris, where he spent his remaining life at the convent of the Dames de Saint-Michel.
He wrote numerous theological, philosophical and ascetical works. His chief production is a collection of philosophico-theological treatises published repeatedly under the title "Il buon uso della Logica in materia di Religione" (6 vols., Foligno, 1787-9), with additions by the author (10 vols., Rome, 1807; 11 vols. Florence, 1821-3). The collection contains sketches on the theological questions on the day such as - abuses in the Church, the temporal power of the pope, religious toleration, ecclesiastical immunity, riches of the Church and its clergy, primacy and infallibility of the pope, auricular confession, religious institutes, indulgences, Gregory VII, moral liberty, etc. This collection of treatises, with the exception of the last five, was translated into Latin by Zeldmayer de Buzitha ("Bonus usus logiae in materia religionis", Kaschau, 1818-7). A French translation, containing 42 treatises, was published at Brussels in 1837.

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Ambrose
Aurelius Ambrosius, better known in English as Saint Ambrose (c. between 337 and 340 – 4 April 397), was a bishop of Milan who became one of the most influential ecclesiastical figures of the 4th century. He was one of the four original doctors of the Church.
Ambrose was born into a Roman Christian family between about 337 and 340 and was raised in Trier. His father was Aurelius Ambrosius, the praetorian prefect of Gaul; his mother was a woman of intellect and piety. Ambrose's siblings, Satyrus (who is the subject of Ambrose's De excessu fratris Satyri) and Marcellina, are also venerated as saints. There is a legend that as an infant, a swarm of bees settled on his face while he lay in his cradle, leaving behind a drop of honey. His father considered this a sign of his future eloquence and honeyed tongue. For this reason, bees and beehives often appear in the saint's symbology.
After the early death of his father, Ambrose followed his father's career. He was educated in Rome, studying literature, law, and rhetoric.Praetor Anicius Probus first gave him a place in the council and then in about 372 made him consular prefect or "Governor" of Liguria and Emilia, with headquarters at Milan, which was then (beside Rome) the second capital in Italy.

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Angelo Sodano
Angelo Sodano (born 23 November 1927) is an Italian Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He is the current Dean of the College of Cardinals and former Cardinal Secretary of State, having held that post from 1990 to 2006, under both popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI. On 27 April 2005, he was elected to succeed Benedict XVI as Dean of the College of Cardinals by his fellow Cardinal Bishops. Sodano was the first person since 1828 to serve simultaneously as Dean and Secretary of State.
On 22 June 2006, Benedict XVI accepted Sodano's resignation as Secretary of State, effective on 15 September 2006. He was succeeded by Tarcisio Bertone, then Archbishop of Genoa.
The second of six children, Angelo Sodano was born in Isola d'Asti, Piedmont, to Giovanni and Delfina Sodano. His father was a Christian Democrat deputy in the Italian Parliament for three terms from 1948 until 1963. After studying philosophy and theology at the seminary of Asti, Sodano was ordained a priest by Bishop Umberto Rossi on 23 September 1950, and then did pastoral work and taught dogmatic theology at the Asti seminary.

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Anthony of Padua
Anthony of Padua or Anthony of Lisbon, O.F.M., (born Fernando Martins de Bulhões; 15 August 1195 – 13 June 1231) was a Portuguese Catholic priest and friar of the Franciscan Order. Though he died in Padua, Italy, he was born to a wealthy family in Lisbon, Portugal, which is where he was raised. Noted by his contemporaries for his forceful preaching and expert knowledge of Scripture, he was declared a saint almost immediately after his death and proclaimed a Doctor of the Church in 16 January 1946.
Fernando Martins de Bulhões was born in Lisbon to Vicente Martins de Bulhões and Teresa Pais Taveira. His father was the brother of Pedro Martins de Bulhões, the ancestor of the Bulhão or Bulhões family. His was a very rich family of the nobility who wanted him to become educated, and they arranged for him to be instructed at the local cathedral school. Against the wishes of his family, however, he entered the community of Canons Regular at the Abbey of St. Vincent on the outskirts of Lisbon. The Canons were famous for their dedication to scholarly pursuits, and sent the youth to their major center of studies, the Abbey of the Holy Cross in Coimbra. There the young Fernando studied theology and Latin.

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Antipope Novatian
Novatian (circa 200–58) was a scholar, priest, theologian and antipope who held the title between 251 and 258. According to Greek authors, pope Damasus I and Prudentius gave his name as Novatus.
He was a noted theologian and writer, the first Roman theologian who used the Latin language, at a time when there was much debate about how to deal with Christians who had lapsed and wished to return, and the issue of penance. Consecrated as pope by three bishops in 251, he adopted a more rigorous position than the established Pope Cornelius. Novatian was shortly afterwards excommunicated: the schismatic church which he established persisted for several centuries (see Novatianism). Novatian fled during a period of persecutions, and may have been a martyr.
Few details are known as to his life. He was the first convert to Christianity to have studied Stoic philosophy and been educated in literary composition.
Pope Cornelius, in a letter to Fabius of Antioch, states that a catechumen called Novatian was possessed by Satan for a whole season. He was exorcised but became so ill after the rite that he expected to soon die, and so his baptism was brought forward. When he recovered, he was not given the rest of the sacraments and the bishop would not confirm him. He thus asked Cornelius "How, then, can I receive the Holy Spirit?".

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AOL
AOL Inc. (NYSE: AOL, previously known as America Online, written as "AOL" and stylized as "Aol." but commonly pronounced as an initialism) is an American global Internet services and media company. AOL is headquartered at 770 Broadway in New York. Founded in 1983 as Control Video Corporation, it has franchised its services to companies in several nations around the world or set up international versions of its services. AOL is headquartered in New York City, but has many offices throughout cities in North America, such as Atlanta, Baltimore, Beverly Hills, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Dulles, Mountain View, Orlando, San Francisco, and Toronto. London and Tokyo are its foreign offices. As of December 2011, it serves 3.3 million paid subscribers.^{[citation needed]}
AOL is best known for its online software suite, also called AOL, that allowed customers to access the world's largest "walled garden" online community and eventually reach out to the Internet as a whole. At its prime, AOL's membership was over 30 million members worldwide, most of whom accessed the AOL service through the AOL software suite. The company has claimed that it had 34 million subscribers at its peak, although an undisclosed portion were using free hours.

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Arcangelo Tadini
Saint Arcangelo Tadini (12 October 1846, Verolanuova - 20 May 1912) was a Catholic priest who was beatified on 24 October 2001 and canonized on 19 April 2009. Founded the Congregation of Worker Sisters of the Holy House of Nazareth.

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Augustine of Hippo
Augustine of Hippo (

/ɒˈɡʌstɨn/ or /ˈɔːɡəstɪn/;Latin: Aurelius Augustinus Hipponensis; November 13, 354 – August 28, 430), also known as Augustine, St. Augustine, St. Austin,St. Augoustinos, Blessed Augustine, or St. Augustine the Blessed, was Bishop of Hippo Regius (present-day Annaba, Algeria). He was a Latin philosopher and theologian from Roman Africa. His writings were very influential in the development of Western Christianity.
According to his contemporary, Jerome, Augustine "established anew the ancient Faith." In his early years he was heavily influenced by Manichaeism and afterward by the Neo-Platonism of Plotinus. After his conversion to Christianity and baptism in AD 387, Augustine developed his own approach to philosophy and theology, accommodating a variety of methods and different perspectives. He believed that the grace of Christ was indispensable to human freedom, and he framed the concepts of original sin and just war.
When the Western Roman Empire was starting to disintegrate, Augustine developed the concept of the Catholic Church as a spiritual City of God (in a book of the same name), distinct from the material Earthly City. His thoughts profoundly influenced the medieval worldview. Augustine's City of God was closely identified with the Church, the community that worshipped God.

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Avery Dulles
Avery Robert Dulles S.J. (August 24, 1918 – December 12, 2008) was a Jesuit priest, theologian, cardinal of the Catholic Church and served as the Laurence J. McGinley Professor of Religion and Society at Fordham University from 1988 to 2008. He was an internationally known author and lecturer.
Dulles was born in Auburn, New York, the son of future U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles (for whom Washington Dulles International Airport is named) and Janet Pomeroy Avery Dulles. His uncle was Director of Central Intelligence Allen Welsh Dulles. Both his great-grandfather John W. Foster and great-uncle Robert Lansing also served as U.S. Secretary of State.
He received his primary school education in New York City at the St. Bernard's School and attended secondary schools in Switzerland and The Choate School (now Choate Rosemary Hall) in Wallingford, Connecticut.
Dulles was raised a Presbyterian but had become an agnostic by the time he began college at Harvard in 1936. His religious doubts were diminished during a personally profound moment when he stepped out into a rainy day and saw a tree beginning to flower along the Charles River; after that moment he never again "doubted the existence of an all-good and omnipotent God." He noted how his theism turned toward conversion to Catholicism: "The more I examined, the more I was impressed with the consistency and sublimity of Catholic doctrine." He converted to Catholicism in the fall of 1940.

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Basil Moreau
The Blessed Father Basil Anthony Marie Patrice Moreau, CSC (February 11, 1799–January 20, 1873) was the French priest who founded the Congregation of Holy Cross from which three additional congregations were founded, namely the Marianites of Holy Cross, the Sisters of the Holy Cross, and the Sisters of Holy Cross. Father Moreau was beatified on September 15, 2007 in Le Mans, France.
Born on February 11, 1799, in Laigné-en-Belin, a small village near Le Mans, France, Fr. Moreau grew up in the midst of the turmoil of the French Revolution. As his parents were devout Catholics involved in the underground Church, the aspect of the Revolution which most affected him was the suppression of the Church.
The ninth of 14 children, Basil was accustomed to a sparse life; yet, by the generosity of his pastor who tutored him, he was able to achieve a good primary education. Feeling himself called to the priesthood, Basil entered the diocesan seminary in 1814, when the hostilities of the Revolution toward the Church had subsided. The seminary was run by the Society of Saint-Sulpice and schooled him in the French school of spirituality which remained an inspiration in his preaching and writings all his life. At age 22 in 1821, Basil Moreau was ordained a priest of the Diocese of Le Mans at the Old Visitation Convent Chapel of the Sacred Heart, while the Cathedral of St. Julien in Le Mans was under restoration.

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Beatification
Beatification (from Latin beatus, blessed) is a recognition accorded by the Catholic Church of a dead person's entrance into Heaven and capacity to intercede on behalf of individuals who pray in his or her name (intercession of saints). Beatification is the third of the four steps in the canonization process. A person who is beatified is given the title "Blessed."
In earlier ages this honor was entirely local and passed from one diocese to another with the authorization of their bishops. This is clear from the fact that early Christian cemeteries contain paintings only of local martyrs. Some beatifications by bishops in the Middle Ages were almost scandalous by modern standards. For instance, Charlemagne was beatified by a court bishop soon after his death. He was never canonized, and his veneration has been mostly suppressed, though permission is given to celebrate Mass in his honor in the cities of Aachen and Osnabrück, but without using the title of "Blessed."^{[citation needed]}
Since the Catholic Church reform of 1983, one miracle must be proven to have taken place through the intercession of the person to be beatified, though the medical investigations of the Church are privately conducted and therefore subject to speculation about their methods.

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Bede
Bede (

/ˈbiːd/ BEED; Old English: Bǣda or Bēda; 672/673 – 26 May 735), also referred to as Saint Bede or the Venerable Bede (Latin: Bēda Venerābilis), was an English monk at the Northumbrian monastery of Saint Peter at Monkwearmouth and of its companion monastery, Saint Paul's, in modern Jarrow (see Monkwearmouth-Jarrow), both in the Kingdom of Northumbria. Bede's monastery had access to a superb library which included works by Eusebius and Orosius among many others.
He is well known as an author and scholar, and his most famous work, Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum (The Ecclesiastical History of the English People) gained him the title "The Father of English History". In 1899, Bede was made a Doctor of the Church by Leo XIII, a position of theological significance; he is the only native of Great Britain to achieve this designation (Anselm of Canterbury, also a Doctor of the Church, was originally from Italy). Bede was moreover a skilled linguist and translator, and his work with the Latin and Greek writings of the early Church Fathers contributed significantly to English Christianity, making the writings much more accessible to his fellow Anglo-Saxons.

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Benedict of Nursia
Saint Benedict of Nursia (Italian: San Benedetto da Norcia) (c.480–543) is a Christian saint, honored by the Roman Catholic Church as the patron saint of Europe and students.
Benedict founded twelve communities for monks at Subiaco, about 40 miles (64 km) to the east of Rome, before moving to Monte Cassino in the mountains of southern Italy. There is no evidence that he intended to found a religious order^{[citation needed]}. The Order of St Benedict is of later origin and, moreover, not an "order" as commonly understood but merely a confederation of autonomous congregations.
Benedict's main achievement is his "Rule", containing precepts for his monks. It is heavily influenced by the writings of John Cassian, and shows strong affinity with the Rule of the Master. But it also has a unique spirit of balance, moderation and reasonableness (ἐπιείκεια, epieikeia), and this persuaded most religious communities founded throughout the Middle Ages to adopt it. As a result, the Rule of Benedict became one of the most influential religious rules in Western Christendom. For this reason, Benedict is often called the founder of western Christian monasticism.

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Bernard Lonergan
Fr. Bernard J.F. Lonergan, CC, SJ (17 December 1904 – 26 November 1984) was a Canadian Jesuit priest, philosopher, and theologian widely regarded as one of the most important Catholic thinkers of the twentieth century.
Lonergan's works include Insight: A Study of Human Understanding (1957) and Method in Theology (1972), as well as two studies of Thomas Aquinas, several theological textbooks, and numerous essays, including two posthumously published essays on macroeconomics. A projected 25-volume Collected Works is underway with the University of Toronto Press. He held appointments at the Pontifical Gregorian University, Regis College, Toronto, as Distinguished Visiting Professor at Boston College, and as Stillman Professor of Divinity at Harvard University.
Lonergan set out to do for Catholic thought in our time what he judged Thomas Aquinas had done for his own time. Aquinas had successfully applied Aristotelian thought to the service of a Christian understanding of the universe. Lonergan's program was to come to terms with modern scientific, historical, and hermeneutical thinking in a comparable way. He pursued this program in his two most fundamental works, Insight and Method in Theology.

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Bernard of Clairvaux
Bernard of Clairvaux, O.Cist (1090 – August 20, 1153) was a French abbot and the primary builder of the reforming Cistercian order.
After the death of his mother, Bernard sought admission into the Cistercian order. Three years later, he was sent to found a new abbey at an isolated clearing in a glen known as the Val d'Absinthe, about 15 km southeast of Bar-sur-Aube. According to tradition, Bernard founded the monastery on 25 June 1115, naming it Claire Vallée, which evolved into Clairvaux. There Bernard would preach an immediate faith, in which the intercessor was the Virgin Mary.^{[citation needed]} In the year 1128, Bernard assisted at the Council of Troyes, at which he traced the outlines of the Rule of the Knights Templar, who soon became the ideal of Christian nobility.

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Bernardin Gantin
Bernardin Gantin (8 May 1922 – 13 May 2008) was a Beninese cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church.
Born in Toffo, Benin, his name means "tree of iron" (gan, iron and tin, tree ), which explains his coat of arms. He entered the minor seminary at age 14 in Benin, and was ordained to the priesthood in 1951 under Archbishop Louis Parisot. In 1953 he was sent to Rome to study theology and Canon law.
He was consecrated bishop of Tipasa of Mauritania and Auxiliary of Cotonou in 1957 by Cardinal Eugène-Gabriel-Gervais-Laurent Tisserant, to whose then post of Dean of the Sacred College of Cardinals he would one day succeed.
In 1960, Pope John XXIII appointed him Archbishop of Cotonou. After he attended the Second Vatican Council, Pope Paul VI appointed him to the Roman Curia and made him a Cardinal-Deacon of Sacro Cuore di Cristo Re in Pope Paul's final consistory in 1977. He was named President of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum by Pope John Paul I, the only administrative appointment of that month-long papacy. During the Conclave following John Paul I's death, Cardinal Gantin was thought to be one of the papabili, those cardinals who are considered favorites to be elected pope.

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Bernardo Tolomei
Saint Bernardo Tolomei (1272–1348) was an Italian theologian, the founder of the Roman Catholic Congregation of the Blessed Virgin of Monte Oliveto. In the Roman Martyrology he is commemorated on August 20, but in the Benedictine calendar his optional memorial is celebrated on the previous day. Bernardo Tolomei was canonized by Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday, April 26, 2009.
Giovanni Tolomei was born at Siena in Tuscany. He took the name of "Bernard" (in its Italian form Bernardo) out of admiration for the saintly Abbot of Clairvaux. He was educated by his uncle, Christopher Tolomeo, a Dominican, and desired to enter the religious life, but his father's opposition prevented him from doing so, and he continued his studies in secular surroundings. After a course in philosophy and mathematics he devoted himself to the study of civil and canon law, and of theology. For a time Bernardo served in the armies of Rudolph I of Germany.
The fame of his virtues soon attracted many visitors, and Bernardo was accused of heresy. He went to Avignon and cleared himself of this charge before Pope John XXII without difficulty. Upon his return he founded the congregation of the Blessed Virgin of Monte Oliveto (the Olivetans), giving it the Rule of St. Benedict. The purpose of the new religious institute was a special devotion to the Blessed Virgin. Guido, Bishop of Arezzo, within whose diocese the congregation was formed, confirmed its constitution in (1319), and many favours were granted by Popes John XXII, Clement VI (1344), and Gregory XI. Since the Benedictine rule did not prescribe the colour of monastic dress, the Olivetans wore white habits.

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Blaise Pascal
Blaise Pascal (French pronunciation: [blɛz paskal]; 19 June 1623 – 19 August 1662), was a French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer and Catholic philosopher. He was a child prodigy who was educated by his father, a tax collector in Rouen. Pascal's earliest work was in the natural and applied sciences where he made important contributions to the study of fluids, and clarified the concepts of pressure and vacuum by generalizing the work of Evangelista Torricelli. Pascal also wrote in defense of the scientific method.
In 1642, while still a teenager, he started some pioneering work on calculating machines, and after three years of effort and 50 prototypes he invented the mechanical calculator. He built twenty of these machines (called the Pascaline) in the following ten years. Pascal was an important mathematician, helping create two major new areas of research: he wrote a significant treatise on the subject of projective geometry at the age of sixteen, and later corresponded with Pierre de Fermat on probability theory, strongly influencing the development of modern economics and social science. Following Galileo and Torricelli, in 1646 he refuted Aristotle's followers who insisted that nature abhors a vacuum. Pascal's results caused many disputes before being accepted.

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Blessed Virgin Mary
Roman Catholic veneration of the Blessed Virgin Mary is based on dogma as well as Holy Scripture: In the fullness of time, God sent his son, born of a woman. The mystery of the incarnation of the Son of God through Mary thus signifies her honour as Mother of God. From the Council of Ephesus in 431, which dogmatized this belief, to Vatican II and Pope John Paul II's Redemptoris Mater encyclical the Virgin Mary has come to be seen, not only as the Mother of God but also as the Mother of the Church.
As the mother of Jesus Christ, Mary has a central role in the life of the Roman Catholic Church. The church's veneration of her as the Blessed Virgin Mary has grown over time both in importance and manifestation, not only in prayer but in art, poetry and music. Popes have encouraged this veneration but from time to time have also taken steps to reform it. Overall, there are significantly more titles, feasts and venerative Marian practices among Roman Catholics than any other Christian traditions.Pope Benedict XVI maintains that the Virgin Mary possesses divine motherhood which she continues to bestow as intercessory "graces associated with God's blessing."

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Bonaventure
Saint Bonaventure, O.F.M., (Italian: San Bonaventura; 1221 – 15 July 1274), born John of Fidanza (Italian: Giovanni di Fidanza), was an Italian medieval scholastic theologian and philosopher. The seventh Minister General of the Order of Friars Minor, he was also a Cardinal Bishop of Albano. He was canonized on 14 April 1482 by Pope Sixtus IV and declared a Doctor of the Church in the year 1588 by Pope Sixtus V. He is known as the "Seraphic Doctor" (Latin: Doctor Seraphicus). Many writings believed in the Middle Ages to be his are now collected under the name Pseudo-Bonaventura.
He was born at Bagnoregio in Latium, not far from Viterbo. Almost nothing is known of his childhood, other than the names of his parents, Giovanni di Fidanza and Maria Ritella.
He entered the Franciscan Order in 1243 and studied at the University of Paris, possibly under Alexander of Hales, and certainly under Alexander's successor, John of Rochelle. In 1253 he held the Franciscan chair at Paris and was proceeded as Master of Theology. Unfortunately for Bonaventure, a dispute between seculars and mendicants delayed his reception as Master until 1257, where his degree was taken in company with Thomas Aquinas. Three years earlier his fame had earned him the position of lecturer on the The Four Books of Sentences—a book of theology written by Peter Lombard in the twelfth century—and in 1255 he received the degree of master, the medieval equivalent of doctor.

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Bridget of Sweden
Bridget of Sweden (1303 – 23 July 1373; also Birgitta of Vadstena, Saint Birgitta (Swedish: den heliga Birgitta or Birgitta Birgersdotter), was a mystic and saint, and founder of the Bridgettines nuns and monks after the death of her husband of twenty years. She was also the mother of Catherine of Vadstena.
She is one of the six patron saints of Europe, together with Benedict of Nursia, Saints Cyril and Methodius, Catherine of Siena and Edith Stein.
The most celebrated saint of Sweden was the daughter of the knight, Birger Persson of the family of Finsta, governor and lawspeaker of Uppland, and one of the richest landowners of the country, and his wife, a member of the so-called Lawspeaker branch of the Folkunga family. Through her mother, Ingeborg, Birgitta was related to the Swedish kings of her era.
In 1316, when she was 14 she married Ulf Gudmarsson of the family of Ulvåsa, Lord of Närke, to whom she bore eight children, four daughters and four sons. All of them survived infancy, which was very rare at that time. One of them was afterwards honored as St. Catherine of Sweden. Birgitta’s saintly and charitable life soon made her known far and wide; she gained, too, great religious influence over her husband, with whom (1341–1343) she went on pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela.

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Bruno Forte
Bruno Forte (born 1 August 1949) is an Italian theologian and ecclesiastic, currently Archbishop of Chieti-Vasto.
Archbishop Forte was born in Naples. He was ordained a priest on 18 April 1973. He was called "the most famous Italian theologian in Italy" and is seen as more progressive than Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. He was appointed as Archbishop of Chieti-Vasto by Pope John Paul II on 26 June 2004. He was ordained bishop by Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) on 8 September 2004; he is one of only four bishops consecrated by the current Pope.
After the election of Pope Benedict XVI Forte was seen as a possible successor to become Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, before William Levada was chosen.
After the tomb of Jesus was supposedly uncovered by James Cameron, Archbishop Forte said that "there are many such tombs in the territory of the Holy Land. Hence, there is nothing new in this revelation." He went on to say that "In fact, the thesis launched is that if Jesus is buried there with his family, then the resurrection would be no more than an invention of his disciples." He then concluded by defending the historicity of the Jesus' Resurrection saying, "However, leaving to one side the inconsistency of the archaeological proof, which has been utterly contested by Israeli archaeologists, the factual event of Jesus' resurrection is rigorously documented in the New Testament by the five accounts of the apparitions: four of the Gospels and St. Paul's." [1]

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Camillo Ruini
Camillo Ruini (Italian pronunciation: [kaˈmillo ruˈini]; born 19 February 1931) is an Italian cardinal of the Catholic Church. He served as Vicar General of the Diocese of Rome from 1991 to 2008 [1]. He was elevated to the cardinalate in 1991.
He was very active in the mass media and was one of the cardinals who most often appeared on Italian television, newspapers and magazines. On 14 February 2006, he was confirmed as president of the Italian Episcopal Conference by Pope Benedict XVI a post at which he served until March 2007.
Ruini was born in Sassuolo, Emilia-Romagna. Having studied at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, he obtained a licentiate in philosophy and a licentiate in sacred theology.
He was ordained to the priesthood on 8 December 1954, by Archbishop Luigi Traglia. In 1957 he returned to Reggio Emilia and taught philosophy at the diocesan seminary until 1968. From 1958 to 1966 he served as chaplain to university graduates and from 1966 to 1970 he served as a delegate for Azione Cattolica.

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Caterina Volpicelli
Caterina Volpicelli (1839–1894) was an Italian nun, foundress of the Congregation “Ancelle del Sacro Cuore di Gesù” (Maids of the Sacred Heart of Jesus). She was proclaimed Blessed by John Paul II in 2001 and Saint on April 26, 2009 by Pope Benedict XVI.
Caterina Volpicelli was born in Naples January 21, 1839 to Peter and Teresa de Micheroux. Her family belonged to the Neapolitan high bourgeoisie and she had a deep Christian faith. After an adolescence spent loving theater, music, literature,and after a strong existential crisis, she began to gain awareness of being called to religious life. At first she thought that her vocation was for contemplative life, which she experienced, but she had had to leave due to her frail health. Especially Father Louis from Casoria helped her understand that she was called to live the evangelical counsels "remaining in the midst of society." She devoted herself to the diffusion of the Apostleship of Prayer with some assistants. Thanks to Father Ramière, Volpicelli encountered a French foundation that had her same objectives.

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Catherine of Siena
Saint Catherine of Siena, T.O.S.D, (25 March 1347 in Siena – 29 April 1380 in Rome) was a tertiary of the Dominican Order, and a Scholastic philosopher and theologian. She also worked to bring the papacy of Gregory XI back to Rome from its displacement in France, and to establish peace among the Italian city-states. She was proclaimed a Doctor of the Church in 1970. She is one of the two patron saints of Italy, together with St. Francis of Assisi.
Caterina Benincasa was born in Siena, Italy, to Giacomo di Benincasa, a cloth dyer who ran his enterprise with the help of his sons, and Lapa Piagenti, possibly the daughter of a local poet. The house where Catherine grew up is still in existence. Born in 1347, she arrived when the black death struck the area; Siena was badly ravaged. Lapa was about forty years old when she prematurely gave birth to twin daughters, Catherine and Giovanna. Lapa had already had 22 children, but half of them had died. Giovanna was handed over to a wet-nurse, and presently died, whereas Catherine was nursed by her mother, and developed into a healthy child. She was two years old when Lapa had her 25th child, another daughter named Giovanna. Catherine had her first vision of Christ when she was age five or six, saying that Jesus smiled at her, blessed her, and left her in ecstasy. At age seven she vowed chastity.

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Charlemagne
Charlemagne (

/ˈʃɑrlɨmeɪn/ or /ˈʃɑrləmeɪn/; French pronunciation: [ʃaʁ.lə.maɲ]; c. 742 – 28 January 814), also known as Charles the Great (Latin: Carolus Magnus or Karolus Magnus), was King of the Franks from 768 and Emperor of the Romans (Imperator Romanorum) from 800 to his death in 814. He expanded the Frankish kingdom into an empire that incorporated much of Western and Central Europe. During his reign, he conquered Italy and was crowned Imperator Augustus by Pope Leo III on 25 December 800 in Rome.
His rule is also associated with the Carolingian Renaissance, a revival of art, religion, and culture through the medium of the Catholic Church. Through his foreign conquests and internal reforms, Charlemagne helped define both Western Europe and the European Middle Ages. He is numbered as Charles I in the regnal lists of Germany, the Holy Roman Empire, and France.
The son of King Pepin the Short and Bertrada of Laon, a Frankish queen, he succeeded his father in 768 and was initially co-ruler with his brother Carloman I. It has often been suggested that the relationship between Charlemagne and Carloman was not good, but it has also been argued that tensions were exaggerated by Carolingian chroniclers.

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Christoph Schönborn
Christoph Maria Michael Hugo Damian Peter Adalbert (Graf von) Schönborn, OP (born 22 January 1945) is an Austrian Cardinal of the Catholic Church and theologian. He currently serves as the Archbishop of Vienna and President of the Austrian Bishops Conference. He was elevated to the cardinalate in 1998. He has also been the chaplain of the Order of the Golden Fleece since 1961.
Christoph Maria Michael Hugo Damian Peter Adalbert Graf von Schönborn was born at Skalken Castle, west of Leitmeritz, Bohemia (now Czech Republic), the second son of the Count Maria Hugo Damian Adalbert Josef Hubertus von Schönborn and Baroness Eleonore Ottilie Hilda Maria von Doblhoff. They divorced in 1959. He has two brothers and one sister. He belongs to the Central European noble family of Schönborn, several members of which held high offices in the Catholic Church and the Holy Roman Empire, including several prince-bishops, cardinals and ecclesiastical prince-electors.
In September 1945, his family was forced to flee from Bohemia. Schönborn took his Matura examination in 1963, and entered the Order of Preachers. He studied theology in Paris; and philosophy and psychology in Bornheim-Walberberg and Vienna. Schönborn also attended the Catholic Institute of Paris for further theological work, before studying Slavic and Byzantine Christianity at the Sorbonne.

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Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus (before 31 October 1451 – 20 May 1506) was an explorer, colonizer, and navigator, born in the Republic of Genoa, in what is today northwestern Italy. Under the auspices of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, he completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean that led to general European awareness of the American continents. Those voyages, and his efforts to establish permanent settlements in the island of Hispaniola, initiated the process of Spanish colonization, which foreshadowed the general European colonization of what became known as the "New World".
In the context of emerging western imperialism and economic competition between European kingdoms seeking wealth through the establishment of trade routes and colonies, Columbus's speculative proposal to reach the East Indies by sailing westward received the support of the Spanish crown, which saw in it a promise, however remote, of gaining the upper hand over rival powers in the contest for the lucrative spice trade with Asia. During his first voyage in 1492, instead of reaching Japan as he had intended, Columbus landed in the Bahamas archipelago, at a locale he named San Salvador. Over the course of three more voyages, Columbus visited the Greater and Lesser Antilles, as well as the Caribbean coast of Venezuela and Central America, claiming them for the Spanish Empire.

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Constantine I
Constantine the Great (Latin: Flavius Valerius Aurelius Constantinus Augustus; c. 27 February 272 – 22 May 337), also known as Constantine I or Saint Constantine, was Roman Emperor from 306 to 337. Well known for being the first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity, Constantine and co-Emperor Licinius issued the Edict of Milan in 313, which proclaimed religious tolerance of all religions throughout the empire.
The foremost general of his time, Constantine defeated the emperors Maxentius and Licinius during civil wars. He also fought successfully against the Franks, Alamanni, Visigoths, and Sarmatians during his reign—even resettling parts of Dacia which had been abandoned during the previous century. Constantine built a new imperial residence in place of Byzantium, naming it New Rome. However, in Constantine's honour, people called it Constantinople, which would later be the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire for over one thousand years. Because of this, he is thought of as the founder of the Eastern Roman Empire.

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Cyprian
Cyprian (Latin: Thascius Caecilius Cyprianus) (died September 14, 258) was bishop of Carthage and an important Early Christian writer, many of whose Latin works are extant. He was born around the beginning of the 3rd century in North Africa, perhaps at Carthage, where he received a classical education. After converting to Christianity, he became a bishop in 249 and eventually died a martyr at Carthage.
Cyprian was born sometime in the early third century. He was of a wealthy and distinguished pagan background; in fact, the site of his eventual martyrdom was his own villa. Before becoming a Christian, he was an orator, "pleader in the courts", and a teacher of rhetoric. The date of his conversion is unknown, but after his baptism about 245–248 he gave away a portion of his wealth to the poor of Carthage, as befitted a man of his status.
His original name was Thascius; he took the additional name Caecilius in memory of the presbyter to whom he owed his conversion. In the early days of his conversion he wrote an Epistola ad Donatum de gratia Dei and the Testimoniorum Libri III that adhere closely to the models of Tertullian, who influenced his style and thinking.

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Cyril of Alexandria
Cyril of Alexandria (c. 376 – 444) was the Patriarch of Alexandria from 412 to 444. He came to power when the city was at its height of influence and power within the Roman Empire. Cyril wrote extensively and was a leading protagonist in the Christological controversies of the later 4th and 5th centuries. He was a central figure in the First Council of Ephesus in 431, which led to the deposition of Nestorius as Patriarch of Constantinople.
Cyril is counted among the Church Fathers and the Doctors of the Church, and his reputation within the Christian world has resulted in his titles Pillar of Faith and Seal of all the Fathers, but Theodosius II, the Roman Emperor, condemned him for behaving like a "proud pharaoh", and the Nestorian bishops at the Council of Ephesus declared him a heretic, labelling him as a "monster, born and educated for the destruction of the church."
Cyril is well-known due to his dispute with Nestorius and his supporter Patriarch John of Antioch, whom Cyril excluded from the Council of Ephesus for arriving late. He is also known for his involvement in the expulsion of Novatians and Jews from Alexandria and the murder of the Hellenistic philosopher Hypatia by Coptic monks. Historians disagree over the extent of his responsibility for these events.

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Cyril of Jerusalem
Cyril of Jerusalem (Greek Κύριλλος Α΄ Ἱεροσολύμων) was a distinguished theologian of the early Church (ca. 313 – 386). He is venerated as a saint by the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, and the Anglican Communion. In 1883, Cyril was declared a Doctor of the Church by Pope Leo XIII. He is highly respected in the Palestinian Christian Community.
It is believed^[who?] that Cyril came from a family of Christians and was immediately drawn to the Church. Most scholars^[who?] believe that Cyril was born and brought up in Caesarea of Palestine but some^[who?] say he may have been born in Jerusalem because of his early knowledge of the city's layout, but this could have been attributed to research or information he learned after moving there to become bishop. Cyril also helped a member of his family in pursuit of religious career in 366, appointing his nephew Galesius to the bishopric of Caesarea.

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Dante Alighieri
Durante degli Alighieri, mononymously referred to as Dante (UK

/ˈdænti/, US /ˈdɑːnteɪ/; Italian: [ˈdante]; c1265–1321), was an Italian poet, prose writer, literary theorist, moral philosopher, and political thinker. He is best known for the monumental epic poem Commedia, later named La divina commedia (Divine Comedy), considered the greatest literary work composed in the Italian language and a masterpiece of world literature.
In Italy he is known as il Sommo Poeta ("the Supreme Poet") or just il Poeta. Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio are also known as "the three fountains" or "the three crowns". Dante is also called the "Father of the Italian language".
Dante was born in Florence, Italy. The exact date of Dante's birth is unknown, although it is generally believed to be around 1265. This can be deduced from autobiographic allusions in La Divina Commedia, "the Inferno" (Halfway through the journey we are living, implying that Dante was around 35 years old, as the average lifespan according to the Bible (Psalms 89:10, Vulgate) is 70 years; and as the imaginary travel took place in 1300, Dante must have been born around 1265). Some verses of the Paradiso section of the Divine Comedy also provide a possible clue that he was born under the sign of Gemini: "As I revolved with the eternal twins, I saw revealed from hills to river outlets, the threshing-floor that makes us so ferocious" (XXII 151-154). In 1265 the Sun was in Gemini approximately during the period of May 11 to June 11.

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Duns Scotus
John (Johannes, Ioannes) Duns Scotus, O.F.M. (c. 1256 – November 18, 1308) was one of the more important theologians and philosophers of the High Middle Ages. He was given the medieval accolade Doctor Subtilis (Subtle Doctor) for his penetrating and subtle manner of thought.
Scotus has had considerable influence on Roman Catholic thought. The doctrines for which he is best known are the "univocity of being," that existence is the most abstract concept we have, applicable to everything that exists; the formal distinction, a way of distinguishing between different aspects of the same thing; and the idea of haecceity, the property supposed to be in each individual thing that makes it an individual. Scotus also developed a complex argument for the existence of God, and argued for the Immaculate conception of Mary.
Little is known of Scotus' life. He was probably born in 1265, probably at Duns, in Berwickshire, Scotland. In 1291 he was ordained as a priest in Northampton, England. A note in Codex 66 of Merton College, Oxford, records that Scotus "flourished at Cambridge, Oxford and Paris. He began lecturing on Peter Lombard's Sentences at the prestigious University of Paris in the Autumn of 1302. Later in that academic year, however, he was expelled from the University of Paris for siding with then Pope Boniface VIII in his feud with Philip the Fair of France, over the taxation of church property.

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Ephrem the Syrian
Ephrem the Syrian (Aramaic / Syriac: ܐܦܪܝܡ ܣܘܪܝܝܐ, Mor/Mar Afrêm Sûryāyâ; Greek: Ἐφραίμ ὁ Σῦρος; Latin: Ephraem Syrus; ca. 306 – 373) was a Syriac and a prolific Syriac-language hymnographer and theologian of the 4th century. His works are hailed by Christians throughout the world and many denominations venerate him as a saint. He has been declared a Doctor of the Church in Roman Catholicism. He is especially beloved in the Syriac Orthodox Church.
Ephrem wrote a wide variety of hymns, poems, and sermons in verse, as well as prose biblical exegesis. These were works of practical theology for the edification of the church in troubled times. So popular were his works, that, for centuries after his death, Christian authors wrote hundreds of pseudepigraphal works in his name. Ephrem's works witness to an early form of Christianity in which western ideas take little part. He has been called the most significant of all of the fathers of the Syriac-speaking church tradition.
Ephrem was born around the year 306 in the city of Nisibis (the modern Turkish town of Nusaybin, on the border with Syria, which had come into Roman hands only in 298). Internal evidence from Ephrem's hymnody suggests that both his parents were part of the growing Christian community in the city, although later hagiographers wrote that his father was a pagan priest. Numerous languages were spoken in the Nisibis of Ephrem's day, mostly dialects of Aramaic. The Christian community used the Syriac dialect. The culture included pagan religions, Judaism and early Christian sects.

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Eriugena
Johannes Scotus Eriugena (c. 815 – c. 877) was an Irish theologian, Neoplatonist philosopher, and poet. He is known for having translated and made commentaries upon the work of Pseudo-Dionysius.
The spelling "Eriugena" is perhaps the most suitable surname form as he himself uses it in one manuscript. It means 'Ireland (Ériu)-born'. 'Scottus' in the Middle Ages was the Latin term for "Irish or Gaelic", so his name translates as "John, the Irish-born Gael." The spelling 'Scottus' has the authority of the early manuscripts until perhaps the 11th century. Occasionally he is also named 'Scottigena' ("Scot-born") in the manuscripts.
He is not to be confused with the later philosopher John Duns Scotus.
Regarded as Europe’s greatest philosopher of the early Middle Ages, Johannes Scottus Eriugena, was an Irishman. Eriugena was highly proficient in Greek, which, though rare at that time in West Europe, was to be found used in the learning tradition of Early and Medieval Ireland, as evidenced by the use of Greek script in medieval Irish manuscripts. Thus, with an Irish education, he was well equipped for Western society, and his linguistic competences allowed for intellectual exchanges. He moved to France (about 845) and took over the Palatine Academy at the invitation of Carolingian King Charles the Bald. He succeeded Alcuin of York (735 - 804) as head of the Palace School. The reputation of this school, part of the Carolingian Renaissance, seems to have increased greatly under Eriugena's leadership, and the philosopher himself was treated with indulgence by the king. Whereas Alcuin was a schoolmaster rather than a philosopher, Eriugena was a noted Greek scholar. He was one of the most original thinkers of the entire Middle Ages.

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Father Damien
Father Damien or Saint Damien of Molokai, SS.CC. (Dutch: Pater Damiaan or Heilige Damiaan van Molokai; January 3, 1840 – April 15, 1889), born Jozef De Veuster, was a Roman Catholic priest from Belgium and member of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, a missionary religious order. He won recognition for his ministry to people with leprosy (also known as Hansen's disease), who had been placed under a government-sanctioned medical quarantine on the island of Molokaʻi in the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi.
After sixteen years caring for the physical, spiritual, and emotional needs of those in the leper colony, he eventually contracted and died of the disease, and is widely considered a "martyr of charity". He was the tenth person recognized as a saint by the Catholic Church to have lived, worked, and/or died in what is now the United States.
In both the Latin Rite and the Eastern Rites of the Catholic Church, Damien is venerated as a saint, one who is holy and worthy of public veneration and invocation. In the Anglican communion, as well as other denominations of Christianity, Damien is considered the spiritual patron for leprosy and outcasts. As the patron saint of the Diocese of Honolulu and of Hawaiʻi, Father Damien Day is celebrated statewide on April 15. Upon his beatification by Pope John Paul II in Rome on June 4, 1995, Blessed Damien was granted a memorial feast day, which is celebrated on May 10. Father Damien was canonized by Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday October 11, 2009. The Catholic Encyclopedia calls him "the Apostle of the Lepers", and elsewhere he is known as the "leper priest".

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Felice da Nicosia
Saint Felix of Nicosia, O.F.M. Cap., (Italian: Felice di Nicosia) (November 5, 1715 – May 31, 1787), was a Capuchin friar, and is honored as a saint in the Roman Catholic Church.
He was born Filippo Giacomo Amoroso in Nicosia, Sicily on 5 November 1715. As a young boy Filippo helped in the workshop of father, a shoemaker, which happened to have a nearby Capuchin friary. Thus from an early age, he was getting to know the friars and to admire their way of life.
At the age of 20 he asked the Guardian of the friary to speak for him to the Minister Provincial in Messina so that he could be admitted to the Order as a lay brother. Being illiterate, he could not be admitted as a cleric. After rejecting his application several times, seeing his continued perseverance in his request, however, after eight years they admitted him to the Order and sent him to the novitiate in Mistretta.
On October 19, 1743 he entered the novitiate, being given the name of Brother Felix (after the first Capuchin saint), and professed his vows a year later.

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Filippo Smaldone
Saint Filippo Smaldone (July 27, 1848 – June 4, 1923) is a saint in the Roman Catholic Church. He founded the Salesian Sisters of the Sacred Hearts and is known for his work with the deaf.
Born in Naples, he was ordained a priest in 1871 and during his time in the seminary he began efforts to help the deaf of his native city. He also did work with the sick and nearly died of a plague. He credited his survival to Our Lady of Pompeii. In 1885 he founded an institution for the deaf at Lecce. He went on to work with the blind as well and also orphans before dying at 75 from diabetes related complications.
He was beatified in 1996 by Pope John Paul II and canonized on October 15, 2006, by Pope Benedict XVI.

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Francis de Sales
Francis de Sales, T.O.M., A.O.F.M. Cap., (French: François de Sales) (August 21, 1567 – December 28, 1622) was a Bishop of Geneva and is honored as a saint in the Roman Catholic Church. He became noted for his deep faith and his gentle approach to the religious divisions in his land resulting from the Protestant Reformation. He is known also for his writings on the topic of spiritual direction and spiritual formation, particularly the Introduction to the Devout Life and the Treatise on the Love of God.
Francis de Sales was born on the 21 August 1567 in the Château de Sales into the noble Sales family of the Duchy of Savoy, in what is today Thorens-Glières, Haute-Savoie, France. His father was François de Sales, Lord of Boisy, Sales and Novel, and his mother was Françoise de Sionnz, the only child of a prominent magistrate. Because he was the first of six children, his father wanted him to attend the best schools, and he enjoyed a privileged education in the nearby towns of La Roche-sur-Foron and Annecy and his spiritual formation and academics were entrusted to the Jesuits. In 1583, he went to the Collège de Clermont in Paris.

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Francis of Assisi
Saint Francis of Assisi (born Giovanni Francesco di Bernardone; 1181/1182 – October 3, 1226) was an Italian Catholic friar and preacher. He founded the men's Franciscan Order, the women’s Order of St. Clare, and the lay Third Order of Saint Francis. St. Francis is one of the most venerated religious figures in history.
Francis was the son of a wealthy cloth merchant in Assisi, and he lived the high-spirited life typical of a wealthy young man, even fighting as a soldier for Assisi. While going off to war in 1204, Francis had a vision that directed him back to Assisi, where he lost his taste for his worldly life. On a pilgrimage to Rome, he begged with the beggars at St. Peter's. The experience moved him to live in poverty. Francis returned home, began preaching on the streets, and soon amassed a following. His order was endorsed by Pope Innocent III in 1210. He then founded the Order of Poor Clares, which was an enclosed order for women, as well as the Third Order of Brothers and Sisters of Penance. In 1219, he went to Egypt in an attempt to convert the Sultan. By this point, the Franciscan Order had grown to such an extent that its primitive organizational structure was no longer sufficient. He returned to Italy to organize the order. Once his organization was endorsed by the Pope, he withdrew increasingly from external affairs. In 1223, Francis arranged for the first Christmas manger scene. In 1224, he received the stigmata, making him the first recorded person to bear the wounds of Christ's Passion. He died in 1226 while preaching Psalm 141.

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Francis Xavier
Francis Xavier, born Francisco de Jasso y Azpilicueta (7 April 1506 – 3 December 1552) was a pioneering Roman Catholic missionary born in the Kingdom of Navarre (now part of Spain) and co-founder of the Society of Jesus. He was a student of Ignatius of Loyola and one of the first seven Jesuits, dedicated at Montmartre in 1534. He led an extensive mission into Asia, mainly in the Portuguese Empire of the time. He was influential in the spreading and upkeep of Catholicism most notably in India, but also ventured into Japan, Borneo, the Moluccas, and other areas which had thus far not been visited by Christian missionaries. In these areas, being a pioneer and struggling to learn the local languages in the face of opposition, he had less success than he had enjoyed in India. It was a goal of Xavier to one day reach China. However, the government in China disliked most missionaries and many were killed.
Francis Xavier was born in the family castle of Xavier (Xabier, toponymic name whose origin comes from "etxaberri" meaning "new house" in the Basque language) in the Kingdom of Navarre on April 7, 1506 according to a family register. He was born to an aristocratic family of the Kingdom of Navarre, the youngest son of Juan de Jaso, privy counsellor to King John III of Navarre (Jean d'Albret), and Doña Maria de Azpilcueta y Aznárez, sole heiress of two noble Navarrese families. He was thus related to the great theologian and philosopher Martín de Azpilcueta. Notwithstanding different interpretations on his first language, no evidence suggests that Xavier's mother tongue was other than Basque, as stated by himself and confirmed by the sociolinguistic environment of the time.

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Francisco Suárez
Francisco Suárez (5 January 1548 – 25 September 1617) was a Spanish Jesuit priest, philosopher and theologian, one of the leading figures of the School of Salamanca movement, and generally regarded among the greatest scholastics after Thomas Aquinas.
Francisco Suárez was born in Granada, Andalusia (southern Spain).
At age sixteen Suárez entered the Society of Jesus in Salamanca, and he studied Philosophy and Theology there for five years from 1565 to 1570. It seems he was not a promising student at first; in fact, he nearly gave up his matters of study after failing the entrance exam twice. After passing the exam at third attempt, though, things changed, and he completed his course of Philosophy with distinction, going on to study Theology, to then teach Philosophy in Ávila and Segovia. He was ordained in 1572, and taught Theology in Ávila, Segovia (1575), Valladolid (1576), Rome (1580–85), Alcalá (1585–92), Salamanca (1592–97), and Coimbra (1597–1616).
He wrote on a wide variety of subjects, producing a vast amount of work (his complete works in Latin amount to twenty-six volumes). Suárez writings include treatises on law, the relationship between Church and State, metaphysics, and theology. He is considered the godfather of International Law and his Disputationes metaphysicae were widely read in Europe during the seventeenth century and is considered by some scholars to be his most profound work.

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Franco Coppola
Franco Coppola (31 March 1957-) is the current Apostolic Nuncio to Burundi since his appointment by Pope Benedict XVI on 16 July 2009.
Coppola was born in Maglie in 1957. He was ordained priest on 12 September 1981. He was incardinted in the diocese of Otranto. He attended the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy where he earned a doctorate in canon law. He entered the diplomatic service of the Holy See on 1 July 1993, he served at the pontifical representations in Lebanon, Colombia, Poland and at the Section for Relations with States of the Secretariat of State. He served with the rank of Counsellor at the Nunciature in Burundi.
He was appointed Apostolic Nuncio to Burundi and Titular Archbishop of Vinda. He was ordained to the episcopate by Pope Benedict XVI with Cardinals Tarcisio Bertone and William Levada as co-consecrators on 12 September 2009, the twenty-eighth anniversary of his ordination to the priesthood, along with Gabriele Giordano Caccia, Giorgio Corbellini and Pietro Parolin.
He speaks French, Spanish and English.

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Frei Galvão
Saint Anthony of Saint Ann Galvão (Portuguese: Santo Antônio de Sant'Anna Galvão), O.F.M., popularly known as Frei Galvão (Friar Galvão), (1739 — December 23, 1822) was a Brazilian friar of the Franciscan Order. One of the best-known religious figures in Brazil, renowned for his healing powers, Galvão was canonized by Pope Benedict XVI on May 11, 2007, becoming the first Brazilian-born saint. Overall, he is the second Brazilian saint, after Italian-born Saint Paulina, canonized in 2002.
Galvão was born in the freguesia of Santo Antonio of Guaratinguetá, in the captaincy of São Paulo. He was the fourth of ten children in a deeply religious family of high social and political status. His father, Antônio Galvão de França, was the Portuguese-born Captain-General of the village. Although he was active in the world of politics and commerce, Anthony the father also belonged to the Third Order of Saint Francis and was known for his generosity. His mother, Isabel Leite de Barros, was from a farming family, and was a great-granddaughter of the famous bandeirante explorer Fernão Dias Pais, known as the "Emerald Hunter". She gave birth to eleven children before her premature death in 1755, at age 38. Equally known for her generosity, Isabel was found to have given away all of her clothes to the poor at the time of her death.

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Friedrich Wetter
Friedrich Wetter (born 20 February 1928) is a German cardinal of the Catholic Church, the Archbishop Emeritus of Munich and Freising, Germany. His resignation as Metropolitan Archbishop of Munich and Freising was accepted on 2 February 2007 by Pope Benedict XVI, who was Cardinal Wetter's immediate predecessor in that post before going on to become Pope John Paul II's Prefect for the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith and then Pope.
Born in Landau (Rhineland-Palatinate), Wetter studied in Landau and then, from 1948 to 1956, in the Gregorian University in Rome, where he obtained a doctorate in theology. In 1953, he was ordained a priest in Rome.
After being chaplain for two years (1956-1958) in Speyer, teaching in the seminary in the same city for another two years (1958-1960), and being assistant parish priest for a year in Glanmünchweiler, he became Professor of Fundamental Theology in Eichstätt for five years (1962-1967) and Professor of Dogmatic Theology at the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz in 1967, a post he held for only one year before being appointed bishop.

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Gabriel Roschini
Gabriel M. Roschini, O.S.M. (1900 - †1977), was a Roman Catholic Italian priest and professor of Mariology, who published over 900 titles on Mariology. During the pontificate of Pope Pius XII, he worked closely with the Vatican on Marian publications.
In light of the encyclopedic accuracy of his work, Roschini is considered as one of the top two Mariologist in the 20th century. His first major work, a four volume Mariology, Il Capolavoro di Dio, is judged to be the most comprehensive Mariological presentation in the 20th century. Several theologians called him "one of the most profound Mariologists" and "irreplaceable".
Roschini was born in Castel Sant'Elia (Viterbo, Italy) in 1900. Upon entering the Order of the Servants of Mary he changed his name to Gabriel Maria (or Gabriele-Maria) from his given name of Alessandro Roschini. In 1924, he received his ordination as a priest. Additionally, Roschini was a doctor in philosophy and master in sacred theology.
He founded the journal Marianum in 1939 and directed it for thirty years. In 1950, during the reign of Pope Pius XII he founded the Marianum Theological Faculty, which is now a pontifical institute, and served as its rector. He was also instrumental in reviving the Marian Library, which was transferred to the International College of Saint Alexis Falconieri in 1946. Other roles included professor at the Lateran Pontifical University and the Marianum Pontifical Theology Faculty, as well as advisor for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and for the Sacred Congregation for the Causes of the Saints.

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Gaetano Catanoso
Saint Gaetano Catanoso (February 14, 1879 - April 4, 1963) was an Italian parish priest canonized by Pope Benedict XVI in 2005.
Born to a prosperous and generous family in Chorio, a small village outside of Reggio Calabria in the Aspromonte. Gaetano was one of eight children. He was ordained on September 20, 1902 and served as a parish priest his entire career. His first parish was in the remote hill village of Pentedattilo, where he served from 1904 until 1921. Extremely passionate about emulating the life of Christ in his service to the poor, Padre Catanoso would hike or ride on donkey to distant, surrounding mountain villages to bring the gospel and hope to isolated people in desperate circumstances. To help him in this cause, he founded an order of nuns—the Veronican Sisters of the Holy Face in 1934.
The nuns were mostly young women from poor families who were inspired by Padre Gaetano's humility, devotion and mission. Together, they established elementary schools and homes for the elderly in tiny places like San Lorenzo, Roccaforte and Chorio to educate children and care for the old and sick. The goal was to combat ignorance and the Mafia through education and the word of God. Padre Catanoso also founded the Poor Clerics to encourage priestly vocations. He was transferred to Santa Maria de la Candelaria in Reggio, Calabria in 1921.

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Gaetano Errico
St. Gaetano Errico was born on October 19, 1791 in Secondigliano, a small village of Naples, Italy. He was the second of nine children born to Pasquale and Marie (Marseglia) Errico. His father managed a small pasta factory and his mother worked at the loom weaving plush. He founded the religious order the Missionaries of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary.
Errico died on October 29, 1860 at the age of 69. He was canonized on October 12, 2008.

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Gaetano Sanseverino
Gaetano Sanseverino (1811 – November 16, 1865) was an Italian philosopher and theologian. He made a comparative study including the scholastics, particularly St. Thomas Aquinas, and of the connection between their doctrine and that of the church fathers.
Gaetano Sanseverino was born in 1811 in Naples.
Gaetano made his studies in the seminary in Nola, where his uncle was rector. After his ordination, he continued the study of philosophy, with the special view of comparing the various systems. Gaetano also became a canon of the cathedral of Naples, professor of logic and metaphysics in the seminary, substitute professor of ethics in the university, and eventually scrittore in the National Library.
Sanseverino had been educated in the Cartesian system, which at that time prevailed in the ecclesiastical schools of Italy, but his comparative study of the various systems supplied him with a deeper knowledge of the scholastics, particularly St. Thomas Aquinas, and of the intimate connection between their doctrine and that of the church fathers. From that time until the end of his life, his only concern was the restoration of Christian philosophy, in which by his writings, lectures and conversation, he was of supreme assistance to Pope Leo XIII. With this object, in 1840, he founded La Scienza e la Fede, a periodical which was continued until 1887 by his disciples and associates, Signoriello and d'Amelio.

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Geltrude Comensoli
Saint Geltrude Comensoli (January 18, 1847 - February 18, 1903)
Saint Gertrude was born in Italy.
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Georg Ratzinger

Georg Ratzinger, PA (born 15 January 1924 in Pleiskirchen) is a German Catholic priest and musician, known for his work as the conductor of the Regensburger Domspatzen, the cathedral choir of Regensburg, Germany. He is the elder brother of Pope Benedict XVI. His granduncle was German politician Georg Ratzinger.
Ratzinger was born in Bavaria to Joseph Ratzinger, a police officer, and Maria Ratzinger, née Peintner. He had a younger brother, Joseph, who later became Pope Benedict XVI, and a sister, Maria. Early in his life he showed musical talent, playing the church organ already at the age of 11. In 1935 he entered the minor seminary in Traunstein and had professional musical instruction there. In 1941 he encountered for the first time the choir of the Regensburger Domspatzen, which he would later direct, when they performed in Salzburg on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of Mozart's death.
In summer 1942 Georg Ratzinger was drafted to the Reichsarbeitsdienst, and the same autumn to the German Wehrmacht. In 1944 he was wounded in battle in Italy. At the end of World War II, he was a POW of the U.S. Army in the vicinity of Naples, but was released, and arrived at home in July 1945.

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George Preca
George Preca (in Maltese: Ġorġ Preca) (12 February 1880 - 26 July 1962) was a Maltese Roman Catholic priest who founded the Society of Christian Doctrine, a society of lay catechists. In Malta, he is affectionately known as "Dun Ġorġ" and is popularly referred to as the "Second Apostle of Malta", after Paul of Tarsus. He was canonized on 3 June 2007 by Pope Benedict XVI.
Preca first came to the attention of the Ordinary Congregation of the Cardinals and Bishops of the Congregation for Causes of Saints, which examined the scientifically unexplainable healing of Charles Zammit Endrich in 1964. Zammit Endrich had suffered from a detached retina of the left eye. The healing was declared as miraculous, and was attributed to the intercession of the Preca after Zammit Endrich prayed to him and placed one of the priest's belongings under his pillow. The healing took place outside of a hospital, overseen by the personal doctor of Zammit Endrich, Ċensu Tabone who was later to be appointed President of Malta.

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George W. Bush
George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician and businessman who was the 43rd President of the United States from 2001 to 2009 and the 46th Governor of Texas from 1995 to 2000. The eldest son of Barbara Bush and George H. W. Bush, he was born in New Haven, Connecticut. After graduating from Yale University in 1968 and Harvard Business School in 1975, Bush worked in oil businesses. He married Laura Welch in 1977 and ran unsuccessfully for the House of Representatives shortly thereafter. He later co-owned the Texas Rangers baseball team before defeating Ann Richards in the 1994 Texas gubernatorial election. In a close and controversial election, Bush was elected President in 2000 as the Republican candidate, defeating Vice President Al Gore in the Electoral College. Bush is the second American president to have been the son of a former president. He is also the brother of Jeb Bush, former Governor of Florida.
Terrorist attacks occurred eight months into Bush's first term as president on September 11, 2001. In response, Bush announced the War on Terror, an international military campaign which included the war in Afghanistan launched in 2001 and the war in Iraq launched in 2003. In addition to national security issues, Bush promoted policies on the economy, health care, education, and social security reform. He signed into law broad tax cuts, the PATRIOT Act, the No Child Left Behind Act, the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, and Medicare prescription drug benefits for seniors. His tenure saw national debates on immigration, Social Security, electronic surveillance, and enhanced interrogation techniques. His administration also withdrew the U.S. from a some international treaty processes, including the Kyoto Protocol on global warming.

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George Weigel

George Weigel (Baltimore, 1951 - ) is an American author, and political and social activist. He currently serves as a Distinguished Senior Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center. Weigel was the Founding President of the James Madison Foundation. He is the author of the best-selling biography of Pope John Paul II, Witness to Hope and Tranquillitas Ordinis: The Present Failure and Future Promise of American Catholic Thought on War and Peace.
Weigel grew up in Baltimore, Maryland, where he attended St. Mary's Seminary and University, and he later received his masters degree from St. Michael's College, University of Toronto. Weigel has received nine honorary doctorate degrees, as well as the papal cross Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice and the Gloria Artis Gold Medal from the Polish Ministry of Culture.
Weigel lived in Seattle, serving as Assistant Professor of Theology and Assistant Dean of Studies at the St. Thomas the Apostle Seminary School of Theology in Kenmore, and Scholar-in-Residence at the World Without War Council of Greater Seattle, before returning to Washington, D.C. as a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

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Gianfranco Ravasi
Gianfranco Ravasi (born 18 October 1942) is an Italian prelate, a cardinal of the Catholic Church. He currently serves in the Roman Curia as President of the Pontifical Council for Culture. On 20 November 2010 Ravasi was created cardinal by Pope Benedict XVI.
The eldest of three children, Ravasi was born in Merate, Province of Lecco. His father was an anti-fascist tax official who served in Sicily during World War II, but later deserted the army; it took him 18 months to return to his family. Ravasi would later say, "My search has always been for something permanent, for what is behind the transitory, the contingent. I'm fighting loss and death, which probably relates to the absence of my father in my first years." His mother was a schoolteacher.
Ravasi decided to join the priesthood instead of teaching Greek and Latin classics, as had been his original desire. He attended the seminary of Milan, and was ordained by Cardinal Giovanni Colombo on June 28, 1966. He then furthered his studies in Rome at the Pontifical Gregorian University and the Pontifical Biblical Institute. He spent summers in Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and Turkey, working as an archaeologist with such figures as Kathleen Kenyon and Roland de Vaux.

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Giorgio Corbellini
Giorgio Corbellini (20 April 1947) is the current president of the Labour Office of the Apostolic See since his appointment by Pope Benedict XVI on 3 July 2009. In this position he manages relations with lay workers in the Roman Curia. He previously served as Vice Secretary-General of the Governorate of the Vatican City State.
He was ordained on 10 July 1971 at the age of 24. He worked in Rome until he was appointed Titular Bishop of Abula and president of the Labour Office of the Apostolic See, replacing Francesco Cardinal Marchisano who had served in the position until his 80th birthday. Bishop Corbellini also took over Cardinal Marchisano's role as president of the Permanent Commission for the Protection of Historical and Artistic Monuments of the Holy See. He was ordained as Titular Bishop of Abula on 12 September by Pope Benedict XVI with Cardinals Tarcisio Bertone and William Levada as co-consecrators.
On 11 May 2010, in addition to his duties at the Labour Office he was appointed as president of the Disciplinary Commission of the Roman Curia replacing Cardinal Julián Herranz Casado.

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Giulia Salzano
Saint Giulia Salzano (October 13, 1846 – May 17, 1929) was the founder of the Congregation of the Catechetical Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in 1905. She was raised and educated by the Sisters of Charity in the Royal Orphanage of Saint Nicola La Strada until the age of fifteen. She was a school teacher and catechist in Casoria, Naples, and a friend and co-worker with Saint Caterina Volpicelli. Salzano is noted for her personal devotion to the Virgin Mary. She encouraged others in devotion to Our Lady and the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
On October 17, 2010, Pope Benedict celebrated her canonization Mass in which he said “May the example and intercession of St. Giulia Salzano sustain the Church in her perennial task of announcing Christ and form authentic Christian consciences.”

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Gregory of Nazianzus
Gregory of Nazianzus (c. 329 – January 25 389 or 390) (also known as Gregory the Theologian or Gregory Nazianzen; Greek: Γρηγόριος ὁ Ναζιανζηνός) was a 4th-century Archbishop of Constantinople. He is widely considered the most accomplished rhetorical stylist of the patristic age. As a classically trained orator and philosopher he infused Hellenism into the early church, establishing the paradigm of Byzantine theologians and church officials.
Gregory made a significant impact on the shape of Trinitarian theology among both Greek- and Latin-speaking theologians, and he is remembered as the "Trinitarian Theologian". Much of his theological work continues to influence modern theologians, especially in regard to the relationship among the three Persons of the Trinity. Along with the brothers Basil the Great and Gregory of Nyssa, he is known as one of the Cappadocian Fathers.
Gregory is a saint in both Eastern and Western Christianity. In the Roman Catholic Church he is numbered among the Doctors of the Church; in Eastern Orthodoxy and the Eastern Catholic Churches he is revered as one of the Three Holy Hierarchs, along with Basil the Great and John Chrysostom.

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Gustavo Gutiérrez
Gustavo Gutiérrez Merino, O.P., (born 8 June 1928 in Lima) is a Peruvian theologian and Dominican priest regarded as the founder of Liberation Theology. He holds the John Cardinal O'Hara Professorship of Theology at the University of Notre Dame.He began studying in the faculty of medicine of the National University of San Marcos in Peru in order to become a psychiatrist, then he realized he wanted to become a priest. He has been professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru and a visiting professor at many major universities in North America and Europe.
Gutiérrez is also a member of the Peruvian Academy of Language, and in 1993 he was awarded the Legion of Honor by the French government for his tireless work. In 2002 Gutiérrez was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and in 2003 he received the prestigious Príncipe de Asturias award. He has also published in and been a member of the board of directors of the international journal, Concilium.
Gutierrez spent much of his life living and working among the poor and oppressed of Lima. He has studied medicine and literature (Peru), psychology and philosophy (Leuven), and obtained a doctorate at the Institut Pastoral d'Etudes Religieuses (IPER), Université Catholique in Lyon.

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Hans Hermann Groër
Hans Hermann Wilhelm Groër, OSB (1919–2003) was an Austrian Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as Archbishop of Vienna from 1986 to 1995, and was elevated to the cardinalate in 1988. Following allegations of child abuse, he resigned as Archbishop of Vienna on 14 September 1995, and after being asked by Pope John Paul II, Groër relinquished all ecclesiastical duties and privileges as an archbishop and cardinal on 14 April 1998.
Groër was born in Vienna to Sudeten-German parents, with whom he moved in 1929 to Czechoslovakia, where they remained for the next decade. He attended seminaries in Hollabrunn and Vienna (where he received his doctorate in theology) before being ordained to the priesthood on 12 April 1942 by Cardinal Theodor Innitzer. Groër then served as a chaplain in Petronell and Bad Vöslau until 1946, when he began work as Prefect of Studies at the minor seminary of Hollabrunn. He entered the Order of Saint Benedict in 1974 and took the name Hermann upon his solemn profession of vows on 8 September 1980. The same year saw Groër named as the spiritual director of the Legion of Mary for Austria.

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Hilary of Poitiers
Hilary of Poitiers (c. 300 – c. 368) was Bishop of Poitiers and is a Doctor of the Church. He was sometimes referred to as the "Hammer of the Arians" (Latin: Malleus Arianorum) and the "Athanasius of the West." His name comes from the Latin word for happy or cheerful. His optional memorial in the Roman Catholic calendar of saints is 13 January. In the past, when this date was occupied by the Octave Day of the Epiphany, his feast day was moved to 14 January.
Hilary was born at Poitiers about the end of the 3rd century A.D. His parents were pagans of distinction. He received a good education, including what had even then become somewhat rare in the West, some knowledge of Greek. He studied, later on, the Old and New Testament writings, with the result that he abandoned his Neo-Platonism for Christianity, and with his wife and his daughter (traditionally named Saint Abra) were baptized and received into the Church .
So great was the respect in which he was held by the citizens of Poitiers that about 353, although still a married man, he was unanimously elected bishop. At that time Arianism was threatening to overrun the Western Church; to repel the disruption was the great task which Hilary undertook. One of his first steps was to secure the excommunication, by those of the Gallican hierarchy who still remained orthodox, of Saturninus, the Arian Bishop of Arles, and of Ursacius and Valens, two of his prominent supporters.

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Hildegard of Bingen
Saint Hildegard of Bingen, O.S.B. (German: Hildegard von Bingen; Latin: Hildegardis Bingensis) (1098 – 17 September 1179), also known as Saint Hildegard, and Sibyl of the Rhine, was a German writer, composer, philosopher, Christian mystic, Benedictine abbess, visionary, and polymath. Elected a magistra by her fellow nuns in 1136, she founded the monasteries of Rupertsberg in 1150 and Eibingen in 1165. One of her works as a composer, the Ordo Virtutum, is an early example of liturgical drama and arguably the oldest surviving morality play.
She wrote theological, botanical and medicinal texts, as well as letters, liturgical songs, and poems, while supervising brilliant miniature Illuminations.
On 10 May 2012, Pope Benedict XVI extended the liturgical cult of St. Hildegard to the universal Church, in a process known as "equivalent canonization". On 27 May 2012, the Pope announced that, on 7 October 2012, he will declare St. Hildegard to be the 35th Doctor of the Church.
Hildegard's date of birth is uncertain. It has been concluded that she may have been born in the year 1098. Hildegard was raised in a family of free nobles. She was her parents' tenth child, sickly from birth. In her Vita, Hildegard explains that from a very young age she had experienced visions.

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Hugo Chávez
Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈuɣo rafaˈel ˈtʃaβes ˈfɾi.as]; born 28 July 1954) is the current President of Venezuela, having held that position since 1999. He was formerly the leader of the Fifth Republic Movement political party from its foundation in 1997 until 2007, when he became the leader of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV). Following his own political ideology of Bolivarianism and "Socialism for the 21st Century", he has focused on implementing socialist reforms in the country as a part of a social project known as the Bolivarian Revolution, which has seen the implementation of a new constitution, participatory democratic councils and the nationalisation of several key industries.
Born into a working class family in Sabaneta, Barinas, Chávez became a career military officer, and after becoming dissatisfied with the Venezuelan political system, he founded the secretive Revolutionary Bolivarian Movement-200 (MBR-200) in the early 1980s to work towards overthrowing it. Chávez led the MBR-200 in an unsuccessful coup d'état against the Democratic Action government of President Carlos Andrés Pérez government in 1992, for which he was imprisoned. Getting out of prison after two years, he founded a social democratic political party, the Fifth Republic Movement, and was elected president of Venezuela in 1998. He subsequently introduced a new constitution which increased rights for marginalised groups and altered the structure of Venezuelan government, and was re-elected in 2000. During his second presidential term, he introduced a system of Bolivarian Missions, Communal Councils and worker-managed cooperatives, as well as a program of land reform, whilst also nationalising various key industries.

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Ignatius of Antioch
Ignatius of Antioch (Ancient Greek: Ἰγνάτιος, also known as Theophorus from Greek Θεοφόρος "God-bearer") (ca. 35 or 50-between 98 and 117) was among the Apostolic Fathers, was the third Bishop of Antioch, and was a student of John the Apostle. En route to his martyrdom in Rome, Ignatius wrote a series of letters which have been preserved as an example of very early Christian theology. Important topics addressed in these letters include ecclesiology, the sacraments, and the role of bishops.
Ignatius' feast day is observed on 20 December in the Eastern Orthodox Church. In the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria, he is commemorated, according to its Synaxarium, on the 24th of the Coptic Month of Kiahk (which currently falls on January 2, but is equivalent to December 20 in the Gregorian Calendar due to the current 13-day Julian-Gregorian Calendar offset). His celebration is on 1 February in the General Roman Calendar of 1962. Today Western Christianity follows the Syriac churches in keeping his feast on 17 October.

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Ignatius of Loyola
Ignatius of Loyola (Basque: Iñigo Loiolakoa, Spanish: Ignacio de Loyola) (1491 – July 31, 1556) was a Spanish knight from a Basque noble family, hermit, priest since 1537, and theologian, who founded the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) and was its first Superior General. Ignatius emerged as a religious leader during the Counter-Reformation. Loyola's devotion to the Catholic Church was characterized by unquestioning obedience to the Catholic Church's authority and hierarchy.
After being seriously wounded at the Battle of Pamplona in 1521, he underwent a spiritual conversion while in recovery. De Vita Christi by Ludolph of Saxony inspired Loyola to abandon his previous military life and devote himself to labour for God, following the example of spiritual leaders such as Francis of Assisi. He experienced a vision of the Virgin Mary and the infant Jesus while at the shrine of Our Lady of Montserrat in March 1522. Thereafter he went to Manresa, where he began praying for seven hours a day, often in a nearby cave, while formulating the fundamentals of the Spiritual Exercises. In September 1523, Loyola reached the Holy Land to settle there, but was sent back to Europe by the Franciscans.

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Irenaeus
St. Irenaeus (

/aɪrəˈniːəs/; Ancient Greek: Εἰρηναῖος), (2nd century AD – c. 202) was Bishop of Lugdunum in Gaul, then a part of the Roman Empire (now Lyon, France). He was an early church father and apologist, and his writings were formative in the early development of Christian theology. He was a hearer of Polycarp, who in turn was a disciple of John the Evangelist.
Irenaeus' best-known book, Adversus Haereses or Against Heresies (c. 180) is a detailed attack on Gnosticism, which was then a serious threat to the Church, and especially on the system of the Gnostic Valentinus. As one of the first great Christian theologians, he emphasized the traditional elements in the Church, especially the episcopate, Scripture, and tradition. "Caesar and Christ"(New York: Simon and Schuster, 1972)</ref> Against the Gnostics, who said that they possessed a secret oral tradition from Jesus himself, Irenaeus maintained that the bishops in different cities are known as far back as the Apostles — and none of them was a Gnostic — and that the bishops provided the only safe guide to the interpretation of Scripture. His writings, with those of Clement and Ignatius, are taken to hint at papal primacy. Irenaeus is the earliest witness to recognition of the canonical character of all four gospels.

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Isidore of Seville
Saint Isidore of Seville (Spanish: San Isidro or San Isidoro de Sevilla, Latin: Isidorus Hispalensis) (c. 560 – 4 April 636) served as Archbishop of Seville for more than three decades and is considered, as the historian Montalembert put it in an oft-quoted phrase, "le dernier savant du monde ancien" ("the last scholar of the ancient world"). Indeed, all the later medieval history-writing of Hispania (modern Spain and Portugal) was based on his histories.
At a time of disintegration of classical culture, and aristocratic violence and illiteracy, he was involved in the conversion of the royal Visigothic Arians to Catholicism, both assisting his brother Leander of Seville, and continuing after his brother's death. He was influential in the inner circle of Sisebut, Visigothic king of Hispania. Like Leander, he played a prominent role in the Councils of Toledo and Seville. The Visigothic legislation which resulted from these councils is regarded by modern historians as exercising an important influence on the beginnings of representative government.

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Jason Berry
Jason Berry is an investigative reporter in New Orleans, an American author and film director. He is renowned for pioneering investigative reporting on sexual abuse in the priesthood of the Catholic Church.
His book Lead Us Not Into Temptation: Catholic Priests and the Sexual Abuse of Children (1992) was the first major book on this issue. His 2004 book Vows of Silence deals with the sexual abuse of Marcial Maciel, the founder of the Legion of Christ, and the cover-up of that abuse. The author also adapted Vows of Silence into a film.
Berry has been frequently interviewed in national media in the United States, has worked as a consultant for ABC News, and contributed to the National Public Radio and is a speaker on sexual abuse issues and popular culture.
He has also written books on popular music.
Berry won his first Catholic Press Association Award in 1986 for his original coverage in the National Catholic Reporter of the clergy sexual-abuse scandals in Louisiana. He was awarded his second in 1993 for the publication of Lead Us Not Into Temptation: Catholic Priests and the Sexual Abuse of Children. Berry is a graduate of Georgetown University and a recipient of the Alicia Patterson Journalism Fellowship for his reportage of David Duke. He and his wife live in New Orleans with their two young daughters.

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Jean Daniélou
Jean Daniélou S.J. (14 May 1905–20 May 1974) was a theologian, historian, cardinal and a member of the Académie Française.
Jean-Guenolé-Marie Daniélou was born at Neuilly-sur-Seine, son of Charles and Madeleine (née Clamorgan). His father was an anticlerical politician, several times minister, and his mother an educator and founder of institutions for women's education. His brother Alain (1907–1994) was a noted Indologist.
Daniélou studied at the Sorbonne, and passed his agrégation in Grammar in 1927. He joined the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) in 1929, becoming an educator, initially at a boys' school in Poitiers. He subsequently studied theology at Fourvière in Lyon under Henri de Lubac, who introduced him to patristics, the study of the Fathers of the Church. He was ordained priest 20 August 1938.
During World War II, he served with the Armée de l'Air (Air Force) in 1939–1940. He was demobilised and returned to civilian life. He received his doctorate in theology in 1942 and was appointed chaplain to the ENSJF, the female section of the École Normale Supérieure, at Sèvres. It was at this time that he began his own writings on patristics. He was one of the founders of the Sources Chrétiennes collection. In 1944 he was made Professor of Early Christian History at the Institut Catholique de Paris, and later became dean. Beginning in the 1950s, he produced several historical studies, including The Bible and the Liturgy, The Lord of History, and From Shadows to Reality, that provided a major impetus to the development of Covenantal Theology.

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Jeanne Jugan
Saint Jeanne Jugan (October 25, 1792 – August 29, 1879), also known as Sister Mary of the Cross was born in Cancale in Brittany, France, the sixth of the eight children of Joseph and Marie Jugan. Her father died when she was very young and her mother raised this large family alone. When Jeanne was 16, she took a job as the kitchen maid of the Viscountess de la Choue. The viscountess, a devout Christian, had Jeanne accompany her when she visited the sick and the poor. Nine years later, Jeanne began working in the town hospital of Saint-Servan. She worked hard at this physically demanding job but after six years, she left the hospital and went to work for an elderly woman. In the course of Jeanne's duties, the two women recognized a similar Catholic spirituality and began to teach catechism to youngsters and care for the poor and other unfortunates, until Jeanne's friend died.
In 1837, Jeanne and a 72-year old woman (Françoise Aubert) rented part of a small cottage and were joined by Virginie Tredaniel, a 17-year old orphan. These three women then formed a Catholic community of prayer, devoted to teaching the catechism and assisting the poor. Two years later, Jeanne brought a blind widow (Anne Chauvin) to their home and even allowed the woman to sleep in her own bed. From this act of charity, with the approval of her colleagues, Jeanne then focused her attention upon the mission of assisting abandoned elderly women, and from this beginning arose a community called The Little Sisters of the Poor. Jeanne wrote a simple rule for this new community of women, and they daily went door-to-door requesting food, clothing and money for the women in their care. This was Jeanne's life work, and she performed this mission for the next four decades.

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Jerome
Saint Jerome (c. 347 – 30 September 420; (also Hierom or Jerom) (Latin: Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus; Ancient Greek: Εὐσέβιος Σωφρόνιος Ἱερώνυμος) was a Roman Christian priest, confessor, theologian and historian, and who became a Doctor of the Church. He was the son of Eusebius, of the city of Stridon, which was on the border of Dalmatia and Pannonia. He is best known for his translation of the Bible into Latin (the Vulgate), and his list of writings is extensive.
He is recognised by the Catholic Church as a saint and Doctor of the Church, and the Vulgate is still an important text in Catholicism. He is also recognized as a saint by the Eastern Orthodox Church, where he is known as St. Jerome of Stridonium or Blessed Jerome.
Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus was born at Stridon around 347. He was not baptized until about 360 or 366, when he had gone to Rome with his friend Bonosus (who may or may not have been the same Bonosus whom Jerome identifies as his friend who went to live as a hermit on an island in the Adriatic) to pursue rhetorical and philosophical studies. He studied under the grammarian Aelius Donatus. There Jerome learned Latin and at least some Greek, though probably not the familiarity with Greek literature he would later claim to have acquired as a schoolboy.

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Jesus
Jesus (

/ˈdʒiːzəs/; Greek: Ἰησοῦς; 7–2 BC/BCE to 30–36 AD/CE), also referred to as Jesus Christ or simply Christ, is the central figure of Christianity and most Christian denominations venerate him as God the Son incarnated. In Islam, Jesus (in Arabic: عيسى‎ in Islamic usage, commonly transliterated as Isa) is considered one of God's important prophets.
Most modern historians agree that Jesus existed and was a Jewish teacher from Galilee in Roman Judaea, who was baptized by John the Baptist, and was crucified in Jerusalem on the orders of the Roman Prefect, Pontius Pilate. Scholars have offered competing descriptions and portraits of Jesus, which at times share a number of overlapping attributes, such as a rabbi, a charismatic healer, the leader of an apocalyptic movement, a self-described Messiah, a sage and philosopher, or a social reformer who preached of the "Kingdom of God" as a means for personal and egalitarian social transformation. Scholars have correlated the New Testament accounts with non-Christian historical records to arrive at an estimated chronology of Jesus' life.

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Johann Eck
Dr. Johann Maier von Eck (13 November 1486 – 13 February 1543) was a German Scholastic theologian and defender of Catholicism during the Protestant Reformation. It was Eck who argued that the beliefs of Martin Luther and Jan Hus were similar.

Johann Eck was born Johann Maier at Eck (later Egg, near Memmingen, c. 70 km miles south of Augsburg) in Swabia, and derived his additional surname from his birthplace, which he himself, after 1505, always modified into Eckius or Eccius, i.e. "of Eck." His father, Michael Maier, was a peasant and bailiff, or Amtmann, of the village. The boy's education was undertaken by his uncle, Martin Maier, parish priest at Rottenburg on the river Neckar.
At the age of twelve he entered the University of Heidelberg, which he left in the following year for Tübingen. After taking his master's degree in 1501, he began the study of theology under Johann Jakob Lempp, and studied the elements of Hebrew and political economy with Konrad Summenhart. He left Tübingen in 1501 on account of the plague and after a year at Cologne finally settled at Freiburg University, at first as a student of theology and law and later as a successful teacher where he was mentor to the prominent Anabaptist leader of Waldshut and Nikolsburg, Balthasar Hubmaier, and later retaining this relationship during their move to the University of Ingolstadt. In 1508 he entered the priesthood in Strasbourg and two years later obtained his doctorate in theology.

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Johannes Tauler
Johannes Tauler (c. 1300 – 15 June 1361) was a German mystic theologian.
He was born about the year 1300 in Strasbourg, and was educated at the Dominican convent in that city, where Meister Eckhart, who greatly influenced him, was professor of theology (1312–1320) in the monastery school. From Strasbourg he went to the Dominican college of Cologne, and perhaps to St James's College, Paris, ultimately returning to Strasbourg. In 1324 Strasbourg, along with other cities, was placed under a papal interdict, and so all Dominican friars left the city. Tauler went to Basel. The legend that he stayed in Strasbourg and continued to perform religious services for the people is probably due to the desire of the 16th century reformers to enroll the famous preachers of the Middle Ages among their forerunners.
From 1338 to 1339 Tauler was in Basel, then the headquarters of the "Friends of God" (Gottesfreunde), and was brought into intimate relations with the members of that pious mystical fellowship. Tauler worked with the Friends of God, and it was with them that he taught his belief that the state of the soul was affected more by a personal relationship with God than by external practices. (Cairns 243) In this way, he was more of a proselytizer than his counterpart, Eckhart. Yet Strasbourg still remained his headquarters. The Black Death came there in 1348, and it is said that when the city was deserted by all who could leave it, Tauler remained at his post, encouraging his terror-stricken fellow-citizens with sermons and personal visits. His correspondence with distinguished members of the Friends of God, especially with Margaretha Ebner, and the fame of his preaching and other work in Strasbourg, made him known throughout a wide circle. He died in 1361.

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John Chrysostom
John Chrysostom (c. 347–407, Greek: Ἰωάννης ὁ Χρυσόστομος), Archbishop of Constantinople, was an important Early Church Father. He is known for his eloquence in preaching and public speaking, his denunciation of abuse of authority by both ecclesiastical and political leaders, the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, and his ascetic sensibilities. After his death in 407 (or, according to some sources, during his life) he was given the Greek epithet chrysostomos, meaning "golden mouthed" in English, and Anglicized to Chrysostom.
The Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Churches honor him as a saint and count him among the Three Holy Hierarchs, together with Basil the Great and Gregory Nazianzus. He is recognized by the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church as a saint and as a Doctor of the Church. Churches of the Western tradition, including the Roman Catholic Church, some Anglican provinces, and parts of the Lutheran Church, commemorate him on 13 September. Some Lutheran and many Anglican provinces commemorate him on the traditional Eastern feast day of 27 January. The Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria also recognizes John Chrysostom as a saint (with feast days on 16 Thout and 17 Hathor).

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John Fisher
Saint John Fisher (1459 /c. 19 October 1469 – 22 June 1535) was an English Roman Catholic scholastic, cardinal, and martyr. He shares his feast day with Saint Thomas More on 22 June in the Roman Catholic calendar of saints and on 6 July in the Anglican. Fisher was executed by order of King Henry VIII during the English Reformation for refusing to accept the king as Supreme Head of the Church of England and for upholding the Roman Catholic Church's doctrine of papal primacy.
John Fisher was born in Beverley, Yorkshire, England in 1469, the eldest son of Robert Fisher, a modestly prosperous merchant of Beverley, and Agnes, his wife. He was one of four children. His father died when John was 8. His mother remarried and had five more children by her second husband, William White. Fisher seems to have had close contacts with his extended family all his life. Fisher's early education was probably received in the school attached to the collegiate church in his home town. He attended Beverley Grammar School, an old foundation claiming to date from the year 700. In the present day, one of the houses at the school is named in Fisher's honour.

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John Henry Newman
John Henry Newman, D.D., C.O. (21 February 1801 – 11 August 1890), also referred to as Cardinal Newman and Blessed John Henry Newman, was an important figure in the religious history of England in the 19th century. He was known nationally by the mid-1830s.
Originally an evangelical Oxford academic and priest in the Church of England, Newman was a leader in the Oxford Movement. This influential grouping of Anglicans wished to return the Church of England to many Catholic beliefs and forms of worship traditional in the medieval times to restore ritual expression. In 1845 Newman left the Church of England and was received into the Roman Catholic Church where he was eventually granted the rank of cardinal by Pope Leo XIII. He was instrumental in the founding of the Catholic University of Ireland, which evolved into University College, Dublin, today, the largest university in Ireland.
Newman's beatification was officially proclaimed by Pope Benedict XVI on 19 September 2010 during his visit to the United Kingdom. His canonisation is dependent on the documentation of additional miracles.

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John L. Allen, Jr.
John L. Allen, Jr. (born 1965) is an American journalist based in Rome who specializes in news about the Catholic Church. He is senior correspondent for the National Catholic Reporter and vaticanologist of CNN and NPR. Allen is also the author of several books about the Catholic Church. He has written two biographies of Pope Benedict XVI, the first one published in 2000 when he was still a cardinal and the first biography of him in English.
Allen grew up in Kansas. Both his grade school and his high school (Thomas More Prep-Marian) were located in Hays, Kansas and run by the Capuchin Franciscans. Allen graduated from high school in 1983. He received a bachelor's degree in philosophy from Fort Hays State University and a master's degree in religious studies from the University of Kansas. For several years, Allen taught journalism and oversaw the student-run newspaper, The Knight, at Notre Dame High School in Sherman Oaks, California. On November 5, 2011, Allen was conferred the honourary degree of Doctor of Sacred Letters (D.S.Litt.) from the University of St. Michael's College in Toronto, Ontario.

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John of Damascus
Saint John of Damascus (Greek: Ἰωάννης ὁ Δαμασκηνός Iōannēs ho Damaskēnos; Latin: Iohannes Damascenus; also known as John Damascene, Χρυσορρόας/Chrysorrhoas, "streaming with gold"—i.e., "the golden speaker") (c. 645 or 676 – 4 December 749; Arabic: يوحنا الدمشقي Yuḥannā Al Demashqi) was a Syrian monk and priest. Born and raised in Damascus, he died at his monastery, Mar Saba, near Jerusalem.
A polymath whose fields of interest and contribution included law, theology, philosophy, and music, he is said by some sources to have served as a Chief Administrator to the Muslim caliph of Damascus before his ordination. He wrote works expounding the Christian faith, and composed hymns which are still used liturgically in Eastern Christian practice throughout the world. He is considered "the last of the Fathers" of the Eastern Orthodox church and is best known for his strong defense of icons. The Catholic Church regards him as a Doctor of the Church, often referred to as the Doctor of the Assumption due to his writings on the Assumption of Mary.

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John of the Cross
John of the Cross (San Juan de la Cruz) (24 June 1542 – 14 December 1591), born Juan de Yepes Álvarez, was a major figure of the Counter-Reformation, a Spanish mystic, Catholic saint, Carmelite friar and priest, born at Fontiveros, Old Castile.
Saint John of the Cross was a reformer of the Carmelite Order and is considered, along with Saint Teresa of Ávila, as a founder of the Discalced Carmelites. He is also known for his writings. Both his poetry and his studies on the growth of the soul are considered the summit of mystical Spanish literature and one of the peaks of all Spanish literature. He was canonized as a saint in 1726 by Pope Benedict XIII. He is one of the thirty-three Doctors of the Church. When his feast day was inserted into the General Roman Calendar in 1738, it was assigned at first to 24 November, since his date of death was impeded by the then existing octave of the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. This obstacle was removed in 1955 and in 1969 his feast day was moved to his date of death, 14 December.

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John Paul I
Pope John Paul I (Latin: Ioannes Paulus PP. I, Italian: Giovanni Paolo I), born Albino Luciani (17 October 1912 – 28 September 1978), reigned as Pope of the Catholic Church and as Sovereign of Vatican City from 26 August 1978 until his death 33 days later. His reign is among the shortest in papal history, resulting in the most recent Year of Three Popes. John Paul I was the first Pope to be born in the 20th century and the last Pope to die in it.
In Italy he is remembered with the appellatives of "Il Papa del Sorriso" (The Smiling Pope) and "Il Sorriso di Dio" (The smile of God).Time magazine and other publications referred to him as The September Pope.
Albino Luciani was born on October 17, 1912 in Forno di Canale (now Canale d'Agordo) in Belluno, a province of the Veneto region in Northern Italy. He was the son of Giovanni Luciani (1872?–1952), a bricklayer, and Bortola Tancon (1879?–1948). Albino was followed by two brothers, Federico (1915–1916) and Edoardo (1917–2008), and a sister, Antonia (1920–2009).

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John Paul II
Blessed Pope John Paul II (Latin: Ioannes Paulus PP. II, Italian: Giovanni Paolo II, Polish: Jan Paweł II), born Karol Józef Wojtyła (Polish: [ˈkarɔl ˈjuzɛf vɔjˈtɨwa]; 18 May 1920, Wadowice, Republic of Poland – 2 April 2005, Apostolic Palace, Vatican City), reigned as Pope of the Catholic Church from 1978 until his death in 2005. He was the second-longest serving Pope in history and the first non-Italian since 1523.
John Paul II was acclaimed as one of the most influential leaders of the 20th century. He was instrumental in ending communism in his native Poland and eventually all of Europe. John Paul II significantly improved the Catholic Church's relations with Judaism, Islam, the Eastern Orthodox Church, and the Anglican Communion. Though criticised by progressives for upholding the Church's teachings against artificial contraception and the ordination of women, and by traditionalists for his support of the Church's Second Vatican Council and its reform, he was also widely praised for his firm, orthodox Catholic stances.

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John the Apostle
John the Apostle (Aramaic Yoħanna, Koine Greek Ἰωάννης) (c. AD 6 – c. 100) was one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus. He was the son of Zebedee and Salome and brother of James, son of Zebedee, another of the Twelve Apostles. Christian tradition holds that he outlived the remaining apostles—all of whom suffered martyrdom (except Judas Iscariot)—and ultimately died of natural causes "in great old age in Ephesus" at the beginning of the second century. The Church Fathers consider him the same person as John the Evangelist, John of Patmos, and the Beloved Disciple.
The Church Fathers generally identify him as the author of five books in the New Testament: the Gospel of John, three Epistles of John, and the Book of Revelation. The Gospel according to John differs considerably from the synoptic gospels, likely written decades earlier than John's Gospel. The bishops of Asia Minor supposedly requested him to write his gospel to deal with the heresy of the Ebionites, who asserted that Christ did not exist before Mary. John probably knew and undoubtedly approved of the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, but these gospels spoke of Jesus primarily in the year following the imprisonment and death of John the Baptist). Around 600, however, Sophronius of Jerusalem noted that "two epistles bearing his name ... are considered by some to be the work of a certain John the Elder" and, while stating that Revelation was written by John on Patmos, it was “later translated by Justin Martyr and Irenaeus”, presumably in an attempt to reconcile tradition with the obvious differences in Greek style. On the other hand, many authors in those days employed secretaries often called scribes whose personal styles influenced the final documents. John perhaps employed different scribes for his several works who dictated his words as he was influenced by the Holy Spirit through his meditation, visions, and dreams.

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Jonathan Sacks
Jonathan Henry Sacks, Baron Sacks, Kt (born 8 March 1948, London) is the Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth. His Hebrew name is Yaakov Zvi. As the spiritual head of the United Synagogue, the largest synagogue body in the UK, he is the Chief Rabbi of the British Orthodox synagogues, but he is not a religious authority for the Federation of Synagogues or the Union of Orthodox Hebrew Congregations or the other movements, Masorti, Reform and Liberal Judaism.
He is married with three children. One of his daughters, Gila Sacks, is a former Special Adviser to Gordon Brown.
Sacks was educated at St Mary's Primary School and Christ's College Finchley, Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge (MA), New College, Oxford, King's College London (PhD), Jews' College London and Etz Chaim Yeshiva (London).
In addition to the PhD he earned at King's College, he has also been awarded honorary doctorates from the universities of: Cambridge; Glasgow; Haifa; Middlesex; Yeshiva University; Liverpool and St. Andrews, Roehampton University and is an honorary fellow of Gonville and Caius and King's College London.

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Jorge Medina Estévez
Jorge Arturo Agustín Medina Estévez (born December 23, 1926, in Santiago, Chile) is a Chilean Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He was Cardinal Protodeacon until February 23, 2007, and is Prefect Emeritus of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments.
Medina was born in Santiago in 1926, and studied at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile (where he received a baccalaureate in the arts and biology) and the Major Seminary of Santiago. He was ordained a priest on June 12, 1954, by Bishop Pio Fariña Fariña, the vicar general and an auxiliary bishop of Santiago.
Earning a doctorate in theology in 1955, Medina taught philosophy and theology at the Major Seminary of Santiago and of the Pontifical Catholic University, respectively. He also served as a dean of the university, and as a peritus at the Second Vatican Council; for the latter he later received a honoris causa doctorate from the University of Notre Dame in 1996.
Pro-Grand Chancellor of the Catholic University from 1974 to 1985, he was named titular bishop of Thibilis and auxiliary bishop of Rancagua on December 18, 1984. Medina was consecrated to the episcopate on January 6, 1985 by Pope John Paul II himself, with Cardinals Eduardo Martínez Somalo and Duraisamy Simon Lourdusamy acting as co-consecrators. He was made Bishop of Rancagua on November 25, 1987 and then Bishop of Valparaíso on April 16, 1993. He was appointed Pro-Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments on June 21, 1996, resigning from his post in Valparaíso on the same day.

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Josef Bilczewski
St. Jozef Bilczewski (ukr. Йосип Більчевський, Yosyp Bilchevsky)(1860–1923) was a Catholic archbishop of the city of Lviv, Ukraine, a professor of theology at the Lviv University and a rector of that school. Since 2005 he is venerated by the Roman Catholic Church as a saint.
Jozef Bilczewski was born in Wilamowice, Bielsko County, part of the Austrian province of Galicia. In 1880 he graduated from a local gymnasium in Wadowice and joined the theological seminary in nearby Kraków. After receiving PhD from Theological Faculty of the Jagiellonian University, on July 6, 1884 he became a priest and was ordained by Cardinal Archbishop of Kraków Albin Dunajewski. In less than 2 years Bilczewski received doctorate from theology and started his studies on dogmatics and Christian archaeology in Rome and Vienna and then in Paris. In 1890 he passed his habilitation at the Jagiellonian University and the following year he became a professor of dogmatics at the Lviv University (Lemberg in German). His university career progressed at a very fast pace as in 1893 he became a common professor and in 1896 he became a deacon of the Theological Faculty. In 1900 he was elected the rector of that university, but gave up the post later that year as he was ordained the archbishop of Lviv with the approval of emperor Francis-Joseph.

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Josef Clemens
Josef Clemens (born 20 June 1947 in Siegen) is a German bishop and Secretary of the Pontifical Council for the Laity.
Josef Clemens was born on 20 June 1947 in Siegen in the Archdiocese of Paderborn). He received his secondary-level education in the Collegium Marianum in Neuss and studied theology at the Collegium Germanicum in Rome, where Cardinal Hermann Volk ordained him to the priesthood on 10 October 1975 in the church of Sant'Ignazio. After doing parish work in his home diocese, he returned to Rome to study in the moral theology faculty of the Gregorian University, obtaining a doctorate in 1983. In the following year he became personal secretary of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the future Pope Benedict XVI, who was then Prefect of Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. He was given the rank of Chaplain of His Holiness on 17 March 1989.
On 12 February 2003, Pope John Paul II appointed Clemens Under-Secretary of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life. On 25 November of the same year, he was appointed Secretary of the Pontifical Council for the Laity and Titular Bishop of Segermes, receiving episcopal ordination on 6 January 2004 from Cardinal Ratzinger. As Secretary of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, he organized the 2005 World Youth Day in Cologne

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Josef Frings
Josef Richard Frings (February 6, 1887 – December 17, 1978), was a German Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as Archbishop of Cologne from 1942 to 1969, and was elevated to the cardinalate in 1946 by Pope Pius XII.
Josef Frings was born as the first of eight children of Heinrich, a weaving industrialist and manufacturer, and Maria (née Sels) Frings, in Neuss. After 1905 he studied Catholic theology in Munich, Innsbruck, Freiburg and Bonn. On August 10, 1910, he received his ordination to the priesthood. He was baptized on August 10, 1884.
At first he worked as a chaplain in Cologne-Zollstock until 1913 followed by a study visit in Rome until 1915. In 1916 he earned a doctorate in Theology in Freiburg. From 1915 until 1922 he was community Reverend in Cologne-Fühlingen. Afterwards he worked as a principal of an orphanage in Neuss from 1922 until 1924 and until 1937 he was the community reverend of Cologne-Braunsfeld. Subsequently he led the archiepiscopal seminary in Bensberg.

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Josef Stangl
Josef Stangl (12 March 1907 – 8 April 1979) was a Roman Catholic Bishop of Würzburg, Germany.
Born in Kronach, Bavaria, Stangl became a priest on 16 March 1930, and he was appointed by Pope Pius XII as bishop of Würzburg on 27 June 1957.
He approved the exorcism on Anneliese Michel "after careful consideration and good information" by Father Arnold Renz. On 8 January 1979, Stangl withdrew as a bishop of Würzburg and died three months later in April 1979.
Stangl consecrated Father Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, as a Bishop on 28 May 1977.
He died in Schweinfurt two years later.

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Joseph Görres
Johann Joseph von Görres (25 January 1776 – 29 January 1848) was a German writer and journalist.
Görres was born at Koblenz. His father was moderately well off, and sent his son to a Latin college under the direction of the Roman Catholic clergy. The young Görres' sympathies were initially with the French Revolution, and the French exiles in the Rhineland confirmed his beliefs, which would then evolve over time. He harangued the revolutionary clubs, and insisted on the unity of interests which would ally all civilized states to one another.^{[citation needed]} He began a republican journal called Das rote Blatt, and afterwards Rubezahl, in which he strongly condemned the administration of the Rhenish provinces by France.
After the Treaty of Campo Formio (1797) there was hope that the Rhenish provinces would be constituted into an independent republic. In 1799 the provinces sent an embassy, of which Görres was a member, to Paris to put their case before the directory. The embassy reached Paris on 20 November 1799; two days before this Napoleon had assumed power. After much delay he received the embassy; but the only answer they obtained was "that they might rely on perfect justice, and that the French government would never lose sight of their wants". Görres on his return published a tract called Resultate meiner Sendung nach Paris, in which he reviewed the history of the French Revolution.

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Joseph Hergenröther
Joseph Hergenröther (15 September 1824 – 3 October 1890) was a German Church historian and canonist, and the first Cardinal-Prefect of the Vatican Archives.
Born in Würzburg, he was the second son of Johann Jacob Hergenröther, professor of medicine in the University of Würzburg. In 1842 Hergenröther completed with notable success his gymnasium course in his native town, and entered the University of Würzburg to take up a two-year course of philosophical studies, to which he added certain branches of theology. His historical tendencies exhibited themselves at this early age in a dramatic poem entitled Papst Gregor VII (Würzburg, 1841).
Bishop von Stahl took an interest in him, and in 1844 sent him to the Collegium Germanicum at Rome, whither he had already sent Heinrich Joseph Dominicus Denzinger and Franz Hettinger. Among his scholarly teachers were Giovanni Perrone and Carlo Passaglia in doctrinal theology, Tomei in moral theology, Antonio Ballerini in church history, Francis Xavier Patrizi in Scriptural exegesis, and Marzio in canon law.

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Justin Martyr
Justin Martyr, also known as just Saint Justin (AD 100–165), was an early Christian apologist, and is regarded as the foremost interpreter of the theory of the Logos in the 2nd century. Most of his works are lost, but two apologies and a dialogue did survive. He is considered a saint by the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church.
Most of what is known about the life of Justin Martyr comes from his own writings. He was born at Flavia Neapolis (today Nablus) in Palestine into a pagan family, and defined himself as a Gentile. His grandfather, Bacchius, had a Greek name, while his father, Priscus bore a Latin name, which has led to speculations that his ancestors may have settled in Neapolis soon after its establishment or that they may have descended from a Roman 'diplomatic' community that had been sent there. He received a Greek education. He tells us (Dialogue 2-8) that he tried first the school of a Stoic philosopher, who was unable to explain God's being to him. He then attended a Peripatetic philosopher but was put off because the philosopher was too eager for his fee. Then he went to hear a Pythagorean philosopher, who demanded that he first learn music, astronomy and geometry, which he did not wish to do. Subsequently, he adopted Platonism after encountering a Platonist thinker who had recently settled in his city. Some time afterwards, he chanced upon an old man, possibly a Palestinian or Syrian Christian, in the vicinity of the seashore, who engaged him in a dialogue about God, and spoke of the testimony of the prophets as more reliable than the reasoning of philosophers. It was this argument which, Justin avers, kindled in him a love of Christ, and led him to embrace the Christian faith. He was influenced in this by the fearless conduct of the Christians facing execution (Apol. 2:12). His conversion is commonly assumed to have taken place at Ephesus, though it may have occurred anywhere on the road from Palestine to Rome.

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Kant
Immanuel Kant (German pronunciation: [ɪˈmaːnu̯eːl ˈkant]; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German philosopher from Königsberg (today Kaliningrad of Russia), who researched, lectured, and wrote on philosophy and anthropology during the Enlightenment at the end of the 18th century. At the time, there were major successes and advances in the sciences (for example, Isaac Newton, Carl Friedrich Gauss, and Robert Boyle) applying reason and logic.
Kant’s major work, the Critique of Pure Reason (Kritik der reinen Vernunft, 1781), aimed to unite reason with experience to move beyond what he took to be failures of traditional philosophy and metaphysics. He hoped to end an age of speculation where objects outside experience were used to support what he saw as futile theories, while opposing the skepticism of thinkers such as Descartes, Berkeley and Hume.
He stated:
Kant proposed a ‘Copernican Revolution’ in reverse, saying that:
Kant published other important works on ethics, religion, law, aesthetics, astronomy, and history. These included the Critique of Practical Reason (Kritik der praktischen Vernunft, 1788) and the Metaphysics of Morals (Die Metaphysik der Sitten, 1797), which dealt with ethics. And the Critique of Judgment (Kritik der Urteilskraft, 1790), which looks at aesthetics and teleology. He aimed to resolve disputes between empirical and rationalist approaches. The former asserted that all knowledge comes through experience; the latter maintained that reason and innate ideas were prior. Kant argued that experience is purely subjective without first being processed by pure reason. He also said that using reason without applying it to experience only leads to theoretical illusions. The free and proper exercise of reason by the individual was both a theme of the Enlightenment, and of Kant's approaches to the various problems of philosophy.

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Karl Rahner
Karl Rahner, SJ (March 5, 1904 — March 30, 1984) was a German Jesuit and theologian who, alongside Henri de Lubac, Hans Urs von Balthasar, and Yves Congar, is considered one of the most influential Roman Catholic theologians of the 20th century. He was the brother of Hugo Rahner.
He was born in Freiburg, Germany, and died in Innsbruck, Austria.
Before the Second Vatican Council, Rahner had worked alongside Yves Congar, Henri de Lubac and Marie-Dominique Chenu, theologians associated with an emerging school of thought called the Nouvelle Théologie, elements of which had been condemned in the encyclical Humani Generis of Pope Pius XII.
His theology influenced the Second Vatican Council and was ground-breaking for the development of what is generally seen as the modern understanding of Catholicism.
Written near the end of his life, Rahner's Foundations of Christian Faith (Grundkurs des Glaubens) is the most developed and systematic of his works, most of which were published in the form of essays.

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Kateri Tekakwitha
Kateri Tekakwitha (pronounced [ˈgaderi degaˈgwita] in Mohawk), originally known as Catherine Tekakwitha informally known as Lily of the Mohawks (1656 – April 17, 1680) was an Algonquin and Iroquois Native American religious lay woman from New France and an early convert to Roman Catholicism. Consequently, she was shunned and exiled by her tribe.^{[citation needed]} She died at the age of 24 after professing her vows of virginity. Known for her chastity and corporal mortification of the flesh, she is the first Native American woman to be venerated in the Roman Catholic Church. Tekakwitha was beatified by Blessed Pope John Paul II in 1980. On February 18, 2012, Pope Benedict XVI officially announced at Saint Peter's Basilica that Tekakwitha will be canonized on October 21, 2012

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Laura Bush
Laura Lane Welch Bush (born November 4, 1946) is the wife of the 43rd President of the United States, George W. Bush. She was the First Lady from January 20, 2001, to January 20, 2009. She graduated from Southern Methodist University in 1968 with a bachelor's degree in education and soon took a job as a second grade teacher. After attaining her Master's degree in Library Science at the University of Texas at Austin, she was employed as a librarian. She met George Walker Bush in 1977, and they were married later that year. The couple had twin daughters in 1981.
Bush's political involvement began with her marriage. She campaigned during her husband's unsuccessful 1978 run for the United States Congress and later his successful Texas gubernatorial campaign. As First Lady of Texas, Bush implemented many initiatives focused on health, education, and literacy. In 1999, she aided her husband in campaigning for the presidency in a number of ways, most notably delivering a keynote address at the 2000 Republican National Convention, which gained her national attention. She became first lady after her husband defeated Democrat Al Gore in the 2000 election.

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Lawrence of Brindisi
Saint Lawrence of Brindisi, O.F.M. Cap., (July 22, 1559, Brindisi, Apulia – July 22, 1619), born Giulio Cesare Russo, was a Catholic priest and a member of the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin.
Giulio was born in Brindisi, Kingdom of Naples, to a family of Venetian merchants. He was educated at Saint Mark's College in Venice, and joined the Capuchins in Verona as Brother Lawrence. He received further instruction from the University of Padua. An accomplished linguist, Lawrence spoke most European and Semitic languages fluently.
He was appointed Definitor General to Rome for the Capuchins in 1596; Pope Clement VIII assigned him the task of converting the Jews in the city. Beginning in 1599, Lawrence established Capuchin monasteries in modern Germany and Austria, furthering the Counter-Reformation and bringing many Protestants back to the Catholic faith.
In 1601, he served as the imperial chaplain for the army of Rudolph II, Holy Roman Emperor, and successfully recruited Philippe Emmanuel, Duke of Mercœur to help fight against the Ottoman Turks. He then led the army during the capture of Székesfehérvár in Hungary from the Ottoman Empire, armed only with a crucifix.

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Louis de Montfort
St. Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort (31 January 1673 – 28 April 1716) was canonized in 1947. He was a French priest and known in his time as a preacher and author, whose books, still widely read, have influenced a number of popes.
He is considered as one of the early proponents of the field of Mariology as it is known today, and a candidate to become a Doctor of the Church. His "founders statue" by Giacomo Parisini is now placed at the Upper Niche of the South Nave within Saint Peter's Basilica at the Vatican.
He was born in Montfort-sur-Meu, the eldest surviving child of the large family of Jean-Baptiste Grignion, a notary, and his wife Jeanne Robert who was known for being deeply Catholic. He passed most of his infancy and early childhood in Iffendic, a few kilometers from Montfort, where his father had bought a farm. At the age of 12, he entered the Jesuit College of St Thomas Becket in Rennes.
At some time during his college days, he became aware of a call to the priesthood, and at the end of his ordinary schooling, began his studies of philosophy and theology, still at St Thomas in Rennes. Listening to the stories of a local priest, the Abbé Julien Bellier, about his life as an itinerant missionary, he was inspired to preach missions among the very poor. And, under the guidance of some other priests he began to develop his strong devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary.

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Louis Thomassin
Louis Thomassin (28 August 1619 at Aix-en-Provence–24 December 1695 in Paris) was a French theologian and Oratorian.
At the age of thirteen he entered the Oratory and for some years was professor of literature in various colleges of the congregation, of theology at Saumur, and finally in the seminary of Saint Magloire, in Paris, where he remained until his death.
Thomassin was one of the most learned men of his time, "Vir stupendae plane eruditionis", as Hugo von Hurter says, in his Nomenclator literarius recentioris II (Innsbruck, 1893), 410.
His chief works are:
The last-named two posthumous works were published by P. Bordes, who wrote a life of Thomassin at the beginning of the "Glossarium".

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Luigi Guanella
Luigi Guanella (1842–1915) was a Catholic priest from Northern Italy. He is the founder of several religious institutes: Daughters of St Mary of Providence, 1890, Servants of Charity in Como on March 24, 1908, with his friends David Albertario and Giuseppe Toniolo, and the Pious Union of St Joseph in 1914 with his supporter and first member Pope Pius X. He was sensitive to the needs of the poor and this gave birth to his religious communities who provide for their needs throughout the world. The Servants of Charity motto reads In Omnibus Charitas – In all things Love.
Father Guanella was beatified in 1964 by Pope Paul VI and canonized a saint on October 23, 2011 by Pope Benedict XVI. According to Catholic News Service (CNS), the miracle needed for his canonization was the healing of a young adult male, William Glisson (who was 21 at the time of the accident and is now 30 and married), from the United States who had fell over a hole and hit his head while skating backward without a helmet, rollerblading down the Baltimore Pike in Springfield, Pennsylvania. He needed two separate skull surgeries and was in a coma for nine days with a grave prognosis. However, after a doctor who was a family friend (and who worked at a rehabilitation center run by the Opera Don Guanella) gave Glisson's mother two relics of the future saint. According to the Opera's website, Glisson was released from the hospital less than a month after the accident and returned to work just seven months later.

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Maltese people
The Maltese (Maltese: Maltin) are an ethnic group indigenous to the Southern European nation of Malta, and identified with the Maltese language. Malta is an island in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. Included within the ethnic group defined by the Maltese people are the Gozitans (Maltese: Għawdxin) who inhabit Malta's sister island, Gozo.
Malta has been inhabited from around 5200 BC, since the arrival of settlers from the island of Sicily. A significant prehistoric Neolithic culture marked by Megalithic structures, which date back to c. 3600 BC, existed on the islands, as evidenced by the temples of Mnajdra, Ggantija and others. The Phoenicians colonized Malta from about 1000 BC, bringing their Semitic language and culture. They used the islands as an outpost from which they expanded sea explorations and trade in the Mediterranean until their successors, the Carthaginians, were ousted by the Romans in 216 BC with the help of the Maltese inhabitants, under whom Malta became a municipium.

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Manuel II Paleologus
Manuel II Palaiologos or Palaeologus (Greek: Μανουήλ Β΄ Παλαιολόγος, Manouēl II Palaiologos) (27 June 1350 – 21 July 1425) was Byzantine Emperor from 1391 to 1425.
Manuel II Palaiologos was the second son of Emperor John V Palaiologos and his wife Helena Kantakouzene. His maternal grandparents were Emperor John VI Kantakouzenos (1347–1354) and Irene Asanina.
Created despotēs by his father, the future Manuel II traveled west to seek support for the Byzantine Empire in 1365 and in 1370, serving as governor in Thessalonica from 1369. The failed attempt at usurpation by his older brother Andronikos IV Palaiologos in 1373 led to Manuel being proclaimed heir and co-emperor of his father. In 1376–1379 and again in 1390 they were supplanted by Andronikos IV and then his son John VII, but Manuel personally defeated his nephew with help from the Republic of Venice in 1390. Although John V had been restored, Manuel was forced to go as an honorary hostage to the court of the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid I at Prousa (Bursa). During his stay, Manuel was forced to participate in the Ottoman campaign that reduced Philadelpheia, the last Byzantine enclave in Anatolia.

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Marianne Cope
The Blessed Marianne Cope, O.S.F., also known as the Blessed Marianne of Molokaʻi, (23 January 1838 - 9 August 1918) was a Roman Catholic Religious Sister and a member of the Sisters of Saint Francis of Syracuse, New York. Known for her charitable works and virtuous deeds, she spent many years caring for the lepers on the island of Molokaʻi, Hawaiʻi. Despite direct contact with the patients over many years, Cope was not afflicted by the disease, considered by some faithful to be miraculous. In 2005, she was beatified by Pope Benedict XVI. On February 18, 2012, Pope Benedict XVI officially announced at Saint Peter's Basilica that Cope will be canonized on October 21, 2012.
Cope was baptized Maria Anna Barbara Koob (later changed to Cope). She was born 23 January 1838 in Heppenheim in the Grand Duchy of Hesse (modern-day Germany) to Peter Koob (1787–1862) and Barbara Witzenbacher (1803–1872). The following year her family emigrated to the United States, settling in Utica, New York. They became parochial members of the Parish of St. Joseph, where Cope attended the parish school. By eighth grade, her father had become an invalid and, as the oldest child in the house, she became a factory worker to help support the family. Her father later became an American citizen, which at the time granted automatic citizenship status to her entire family.

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Mariano de la Mata
Mariano de la Mata Aparicio (December 31, 1905 - April 5, 1983) was an Augustinian priest and missionary to Brazil. He was declared Venerable by Pope John Paul II and Beatified by Pope Benedict XVI.

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Michael Sopocko
Blessed Father Michal Sopocko (November 1, 1888 in Vilnius Region – February 15, 1975 in Bialystok, Poland) was a Roman Catholic priest, and professor of pastoral theology at Stefan Batory University (now called Vilnius University) in Vilnius, Lithuania. He is best known as the spiritual director of Saint Faustina Kowalska.
He was born Michał Sopoćko in 1888 in Nowosady near Valozhyn in the Polish and Lithuanian border areas. He entered Vilnius Priest Seminary in 1910 and was ordained in 1914. He was a priest in Vilnius (1914–1918), then a chaplain in the Polish Army in Warsaw and Vilnius during World War I. After obtaining his doctorate in theology in 1926 he became the spiritual director at the seminary in Vilnius. and 1928 professor of pastoral theology at Stefan Batory University in Vilnius.
He was very supportive of the Divine Mercy devotion of Faustina Kowalska and in her diary (Notebook V, item 1238) she stated: "This priest is a great soul, entirely filled with God." Since 1931 Faustina had been trying (without success) to find someone to paint the Divine Mercy image until Sopocko became her confessor in the middle of 1933. By January 1934 Sopocko arranged for the artist Eugene Kazimierowski (who was also a professor at the university) to paint the image.

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Mother Marianne Cope
The Blessed Marianne Cope, O.S.F., also known as the Blessed Marianne of Molokaʻi, (23 January 1838 - 9 August 1918) was a Roman Catholic Religious Sister and a member of the Sisters of Saint Francis of Syracuse, New York. Known for her charitable works and virtuous deeds, she spent many years caring for the lepers on the island of Molokaʻi, Hawaiʻi. Despite direct contact with the patients over many years, Cope was not afflicted by the disease, considered by some faithful to be miraculous. In 2005, she was beatified by Pope Benedict XVI. On February 18, 2012, Pope Benedict XVI officially announced at Saint Peter's Basilica that Cope will be canonized on October 21, 2012.
Cope was baptized Maria Anna Barbara Koob (later changed to Cope). She was born 23 January 1838 in Heppenheim in the Grand Duchy of Hesse (modern-day Germany) to Peter Koob (1787–1862) and Barbara Witzenbacher (1803–1872). The following year her family emigrated to the United States, settling in Utica, New York. They became parochial members of the Parish of St. Joseph, where Cope attended the parish school. By eighth grade, her father had become an invalid and, as the oldest child in the house, she became a factory worker to help support the family. Her father later became an American citizen, which at the time granted automatic citizenship status to her entire family.

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Mother Teresa
Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta (Albanian: Nënë Tereza) as she is known to the Catholic Church, or Mother Teresa as she is commonly known, was born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu (pronounced [aɡˈnɛs ˈɡɔndʒa bɔjaˈdʒiu]). Although born on the 26 August 1910, she considered 27 August, the day she was baptized, to be her "true birthday". “By blood, I am Albanian. By citizenship, an Indian. By faith, I am a Catholic nun. As to my calling, I belong to the world. As to my heart, I belong entirely to the Heart of Jesus.” Mother Teresa died on 5 September 1997 and is not yet a Catholic Saint. In late 2003, the leaders of the church completed the process of beatification, the third step toward possible sainthood. A second miracle credited to Mother Teresa is required before she can be recognized as a saint by the Catholic church.
Mother Teresa founded the Missionaries of Charity, a Roman Catholic religious congregation, which in 2012 consisted of over 4,500 sisters and is active in 133 countries. Members of the order must adhere to the vows of chastity, poverty and obedience, and the fourth vow, to give "Wholehearted and Free service to the poorest of the poor". The Missionaries of Charity at the time of her death had 610 missions in 123 countries including hospices and homes for people with HIV/AIDS, leprosy and tuberculosis, soup kitchens, children's and family counselling programmes, orphanages and schools.

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Nguyễn Minh Triết
Nguyễn Minh Triết (born October 9, 1942) was president of Vietnam from 2006 to 2011. He was elected by the National Assembly of Vietnam with 464 votes (94%) on June 27, 2006. He was previously the head of the Communist Party of Vietnam in Ho Chi Minh City. The presidency of Vietnam is a ceremonial position and the Politburo decides government policy. Triet was the fourth ranking member of the Politburo from 2006 to 2011. His term as president expired in July. Senior Politburo member Truong Tan Sang succeeded him.
Triet was born in Bến Cát district, Bình Dương province. After teaching Mathematics in Saigon, Triet joined the Communist Party Of Vietnam in 1965 in southern Vietnam, during the Second Indochina War (Vietnam War) that involved the United States. He is among the top leaders of Vietnam who are native southerners and one of the few that had not regrouped to the North following the division of the country in 1954 (he was only 12 at the time). In 1992, he was appointed party chief of southern Sông Bé province. He guided the largely agricultural province into an attractive destination for foreign direct investment.

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Nguyễn Tấn Dũng
Nguyễn Tấn Dũng (born 17 November 1949) is the Prime Minister of Vietnam. He was confirmed by the National Assembly on 27 June 2006, having been nominated by his predecessor, Phan Van Khai, who retired from office. Since a party congress in January 2011, Dung has been ranked third in the hierarchy of the Communist Party of Vietnam, after State President Truong Tan Sang and Defense Minister Phung Quang Thanh.
Dung was born in Ca Mau Province in southern Vietnam. On his 12th birthday, the young Dung is said to have voluntarily joined the Vietcong, doing first-aid, and communication tasks; he also worked as a nurse, and a physician. Dung was four times wounded in the Vietnam War, and was later ranked as a level 2/4 wounded veteran. As a Senior Lieutenant he was Chief Political Commissar of Infantry Battalion 207; as a Captain, he was Political Chief of Infantry Regiment 152, defending the southwestern border; and as Major, he was Head of the Personnel Board of Kien Giang Province's Military Command.

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Nuno Álvares Pereira
Dom Nuno Álvares Pereira, O. Carm. (Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈnunu ˈaɫvɐɾɨʃ pɨˈɾɐjɾɐ]; June 24, 1360 – April 1, 1431), also spelled Nun'Álvares Pereira, was a Portuguese general of great success who had a decisive role in the 1383-1385 Crisis that assured Portugal's independence from Castile. He later became a mystic, was beatified by Pope Benedict XV in 1918 and was canonised by Pope Benedict XVI in 2009.
Nuno Álvares Pereira was born in Flor da Rosa, near Crato, central Portugal. His parents were Dom Álvaro Gonçalves Pereira, Prior of Crato and Iria Gonçalves do Carvalhal. His grandfather was Dom Gonçalo (Gonçalves) Pereira, 97th Archbishop of Braga (1326–1349). He descended from the oldest Portuguese and Galician nobility. At age 17, he married Leonor de Alvim, daughter of João Pires de Alvim and wife Branca Pires Coelho and childless widow of Vasco Gonçalves Barroso.
Nuno started a military career very early. He was in the army when he was only 13, in 1373, and helped stopping a Castilian invasion. However, according to his own words, his first military campaigns were no more than skirmishes on the borders of Portugal. He was an impetuous and brave young man who soon showed himself to be an excellent leader.

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Origen
Origen (

/ˈɒrɪdʒən/; Greek: Ὠριγένης Ōrigénēs), or Origen Adamantius (184/185 – 253/254), was an early Christian Alexandrian scholar and theologian, and one of the most distinguished writers of the early Church. As early as the fourth century, his orthodoxy was suspect, largely because he believed in the pre-existence and apokatastasis, or universal reconciliation, ideas acknowledged to be beyond the pale of Christianity. Today he is generally regarded as one of the Church Fathers.
Origen excelled in multiple branches of theological scholarship, including textual criticism, biblical interpretation, philosophical theology, preaching, and spirituality. Some of his teachings, however, quickly became controversial. Notably, he frequently referred to his hypothesis of the pre-existence of souls. As in the beginning all intelligent beings were united to God, Origen also held out the possibility, though he did not assert so definitively, that in the end all beings, perhaps even the arch-fiend Satan, would be reconciled to God in what is called the apokatastasis ("restitution"). Origen's views on the Trinity, in which he saw the Son of God as subordinate to God the Father, became controversial during the Arian controversy of the fourth century, though a subordinationist view was common among the ante-Nicene Fathers. A group who came to be known as Origenists, and who firmly believed in the preexistence of souls and the apokatastasis, were declared anathema in the 6th century. This condemnation is attributed to the Second Ecumenical Council of Constantinople, though it does not appear in the council's official minutes. Few scholars today believe that Origen should be blamed, as he commonly was in the past, for tentatively putting forward hypotheses, later judged heretical, on certain philosophical problems during a time when Christian doctrine was somewhat unclear on said problems.

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Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire or Turkish Empire or Sublime Ottoman State or sometimes also referred to as Turkey (Ottoman Turkish: دَوْلَتِ عَلِيّهٔ عُثمَانِیّه Devlet-i ʿAliyye-yi ʿOsmâniyye (also عثمانلى دولتى Osmanlı Devleti),Modern Turkish: Osmanlı Devleti or Osmanlı İmparatorluğu) was a Turkish empire which lasted from 27 July 1299 to 1 November 1922, when the Sultanate was abolished.
The Ottoman Empire was one of the largest and longest lasting empires in history; such that the Ottoman State, its politics, conflicts, and cultural heritage in a vast geography provide one of the longest continuous narratives. During the 16th and 17th centuries, in particular at the height of its power under the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent, the empire was one of the most powerful states in the world – a multinational, multilingual empire that stretched from the southern borders of the Holy Roman Empire to the outskirts of Vienna, Royal Hungary (modern Slovakia) and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in the north to Yemen and Eritrea in the south; from Algeria in the west to Azerbaijan in the east; controlling much of southeast Europe, Western Asia and North Africa. At the beginning of the 17th century the empire contained 32 provinces and numerous vassal states, some of which were later absorbed into the empire, while others were granted various types of autonomy during the course of centuries.

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Paul the Apostle
Paul the Apostle (c. AD 5 – c. AD 67; variously referred to as the "Apostle Paul" or "Saint Paul"), also known as Saul of Tarsus, is perhaps the most influential early Christian missionary. The writings ascribed to him by the church form a considerable portion of the New Testament. The influence on Christian thinking of the epistles ascribed to him has been significant, due in part to his association as a prominent apostle of Christianity during the spreading of the Gospel through early Christian communities across the Roman Empire.
According to the writings in the New Testament, Paul was known as Saul prior to his conversion, and was dedicated to the persecution of the early disciples of Jesus in the area of Jerusalem. While traveling from Jerusalem to Damascus on a mission to "bring them which were there bound unto Jerusalem", the resurrected Jesus appeared to him in a great light. Saul was struck blind, but after three days his sight was restored by Ananias of Damascus, and Paul began to preach that Jesus of Nazareth is the Jewish Messiah and the Son of God.

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Peter Abelard
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Peter Abelard (English pronunciation: /ˈæb.ə.lɑːrd/, French pronunciation: [a.beˈlaːʁ], Latin: Petrus Abaelardus or Abailard; French: Pierre Abélard) (1079–21 April 1142) was a medieval French scholastic philosopher, theologian and preeminent logician. The story of his affair with and love for Héloïse has become legendary. The Chambers Biographical Dictionary describes him as "the keenest thinker and boldest theologian of the 12th Century".
Abelard, originally called "Pierre le Pallet", was born in Le Pallet, about 10 miles (16 km) east of Nantes, in Brittany, the eldest son of a minor noble Breton family. As a boy, he learned quickly. His father, a wealthy lord called Berengar, encouraged Pierre to study the liberal arts, wherein he excelled at the art of dialectic (a branch of philosophy), which, at that time, consisted chiefly of the logic of Aristotle transmitted through Latin channels. Instead of entering a military career, as his father had done, Abelard became an academic. During his early academic pursuits, Abelard wandered throughout France, debating and learning, so as (in his own words) "he became such an one as the Peripatetics." The nominalist Roscellinus of Compiègne was his teacher during this period.

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Peter Damian
Saint Peter Damian, O.S.B. (Petrus Damiani, also Pietro Damiani or Pier Damiani; c. 1007 – February 21/22, 1072) was a reforming monk in the circle of Pope Gregory VII and a cardinal. In 1823, he was declared a Doctor of the Church. Dante placed him in one of the highest circles of Paradiso as a great predecessor of Saint Francis of Assisi.
Peter was born in Ravenna, orphaned early, and after a youth spent in hardship and privation, showed such signs of remarkable intellectual gifts that his brother, Damian, who was archpriest at Ravenna, took him away to be educated. Adding his brother's name to his own, Peter made such rapid progress in his studies of theology and Canon law, first at Ravenna, then at Faenza, finally at Parma, that when about twenty-five years old he was already a famous teacher at Parma and Ravenna.
About 1035, however, he deserted his secular calling and, avoiding the compromised luxury of Cluniac monasteries, entered the isolated hermitage of Fonte Avellana, near Gubbio. Both as novice and as monk, his fervor was remarkable but led him to such extremes of self-mortification in penance that his health was affected. On his recovery, he was appointed to lecture to his fellow-monks, then, at the request of Guy of Pomposa and other heads of neighboring monasteries, for two or three years he lectured to their brethren also, and (about 1042) wrote the life of St. Romuald for the monks of Pietrapertosa. Soon after his return to Fonte Avellana he was appointed economus of the house by the prior, who designated him as his successor. This, in fact, he became in 1043, and he remained prior of Fonte Avellana till his death.

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Philippe Barbarin
Philippe Xavier Christian Ignace Marie Barbarin (born October 17, 1950) is a French cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church, currently serving as Archbishop of Lyon in France. He was elevated to the cardinalate in 2003.
Barbarin was born in 1950 in Rabat, Morocco (which was then a French protectorate) to a large family (six sisters, two of whom are nuns, and four brothers). Barbarin studied for the priesthood in Paris. He was ordained on 17 December 1977, by Bishop Robert de Provenchères of Créteil.
Barbarin was involved in pastoral work until 1994, when he taught theology in the Archdiocese of Fianarantsoa, Madagascar.
On 1 October 1998, he was appointed Bishop of Moulins, and received his episcopal consecration on the following 22 November from the Jesuit Archbishop Philibert Randriambololona of Fianarantsoa (with Bishops André Quélen and Daniel Labille serving as co-consecrators). Barbarin was promoted to Archbishop of Lyon on July 16, 2002.
He was created Cardinal-Priest of SS. Trinità al Monte Pincio by Pope John Paul II in the consistory of 21 October 2003. He was one of the cardinal electors who participated in the 2005 papal conclave that selected Pope Benedict XVI.

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Pietro Parolin
Pietro Parolin (born 17 January 1955) is an Italian prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He currently serves as the Holy See's representative in Venezuela since his appointment by Pope Benedict XVI on 17 August 2009. Previously, he had served from 2002 as Undersecretary for Relations with States, the highest position in the Holy See's diplomatic service after those of Cardinal Secretary of State and Secretary for Relations with States.
Parolin was born in Schiavon, Vicenza. After he was ordained on 27 April 1980, he took up graduate studies in canon law and diplomacy. He entered the Holy See's diplomatic service in 1986 at the age of 31, and has served the Holy See as a diplomat for 20 years, in the nunciatures of Nigeria and Mexico, and in Rome as country director for Spain, Andorra, Italy, San Marino. He speaks Italian, English, French, and Spanish.
Parolin has also been at the forefront of Vatican efforts to approve and implement the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Addressing the International Atomic Energy Agency on 18 September 2006, at its headquarters in Vienna, Austria, Msgr. Parolin referred to this treaty as "the basis to pursue nuclear disarmament and an important element for further development of nuclear energy applications for peaceful purposes." He said: "Since this treaty is the only multilateral legal instrument currently available, intended to bring about a nuclear weapons-free world, it must not be allowed to be weakened. Humanity deserves no less than the full cooperation of all states in this important matter."

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Pope Adeodatus I
Pope Saint Adeodatus I or Deodatus I (which is Given by God in Latin, also called Deusdedit, which is God Has Given; both are now considered variants of the same name) (died 8 November 618) was Pope from 13 November 615 to his death.
He was born in Rome, the son of a subdeacon. He served as a priest for 40 years before his election and was the first priest to be elected pope since John II in 533. Adeodatus represents the second wave of anti-Gregorian challenge to the papacy, the first being that of Sabinian. He reversed the practice of his predecessor Boniface IV of filling the papal administrative ranks with monks by recalling the clergy to such positions and by ordaining some 14 priests, the first ordinations in Rome since Pope Gregory.
In August 618, an earthquake struck Rome, followed by an outbreak of a scab disease, during which Adeodatus died. There was a vacancy of one year, one month, and 16 days before his successor was consecrated.
According to tradition, he was the first pope to use lead seals (bullae) on papal documents, which in time came to be called "papal bulls". One bulla dating from his reign is still preserved, the obverse of which represents the Good Shepherd in the midst of His sheep, with the letters Alpha and Omega underneath, while the reverse bears the inscription: Deusdedit Papæ.

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Pope Adeodatus II
Pope Adeodatus II or Pope Deodatus II reigned as Pope from 11 April 672 to 17 June 676. Little is known about him. Most surviving records indicate that Adeodatus was known for his generosity, especially when it came to the poor and to pilgrims.
Born in Rome, he became a Benedictine and was a monk of the Roman cloister of St Erasmus on the Caelian Hill. He was active in improving monastic discipline and in the repression of Monothelitism and gave Venice the right to choose the doge itself.
Pope Adeodatus II was already an elderly man when he was elected pope and, even though he reigned for four years, not a great deal was accomplished during his pontificate.
He is sometimes referred to as Adeodatus (without a number) since Pope Adeodatus I is sometimes known as Pope Deusdedit.

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Pope Adrian I
Pope Adrian (c. 700 – 25 December 795) was pope from 1 February 772 to 25 December 795. He was the son of Theodore, a Roman nobleman.
Shortly after Adrian's accession the territory ruled by the papacy was invaded by Desiderius, king of the Lombards, and Adrian was compelled to seek the assistance of the Frankish king Charlemagne, who entered Italy with a large army. Charlemagne besieged Desiderius in his capital of Pavia. After taking the town, he banished the Lombard king to the Abbey of Corbie in France, and adopted the title "King of the Lombards" himself. The pope, whose expectations had been aroused, had to content himself with some additions to the Duchy of Rome, the Exarchate of Ravenna, and the Pentapolis in the Marches, which consisted of the "five cities" on the Adriatic coast from Rimini to Ancona with the coastal plain as far as the mountains. He celebrated the occasion by striking the earliest papal coin, and in a mark of the direction the mediaeval papacy was to take, no longer dated his documents by the Emperor in the east, but by the reign of Charles, king of the Franks.

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Pope Adrian II
Adrian II (792–872) was pope from 14 December 867 to 14 December 872. He was a member of a noble Roman family who became pope at an advanced age.
He maintained, but with less energy, the policies of his predecessor Nicholas I. Lothar II, king of Lotharingia, who died in 869, left Adrian to mediate between the Frankish kings with a view to assuring the Holy Roman Emperor Louis II the inheritance of Lothar II, Louis's brother.
Photius, the Patriarch of Constantinople, shortly after the council in which he had pronounced sentence of deposition against Pope Nicholas I, was driven from the patriarchate by a new emperor, Basil the Macedonian, who favoured his rival Ignatius. An Ecumenical Council (Considered the 8th Ecumenical Council by the Catholic Church) was convoked as the Fourth Council of Constantinople to decide this matter. At this council Adrian was represented by legates who presided at the condemnation of Photius as a heretic, but did not succeed in coming to an understanding with Ignatius on the subject of jurisdiction over the Bulgarian church.

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Pope Adrian III
Pope Saint Adrian III, was Pope from 17 May 884 to July 885. He was born at Rome. He died in July 885 at San Cesario sul Panaro (Modena) not long after embarking on a trip to Worms, in modern Germany. The purpose the journey was to attend a diet after being summoned by the Frankish King Charles III, the Fat, to settle the succession to the Holy Roman Empire and discuss the rising power of the Saracens. He was noted^[who?] for having aided the Romans during a famine.
His cult was confirmed in 1891, and his feast day is 8 July.
His death and subsequent burial in the church of San Silvestro Nonantola Abbey near Modena is commemorated in the sculpted reliefs (c. 1122) that frame the doorway of this church. His relics are found near the high altar here.

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Pope Adrian IV
Pope Adrian IV (c. 1100 – 1 September 1159), born Nicholas Breakspear or Breakspeare, was Pope from 1154 to 1159.
Adrian IV has been the only Englishman so far to occupy the papal chair. It is generally believed that Nicholas Breakspear was born at Breakspear Farm in the parish of Abbots Langley in Hertfordshire and received his early education at the Abbey School, St Albans (St Albans School).
His father was Robert, who later became a monk at St Albans. Nicholas himself, however, was refused admission to the monastery, being told by the abbot to "wait to go on with his schooling so that he might be considered more suitable" (Abbey chronicles). In the event, he did not wait and went instead to Paris and finally became a canon regular of the cloister of St. Rufus monastery near Arles. He rose to be prior and soon thereafter was unanimously elected abbot. This election has been traditionally dated to 1137, but evidence from the abbey's chronicles suggests it occurred about 1145.
His reforming zeal as abbot led to the lodging of complaints against him at Rome; but these merely attracted to him the favourable attention of Pope Eugene III, who created him Cardinal Bishop of Albano in December 1149.

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Pope Adrian V
Pope Adrian V (c. 1210/20 – 18 August 1276), born Ottobuono de' Fieschi, was Pope for a short time during the year 1276.
Ottobuono belonged to a feudal family of Liguria, the Fieschi, Counts of Lavagna.
His first clerical position came in 1243, when he was created a papal chaplain. Subsequently he received several ecclesiestical benefices, becoming archdeacon in Bologna (1244) and Parma (1244/48–1255), canon and chancellor of the cathedral chapter in Reims (1243–1250), canon and dean of the chapter in Piacenza (c. 1247) and canon of the cathedral chapter in Paris (1244/45–1270). In December 1251, he was created Cardinal Deacon of San Adriano by his uncle Pope Innocent IV. He was also archpriest of the patriarchal Liberian Basilica (attested from 1262).
He was sent to England in 1265 by Pope Clement IV to mediate between King Henry III of England and his barons, and to preach the Crusades. He remained there for several years as the papal legate, serving from October 1265 to July 1268. His diplomatic position was such that his name is still on the oldest extant piece of English statute law, the Statute of Marlborough of 1267, where the formal title mentions as a witness "the Lord Ottobon, at that time legate in England". (Also on this legation was a young diplomat, the future Boniface VIII.) In April 1268 he issued a set of canons, which formed the basis of church law in England until the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century.

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Pope Adrian VI
Pope Adrian VI (Latin: Hadrianus VI, Dutch: Adrianus VI), born Adriaan Florenszoon Boeyens (2 March 1459 – 14 September 1523), served as the 218th Pope of the Catholic Church from 9 January 1522 until his death on 14 September 1523, 1 year and 248 days later. Pope Adrian VI was born in the Prince-Bishopric of Utrecht in the Low Countries, and he was the last non-Italian Pope until Pope John Paul II, 455 years later, and is, together with Pope Marcellus II, one of only two modern popes to retain his baptismal name after election.
Adriaan Florenszoon Boeyens was born on 2 March 1459 in the city of Utrecht, which was then the capital of the Prince-Bishopric of Utrecht, a part of the Burgundian Netherlands in the Holy Roman Empire. He was born in into modest circumstances as the son of Florens Boeyens van Utrecht, also born in Utrecht, and his wife Gertruid. He is often called a 'German pope', because prior to the 16th-century national identity in the Low Countries was fledgling and 'Dutch' and 'German' were not yet distinct concepts.

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Pope Agapetus I
Pope Saint Agapetus I (died 22 April 536) reigned as pope from 13 May 535 to 22 April 536. He is not to be confused with another Saint Agapetus, an Early Christian martyr with the feast day of 6 August.
Agapetus was born in Rome, although his exact date of birth is unknown. He was the son of Gordianus, a Roman priest who had been slain during the riots in the days of Pope Symmachus (term 498–514). The name of his father might point to a familial relation with two other Popes: Felix III (483–492) and Gregory I (590–604). Gregory was a descendant of Felix. Gregory's father, Gordianus, held the position of Regionarius in the Roman Church. Nothing further is known about the position.
Agapetus collaborated with Cassiodorus in founding at Rome a library of ecclesiastical authors in Greek and Latin and helped Cassiodorus with the project of translating the standard Greek philosophers into Latin.^{[citation needed]}
Jeffrey Richards describes him as "the last survivor of the Symmachan old guard", having been ordained as a deacon perhaps as early as 502, during the Laurentian schism. He was elevated from archdeacon to pope in 535. His first official act was to burn, in the presence of the assembled clergy, the anathema which Boniface II had pronounced against the latter's deceased rival Dioscurus on a false charge of simony and had ordered to be preserved in the Roman archives.

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Pope Agapetus II
Pope Agapetus II (died November 955) was Pope from 10 May 946 until his death in 955, at the time when Alberic II (932–954), son of Marozia, was governing the independent republic of Rome under the title of "prince and senator of the Romans." He was born in Rome.
Agapetus, a man of some force of character, attempted to put a stop to the so-called Pornocracy, which lasted from the accession of Pope Sergius III in 904 to the deposition of Pope John XII in 963. His appeal to Otto I the Great to intervene in Rome remained without immediate effect, since Alberic II's position was too strong to be attacked, but it bore fruit after his death.

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Pope Agatho
Saint Agatho was a Christian pope from 26 June 678 to 10 January 681 and a saint that is venerated by both Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches
Little is known of Agatho before his papacy. A letter written by St. Gregory the Great to the abbot of St. Hermes in Palermo mentions an Agatho, a Greek born in Sicily to wealthy parents. He wished to give away his inheritance and join a monastery, and in this letter Gregorgy advises that he may do so as long as his wife was willing to enter a convent. There is a possibility that Pope Agatho is this monk, but this would make him over 100 years old at the time of his election, and as such must be considered unlikely without further evidence to support a connection.
Shortly after Agatho became Pope, St Wilfrid, Archbishop of York, arrived at Rome to invoke the authority of the Holy See on his behalf. Wilfrid had been deposed from his see by Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury, who had carved up Wilfrid's diocese and appointed three bishops to govern the new sees. At a synod which Pope Agatho convoked in the Lateran to investigate the affair, it was decided that Wilfrid's diocese should indeed be divided, but that Wilfrid himself should name the bishops.

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Pope Alexander I
Pope Saint Alexander I was Bishop of Rome from about 106 to 115. The Holy See's Annuario Pontificio (2012) identifies him as a Roman who reigned from 108 or 109 to 116 or 119. Some believe he suffered martyrdom under the Roman Emperor Trajan or Hadrian, but this is improbable.
According to the Liber Pontificalis, it was Alexander I who inserted the narration of the Last Supper (the Qui pridie) into the Catholic mass. However, in the article on Saint Alexander I in the 1907 Catholic Encyclopedia, Thomas Shahan judges this tradition to be inaccurate. Both Catholic and non-Catholic experts regard this tradition as inaccurate. It is viewed as a product of the agenda of Liber Pontificalis—this section of the book was probably written in the late fifth century—to show an ancient pattern of the earliest bishops of Rome ruling the church by papal decree.
The introduction of the customs of using blessed water mixed with salt for the purification of Christian homes from evil influences, and of mixing water with the sacramental wine are attributed to Pope Alexander I. Some sources consider these attributions unlikely. It is certainly possible, however, that Alexander played an important part in the early development of the Church of Rome's emerging liturgical and administrative traditions.

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Pope Alexander II
Pope Alexander II (died 21 April 1073), born Anselmo da Baggio, was Pope from 1061 to 1073.
He was born in Milan. As Anselm I, bishop of Lucca, he had been an energetic coadjutor with Hildebrand of Sovana in endeavouring to suppress simony and enforce the clerical celibacy. The papal election of 1061, which Hildebrand had arranged in conformity with the papal decree of 1059 (see Pope Nicholas II), was not sanctioned by the imperial court of Germany. True to the practice observed in preceding papal elections, the German court nominated another candidate, Cadalus, bishop of Parma, who was proclaimed Pope at the council of Basel under the name of Honorius II. He marched to Rome and for a long time threatened his rival's position. At length, however, Honorius was forsaken by the German court and deposed by a council held at Mantua; Alexander II's position remained unchallenged.
In 1065, Alexander admonished Landulf VI of Benevento "that the conversion of Jews is not to be obtained by force." Also in the same year, Alexander called for a crusade against the Moors in Spain.

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Pope Alexander III
Pope Alexander III (c. 1100/1105 – 30 August 1181), born Rolando (or Orlando) of Siena, was Pope from 1159 to 1181. He is noted in history for laying the foundation stone for the Notre Dame de Paris.
He was born in Siena. From 14th century he is referred to as a member of the aristocratic family of Bandinelli, but this is not proven. For a long time, scholars believed^{[citation needed]} him to be identical with the 12th-century canon lawyer and theologian Master Roland of Bologna, who composed the "Stroma" or "Summa Rolandi"—one of the earliest commentaries on the Decretum of Gratian—and the "Sententiae Rolandi", a sentence collection displaying the influence of Pierre Abélard.
In October 1150, Pope Eugene III created him cardinal deacon with the Title of Santi Cosma e Damiano. Later he became cardinal priest with the Title of St Mark. In 1153, he became papal chancellor and was the leader of the cardinals opposed to German Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa. He negotiated the Treaty of Benevento, which restored peaceful relations between Rome and the Kingdom of Sicily.

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Pope Alexander IV
Pope Alexander IV (1199 or ca. 1185 – 25 May 1261) was Pope from 1254 until his death.
Born as Rinaldo di Jenne in Jenne (now in the Province of Rome), he was, on his mother's side, a member of the family de' Conti di Segni, the counts of Segni, like Pope Innocent III and Pope Gregory IX. His uncle Gregory IX made him cardinal deacon and Protector of the Order of Franciscans in 1227, Camerlengo of the Holy Roman Church from 1227 until 1231 and Bishop of Ostia in 1231 (or 1232). He became Dean of the Sacred College of Cardinals in 1244 (or 1240). On the death of Pope Innocent IV in 1254 he was elected pope at Naples on 12 December 1254.
Alexander IV succeeded Innocent IV as guardian of Conradin, the last of the Hohenstaufens, promising him protection; but in less than a fortnight he conspired against him and bitterly opposed Conradin's uncle Manfred.^{[citation needed]} Alexander IV threatened excommunication and interdict against the party of Manfred without effect. Nor could he enlist the kings of England and Norway in a crusade against the Hohenstaufens. Rome itself became too Ghibelline for the Pope, who withdrew to Viterbo, where he died in 1261. He was buried in Viterbo Cathedral, but his tomb was destroyed during sixteenth-century renovations.

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Pope Alexander VI
Pope Alexander VI (Spanish: Alejandro VI, or Alexander Sextus), born Roderic Llançol i de Borja (Spanish: Rodrigo Lanzol; 1 January 1431 – 18 August 1503) was pope (Bishop of Rome) from 1492 until his death in 1503. He is one of the most controversial of the Renaissance popes, and his Italianized surname Borgia became a byword for libertinism and nepotism, which are traditionally considered as characterizing his papacy. However, his reputation is mostly drawn from his enemies, the Italian prelates and barons whose power he subverted. Two of Alexander's successors, Sixtus V and Urban VIII, described him as one of the most outstanding popes since St. Peter. His reputation rests more on his considerable skills as a diplomat, politician and civil administrator rather than as a pastor, although regarding the latter he was no more or less effective than any of the other renaissance pontiffs.
Rodrigo Llançol was born on 1 January 1431 in the town of Xàtiva in the Kingdom of Valencia, one of the component realms of the Crown of Aragon, in present-day Spain. His parents were the Valencian Jofré Llançol i Escrivà (died bef. 24 March 1437) and his wife and distant cousin the Aragonese Isabel de Borja y Cavanilles (died 19 October 1468). His family name is written Llançol in Valencian and Lanzol in Spanish. Rodrigo adopted his mother's family name of Borja in 1455 following the elevation to the papacy of his maternal uncle Alonso de Borja (Italianized to Alfonso Borgia) as Calixtus III.

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Pope Alexander VII
Pope Alexander VII (13 February 1599 – 22 May 1667), born Fabio Chigi, was Pope from 7 April 1655, until his death.
Born in Siena, a member of the illustrious banking family of Chigi and a great-nephew of Pope Paul V (1605–1621), he was privately tutored and eventually received doctorates of philosophy, law, and theology from the University of Siena.
In 1627 he began his apprenticeship as vice-papal legate at Ferrara, and on recommendations from two cardinals he was appointed successively Inquisitor of Malta and nuncio in Cologne (1639–1651). There, he supported Urban VIII's condemnation of Jansenius' Augustinus by the papal bull In eminenti of 1642.
Though expected to take part in the negotiations which led in 1648 to the Peace of Westphalia, he declined to deliberate with persons whom the Catholic Church considered heretics, and protested, when it was finally completed, against the Treaty of Westphalia that ended the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) and established the balance of European power that lasted until the wars of the French Revolution (1789).

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Pope Alexander VIII
Pope Alexander VIII (22 April 1610 – 1 February 1691), born Pietro Vito Ottoboni, was Pope from 1689 to 1691.
Pietro Ottoboni was born of a noble Venetian family, and was the son of Marco Ottoboni, chancellor of the Republic of Venice. His early studies were made with marked brilliancy at the University of Padua, where, in 1627, he earned a doctorate in canon and civil law.
He went to Rome during the pontificate of Pope Urban VIII (1623–44), and was made governor of Terni, Rieti, and Spoleto. For fourteen years he served as auditor of the Rota. At the request of the Venetian Republic, Ottoboni was made Cardinal-Priest of San Salvatore in Lauro by Pope Innocent X (1644–55) in 1652, and was later given the bishopric of Brescia, in Venetian territory, where he quietly spent the best years of middle life.
The ambassador of Louis XIV of France (1643–1715) succeeded in procuring his election on 6 October 1689, as successor to Pope Innocent XI (1676–89); nevertheless, after months of negotiation Alexander VIII finally condemned the declaration made in 1682 by the French clergy concerning the liberties of the Gallican church.

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Pope Anacletus
Pope Saint Anacletus (very rarely written as Anencletus), also called Pope Cletus, was the third Roman Pope (after St. Peter and St. Linus).
The 14 February 1961 Instruction of the Congregation for Rites on the application to local calendars of Pope John XXIII's motu proprio Rubricarum instructum of 25 July 1960 decreed that "the feast of 'Saint Anacletus', on whatever ground and in whatever grade it is celebrated, is transferred to 26 April, under its right name, 'Saint Cletus'. The Roman Martyrology mentions the Pope in question only under the name of "Cletus". The Annuario Pontificio gives both forms, as alternatives. Eusebius, Saint Irenaeus, Saint Augustine and Optatus all suggest that both names refer to the same individual. On the other hand, the Liberian Catalogue and the Liber Pontificalis both state that Anacletus and Cletus are two different persons.
The name "Cletus" in Ancient Greek means "one who has been called", and "Anacletus" means "one who has been called back".
St Cletus/Anacletus was traditionally said to have been a Roman, and to have been pope for twelve years. The Annuario Pontificio states: "For the first two centuries, the dates of the start and the end of the pontificate are uncertain." It gives the years 80 to 92 as the reign of Pope Cletus/Anacletus. Other sources give the years 77 to 88.

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Pope Anastasius I
Pope Saint Anastasius I, born in Rome the son of Maximus, was pope from 27 November 399 to 401.
He condemned the writings of the Alexandrian theologian Origen shortly after their translation into Latin. He fought against these writings throughout his papacy, and in 400 he called a council to discuss them. The council agreed that Origen was not faithful to the Catholic Church.
If Origen has put forth any other writings, you are to know that they and their author are alike condemned by me. The Lord have you in safe keeping, my lord and brother deservedly held in honour.

— letter to Simplicianus,
During his reign he also encouraged Catholics in North Africa to fight Donatism.
It was Pope Anastasius who instructed priests to stand and bow their head as they read from the gospels.
Among his friends were Augustine, Jerome, and Paulinus. Jerome speaks of him as a man of great holiness who was rich in his poverty.
Anastasius was succeeded by his son, Innocent I, who was born before Anastasius entered the clergy.

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Pope Anastasius II
Pope Anastasius II was pope from 24 November 496 to 16 November 498.
Anastasius II was pontiff during the time of the schism of Patriarch Acacius of Constantinople. He showed some tendency towards conciliation, and thus brought upon himself the lively reproaches of the author of the Liber Pontificalis. On the strength of this tradition, Dante placed this pope in Hell. According to historian Richard P. McBrien, the view of Anastasius II as a traitor is unjust. Anastasius II had entered in communion with a supporter of Acacius, bringing condemnation from some of the clergy of Rome, who denounced Anastasius II. His death in 498 at the height of the crisis was seen as divine retribution.

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Pope Anastasius III
Pope Anastasius III (died June 913) was Pope from April 911 to June 913, was a Roman by birth. A Roman nobleman, Lucian, is sometimes recognized as his father, although other sources assert that he was the illegitimate son of his predecessor Pope Sergius III (904–911).
Practically nothing is recorded of Pope Anastasius III, his pontificate falling in the period when Rome and the Papacy were in the power of Theophylact, Count of Tusculum, and his wife Theodora, who approved Anastasius III's candidacy. Under his reign the Normans of Rollo were evangelized.
He was buried in St. Peter's Basilica.

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Pope Anastasius IV
Pope Anastasius IV (ca. 1073 – 3 December 1154), born Corrado Demetri della Suburra, was Pope from 1153 to 1154.
He was a Roman, son of Benedictus de Suburra, probably of the family of Demetri, and became a secular clerk. He was created cardinal-priest of S. Pudenziana by Pope Paschal II no later than in 1114. In 1127 or 1128 Pope Honorius II promoted him to the suburbicarian See of Sabina. He had taken part in the double papal election of 1130, had been one of the most determined opponents of Antipope Anacletus II and, when Pope Innocent II fled to France, had been left behind as his vicar in Italy. At the time of his election to the papacy in July 1153 he was Dean of the College of Cardinals and probably the oldest member of that body.
During his short pontificate he played the part of a peacemaker; he came to terms with the Emperor Frederick I in the vexing question of the appointment to the See of Magdeburg and closed the long quarrel, which had raged through four pontificates, about the appointment of William Fitzherbert (commonly known as Saint William of York) to the see of York by sending him the pallium in spite of the continued opposition of the powerful Cistercian order. Pope Anastasius IV died on 3 December 1154 and was succeeded by Cardinal Nicholas of Albano as Pope Adrian IV.

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Pope Anicetus
Pope Saint Anicetus was Pope of the Catholic Church from about 150 to about 167 (the Vatican's list cites 150 to 167 or 153 to 168). His name is Greek for unconquered (ἀ-νίκητος). He was a Syrian from the city of Emesa (modern-day Homs).
According to Irenaeus, it was during his pontificate that the aged Polycarp of Smyrna, a disciple of John the Evangelist, visited Rome to discuss the celebration of Passover with Anicetus. Polycarp and his Church of Smyrna celebrated the crucifixion on the fourteenth day of Nisan, which coincides with Pesach (or Passover) regardless of which day of the week upon this date fell, while the Roman Church celebrated the Pasch on Sunday—the weekday of Jesus' resurrection. The two did not agree on a common date, but Anicetus conceded to St Polycarp and the Church of Smyrna the ability to retain the date to which they were accustomed. The controversy was to grow heated in the following centuries.
The Christian historian Hegesippus also visited Rome during Anicetus' pontificate. This visit is often cited as a sign of the early importance of the Roman See.

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Pope Anterus
Pope Saint Anterus was Pope from 21 November 235 to 3 January 236, and succeeded Pope Pontian, who had been deported from Rome along with the antipope Hippolytus to Sardinia.
Anterus was the son of Romulus, born in Petilia Policastro. He was pope for only one month and ten days, and is thought to have been of Greek origin, but the name could indicate that he was a freed slave. He created one bishop for the city of Fondi.
Some scholars believe he was martyred, because he ordered greater strictness in searching into the acts of the martyrs exactly collected by the notaries appointed by Saint Clement^{[disambiguation needed ]}.^{[clarification needed]} Other scholars doubt this and believe it is more likely that he died in undramatic circumstances during the persecutions of Emperor Maximinus the Thracian.
He was buried in the papal crypt of the Catacomb of Callixtus on the Appian Way in Rome. The site of his sepulchre was discovered by De Rossi in 1854, with some broken remnants of the Greek epitaph engraved on the narrow oblong slab that closed his tomb and only the Greek term for bishop readable.

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Pope Benedict I
Pope Benedict I was pope from 2 June 575 to 30 July 579.
Benedict was the son of a man named Bonifacius, and was called Bonosus by the Greeks. The ravages of the Lombards rendered it very difficult to communicate with the Byzantine Emperor at Constantinople, who claimed the privilege of confirming the election of the popes. Hence there was a vacancy of nearly eleven months between the death of Pope John III and the arrival of the imperial confirmation of Benedict's election on 2 June 575.
Benedict granted an estate, the Massa Veneris, in the territory of Minturnae, to Abbot Stephen of St. Mark's "near the walls of Spoleto" (St. Gregory I, Ep. ix, 87, I. al. 30). Famine followed the devastating Lombards, and from the few words the Liber Pontificalis has about Benedict, we gather that he died in the midst of his efforts to cope with these difficulties. He was buried in the vestibule of the sacristy of the old Basilica of St. Peter. In a ceremony held in December, he ordained fifteen priests and three deacons and consecrated twenty-one bishops.

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Pope Benedict II
Pope Saint Benedict II was Pope from 684 to 685.
Pope Benedict II died on 8 May 685. He succeeded Leo II. Although chosen in 683, he was not ordained until 684 because the permission of Emperor Constantine IV was not obtained until some months after the election. According to the Liber Diurnus Romanorum Pontificum, he obtained from the Emperor a decree which either abolished imperial confirmations altogether or made them obtainable from the Exarch of Ravenna. This gave the power of confirmations of papal nominations directly to the Church and the people of Rome. Benedict symbolically adopted Constantine's two sons Justinian and Heraclius.
To help to suppress Monothelitism, he endeavoured to secure the subscriptions of the bishops of Hispania to the decrees of the Third Council of Constantinople of 678, and to bring about the submission to the decrees of Macarius, the deposed bishop of Antioch.
Restorations of numerous churches in Rome are ascribed to the less than a year's pontificate of Benedict II.

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Pope Benedict III
Pope Benedict III was Pope from 29 September 855 to 17 April 858.
Little is known of Benedict's life before his papacy. He was educated and lived in Rome and was cardinal priest of the church of San Callisto at the time of his election. Benedict had a reputation for learning and piety. He was elected upon the refusal of Hadrian, the initial choice of the clergy and people. A group of important people preferred a different candidate, Anastasius. This latter group had Benedict's election disavowed and Anastasius installed. However, popular opinion was so strong that Benedict's consecration was allowed. The envoys of Holy Roman Emperor Louis II forced Benedict to handle Anastasius and his adherents leniently. The schism helped to weaken the hold of the emperors upon the popes, especially upon their elections.
Benedict intervened in the conflict between the sons of Lothair I (the future King Lothair II of Lotharingia, Emperor Louis II and Charles of Provence) on the latter's death. He was active in other cases as well and adopted a firm position towards Constantinople.

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Pope Benedict IV
Pope Benedict IV (died July 903) was Pope from 900 to 903. He was the son of Mammalus, a native of Rome. The tenth-century historian Frodoard, who nicknamed him the Great, commended his noble birth and public generosity. He succeeded Pope John IX (898–900) and was followed by Pope Leo V (903).
Benedict IV upheld the ordinances of Pope Formosus, whose rotting corpse had been exhumed by Pope Stephen VI and put on trial in the Cadaver Synod of 897. In 901, after the Carolingian Emperors had disappeared, Benedict followed the example of Pope Leo III and crowned Louis of Provence as Holy Roman Emperor. In his reign, he also excommunicated Baldwin II of Flanders for murdering Fulk, Archbishop of Reims. He died in the summer of 903 and was buried in front of St Peter's Basilica, by the gate of Guido.
This article incorporates text from the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia article "Pope Benedict IV" by Horace K. Mann, a publication now in the public domain.

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Pope Benedict IX
Pope Benedict IX (c. 1012 – c. 1056), born in Rome as Theophylactus of Tusculum, was Pope on three occasions between 1032 and 1048. One of the youngest popes, he was the only man to have been Pope on more than one occasion and the only man ever to have sold the papacy.
Benedict was born the son of Alberic III, Count of Tusculum, and was a nephew of Pope Benedict VIII and Pope John XIX. His father obtained the Papal chair for him, granting it to his son in October 1032.
According to the Catholic Encyclopedia and other sources, Benedict IX was around 18 to 20 years old when made pontiff, although some sources claim 11 or 12. He reportedly led an extremely dissolute life and allegedly had few qualifications for the papacy other than connections with a socially powerful family, although in terms of theology and the ordinary activities of the Church he was entirely orthodox. St. Peter Damian is alleged to have described him as "feasting on immorality"; the anti-papal historian Ferdinand Gregorovius wrote that in Benedict, "a demon from hell in the disguise of a priest... occupied the chair of Peter and profaned the sacred mysteries of religion by his insolent courses."[1] The Catholic Encyclopedia calls him "a disgrace to the Chair of Peter." The first pope said to have been primarily homosexual, he was said to have held orgies in the Lateran palace.

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Pope Benedict V
Pope Benedict V (died 4 July 966), of Roman birth, was Pope in 964, elected by the Romans on the death of Pope John XII. However the Holy Roman Emperor Otto I (936–973) did not approve of the choice and had him deposed after only a month with his acquiescence. The ex-Pope was carried off to Hamburg and placed under the care of Adaldag, Archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen. There he became a deacon, dying in 966. He was first buried in the cathedral in Hamburg. At a later date his remains were transferred to Rome.
At the synod which deposed him in July 964, the pastoral staff was broken over him by Pope Leo VIII; this is the first mention of the papal sceptre.

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Pope Benedict VI
Pope Benedict VI was pope from January 973 to June 974. His brief pontificate came in the political context of the founding of the Holy Roman Empire, during the transition between the reigns of German emperors Otto I and Otto II and the struggle for power of aristocratic families such as the Crescentii and Tusculani in the region of Rome.
Benedict VI was born in Rome, the son of Hildebrand. He was elected and installed as pope under the protection of Otto I, whose dominance in Roman and ecclesial affairs was resisted by local aristocracy. Record of his reign as pope is scant, though he is known to have confirmed privileges assumed by certain monasteries and churches.
Otto I died soon after Benedict's election in 973, and in 974 Benedict was imprisoned in the Castel Sant'Angelo, at that time a stronghold of the Crescentii. When Otto II sent an imperial representative, Count Sicco, to secure his release, Crescentius I and Cardinal-Deacon Franco Ferrucci, who would subsequently become Boniface VII, an antipope, had Benedict murdered while still in prison.

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Pope Benedict VII
Pope Benedict VII (died 10 July 983) was born in Rome, the son of David or Deodatus (brother of Alberic II of Spoleto). Before his election to the papacy, he had previously served as Bishop of Sutri. He belonged to the noble family of the Counts of Tusculum. He was elected by the Roman clergy and people in October 974 under the influence of Sicco, imperial envoy of Emperor Otto II. He governed Rome quietly for nearly nine years, a somewhat rare thing in those days. Benedict VII's date of birth is not known with certainty, but it is known that he was related to Prince Alberic II and connected to the Crescenti family. He succeeded to the papacy as a compromise candidate to replace antipope Boniface VII (974, 984–985). Boniface VII was excommunicated and unsuccessfully attempted to retake the papacy.
Benedict VII promoted monasticism and ecclesiastical reform along with Emperor Otto II. He also consecrated the priest James, who had been sent to him by the people of Carthage "to help the wretched province of Africa." Benedict VII visited the city of Orvieto with his nephew Filippo Alberici, who later settled there and became Consul of the city state in 1016. The Alberici family live there to this day. In March 981, Benedict presided over a synod in St Peter's that prohibited simony. In September 981, he convened a Lateran Synod.

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Pope Benedict VIII
Pope Benedict VIII (died 9 April 1024), born Theophylactus, was Pope from 1012 to 1024. He was of the noble family of the counts of Tusculum (son of Gregory, Count of Tusculum, and brother of future Pope John XIX), descended from Theophylact, Count of Tusculum, just as was his predecessor Pope Benedict VI (973–974).
Benedict VIII was opposed by an antipope, Gregory VI, who compelled him to flee Rome. He was restored by Henry II of Germany, whom he crowned Emperor on 14 February 1014. He remained on good terms with Henry for his entire pontificate. In Benedict VIII's pontificate the Saracens renewed their attacks on the southern coasts of Italy. They also burned Pavia and effected a settlement in Sardinia. The Normans also then began to settle in Italy. The Pope promoted peace in Italy by allying himself with the Normans, orchestrating the defeat of the Saracens in Sardinia and subjugating the Crescentii. In 1022, he held a synod at Pavia with the Emperor to restrain simony and incontinence of the clergy. The reformation sponsored by Cluny Abbey was supported by him, and he was a friend of its abbot, St. Odilo.

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Pope Benedict XI
Blessed Pope Benedict XI (1240 – 7 July 1304), born Nicola Boccasini, was Pope from 22 October 1303 until his death.
Born in Treviso, he succeeded Pope Boniface VIII, but was unable to carry out his policies. Benedict XI was a Dominican and when he was made Master of the Order in 1296, he issued ordinances forbidding public questioning of the legitimacy of Boniface VIII's election on the part of any Dominican. At the time of the seizure of Pope Boniface VIII at Anagni in 1303, Boccasini was one of only two cardinals to defend the papal party in the Lateran Palace itself. However, upon being elected Pope at the papal conclave of 1303, he released King Philip IV of France from the excommunication that had been laid upon him by Boniface VIII, and practically ignored Boniface's bull Unam sanctam, which asserted papal supremacy over secular rulers. Nevertheless, on 7 June 1304, Benedict excommunicated Philip IV's implacable minister Guillaume de Nogaret and all the Italians who had played a part in the seizure of Boniface VIII at Anagni.

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Pope Benedict XII
Pope Benedict XII (died 25 April 1342), born Jacques Fournier, the third of the Avignon Popes, was Pope from 1334 to 1342.
Little is known of the origins of Jacques Fournier. He is believed to have been born in Saverdun in the Comté de Foix around the 1280s to a family of modest means. He became a Cistercian monk and left the countryside to study at the University of Paris. In 1311 he was made Abbot of Fontfroide Abbey and quickly became known for his intelligence and organizational ability. In 1317 he was made Bishop of Pamiers. There he undertook a rigorous hunt for Cathar heretics, which won him praise from religious authorities, but alienated the local people.
His efforts against the Cathars of Montaillou in the Ariège were carefully recorded in the Fournier Register, which he took to Rome and deposited in the Vatican Library. This has been documented by Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie's pioneering microhistory, Montaillou, village occitan. In 1326, upon the successful rooting out of the last – it was believed – heretics of the south, he was made Bishop of Mirepoix in the Ariège. A year later, in 1327, he was made a cardinal.

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Pope Benedict XIII
Pope Benedict XIII (2 February 1650 – 21 February 1730), born Pietro Francesco Orsini, later Friar Vincenzo Maria Orsini, O.P., was pope from 1724 until his death.
He was born in Gravina in Puglia to Ferdinando III Orsini, duke of Gravina, and Giovanna Frangipani della Tolfa, from Toritto. He was a member of the Orsini of Rome, the third and last member of that family to become Pope. He entered the Dominican Order and received the name Vincenzo Maria. He was named Cardinal-Priest of San Sisto on 22 February 1672 (allegedly, against his will); later he was bishop of Manfredonia, bishop of Cesena and then archbishop of Benevento.
At first, he called himself Benedict XIV, but afterwards altered the title to Benedict XIII (the previous Benedict XIII having been considered an antipope).
He endeavoured to put a stop to the decadent lifestyles of the Italian priesthood and of the cardinalate. He also abolished the lottery in Rome. A man fond above all of asceticism and religious celebrations, according to Cardinal Lambertini (later Pope Benedict XIV) he "did not have any idea about how to rule". The government was effectively held in his lieu by Cardinal Niccolò Coscia, who had been Benedict's secretary when he was archbishop of Benevento, and who committed a long series of financial abuses at his own advantage, causing the ruin of the Papal treasure. According to Montesquieu, "All the money of Rome go to Benevento... as the Beneventani direct [Benedict's] weakness".

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Pope Benedict XIV
Pope Benedict XIV (31 March 1675 – 3 May 1758), born Prospero Lorenzo Lambertini, was Pope from 17 August 1740 to 3 May 1758.
Lambertini was born into a noble family of Bologna, which was at that time the second largest city in the Papal States. He was created Cardinal-Priest of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme on 10 May 1728 and was elected Pope in 1740. The conclave that elected him had lasted for six months, and he is reported to have said to the cardinals: "If you wish to elect a saint, choose Gotti; a statesman, Aldrovandi; an honest man, me". His Papacy began in a time of great difficulties, chiefly caused by the disputes between Catholic rulers and the Papacy about governmental demands to nominate bishops rather than leaving the appointment to the Church. He managed to overcome most of these problems — the Holy See's disputes with the Kingdom of Naples, Sardinia, Spain, Venice, and Austria were settled.
He had a very active papacy, reforming the education of priests, the calendar of feasts of the Church, and many papal institutions. Perhaps the most important act of Benedict XIV's pontificate was the promulgation of his famous laws about missions in the two bulls, Ex quo singulari and Omnium solicitudinum. In these bulls he ruled on the custom of accommodating Christian words and usages to express non-Christian ideas and practices of the native cultures, which had been extensively done by the Jesuits in their Indian and Chinese missions.

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Pope Benedict XV
Pope Benedict XV (Latin: Benedictus PP. XV, Italian: Benedetto XV; 21 November 1854 – 22 January 1922), born Giacomo Paolo Giovanni Battista della Chiesa, reigned as Pope from 3 September 1914 to 22 January 1922. His pontificate was largely overshadowed by World War I and its political, social and humanitarian consequences in Europe.
Between 1846 and 1903, the Church experienced its two longest pontificates in history up to that point. Together Pius IX and Leo XIII ruled for 57 years. In 1914, the Cardinals choose Della Chiesa at the age of 59, indicating their desire for another long-lasting pontificate at the outbreak of World War I, which he labeled “the suicide of civilized Europe.” The war and its consequences were the main focus of Benedict. He declared the neutrality of the Holy See and attempted from that perspective to mediate peace in 1916 and 1917. Both sides rejected his initiatives. German Protestants rejected any “Papal Peace” as insulting. French politician Georges Clemenceau regarded the Vatican initiative as anti-French.

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Pope Benedict XVI
Benedict XVI (Latin: Benedictus PP. XVI; Italian: Benedetto XVI; German: Benedikt XVI.; born Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger on 16 April 1927) is the 265th Pope, a position in which he serves dual roles as Sovereign of the Vatican City State and leader of the Catholic Church. As pope he is regarded as the successor of Saint Peter. Benedict XVI was elected on 19 April 2005 in a papal conclave, celebrated his Papal Inauguration Mass on 24 April 2005, and took possession of his cathedral, the Archbasilica of St. John Lateran, on 7 May 2005. A native of Bavaria, Pope Benedict XVI has both German and Vatican citizenship.
After a long career as an academic, serving as a professor of theology at various German universities—the last being the University of Regensburg—he was appointed Archbishop of Munich and Freising and cardinal by Pope Paul VI in 1977. In 1981, he settled in Rome when he became Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, one of the most important dicasteries of the Roman Curia. From 2002 until his election as Pope, he was also Dean of the College of Cardinals, and as such the primus inter pares among the cardinals. Prior to becoming Pope, he was "a major figure on the Vatican stage for a quarter of a century" as "one of the most respected, influential and controversial members of the College of Cardinals"; he had an influence "second to none when it came to setting church priorities and directions" as one of Pope John Paul II's closest confidants.

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Pope Boniface I
Pope Saint Boniface I was pope from 28 December 418 to 4 September 422. He was a contemporary of Saint Augustine of Hippo, who dedicated to him some of his works.
On the day of the funeral for Pope Zosimus, which was held at San Lorenzo fuori le Mura, partisans of Eulalius occupied the Lateran. Later that day, he proceeded thither with a crowd consisting of deacons, laity and a few priests, and was elected bishop. The new Pope and his supporters remained at the church until Sunday, 29 December, for the formal ordination customarily took place on a Sunday. Meanwhile, on the Saturday after Eulalius had been elected, a majority of the priests of the church elected Boniface, who had previously been a councilor of Pope Innocent, and was also ordained on 29 December at the Church of Saint Marcellus in the Campus Martius. The Urban Prefect Aurelius Anicius Symmachus warned both parties to keep the peace, and wrote to the Emperor Honorius that Eulalius, who had been elected first and in due order, was in the right. The Emperor answered on 3 January 419, recognizing Eulalius as the rightful Bishop of Rome. Despite these official acts, violence broke out between the two groups, and Boniface was seized by the Prefect's police and taken to a lodging outside the walls where he was detained under the surveillance of the Prefect's agents.

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Pope Boniface II
Pope Boniface II was pope from 530 to 532.
He was by birth an Ostrogoth, the first Germanic pope, and he owed his appointment to the influence of the Gothic king Athalaric. Boniface was chosen by his predecessor, Pope Felix IV, who had been a strong adherent of the Arian king, and was never elected. For a time, Boniface served as Pope in competition with the Antipope Dioscorus, who had been elected by most of the priests of Rome. Boniface and Dioscorus were both consecrated in Rome on 22 September 530, but Dioscurus died only twenty-two days later.
Boniface changed the numbering of the years in the Julian Calendar from Ab Urbe Condita to Anno Domini.

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Pope Boniface III
Pope Boniface III was Pope from 19 February to 12 November 607. Despite his short time as Pope he made a significant contribution to the organization of the Catholic Church.
The son of John Cataadioce, he was a Roman by birth although of Greek extraction.
As a deacon, Boniface had impressed Pope Gregory I, who described him as a man "of tried faith and character" and selected him to be apocrisiarius (legate, essentially the papal nuncio) to the court of Constantinople in 603. This was to be a significant time in his life and helped to shape his short but eventful papacy.
As apocrisarius he had the ear of Emperor Phocas and was held in esteem by him. This was to prove important when he was instructed by Pope Gregory to intercede with Emperor Phocas on behalf of Bishop Alcison of Cassiope on the island of Corcyra. Alcison found his position as bishop being usurped by Bishop John of Euria in Epirus, who had fled his home along with his clergy to escape from attacks by the Slavs and Avars. John, having found himself safe on Corcyra, was not content to serve under Bishop Alcison; instead he set about trying to usurp his episcopal authority. Normally this behaviour would not have been tolerated, but Emperor Phocas was sympathetic to Bishop John and not inclined to interfere. Alcison appealed to Pope Gregory, who left the problem to Boniface to resolve. In a stroke of diplomatic genius, Boniface managed to reconcile all the parties while still retaining the confidence of the Emperor.

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Pope Boniface IV
Pope Saint Boniface IV (c. 550 – 25 May 615) was pope from 608 to his death.
Son of Johannes, "a physician, a Marsian from the province and town of Valeria; he succeeded Boniface III after a vacancy of over nine months." He was consecrated on either 25 August (Duchesne) or 15 September (Jaffé) in 608. His death is listed as either 8 May or 25 May 615 by these same two authorities.
In the time of Pope Gregory I, he was a deacon of the Roman Church and held the position of dispensator, that is, the first official in connection with the administration of the patrimonies.
Boniface obtained leave from the Byzantine Emperor Phocas to convert the Pantheon in Rome into a Christian church, and on 13 May 609 (?), the temple erected by Agrippa to Jupiter the Avenger, Venus, and Mars was consecrated by the pope to the Virgin Mary and all the Martyrs. It was the first instance at Rome of the transformation of a pagan temple into a place of Christian worship. Twenty-eight cartloads of sacred bones were said to have been removed from the Catacombs and placed in a porphyry basin beneath the high altar.

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Pope Boniface IX
Pope Boniface IX (c. 1350 – 1 October 1404), born Piero Tomacelli, was the second Roman Pope of the Western Schism, from 2 November 1389 until his death. During this time the Antipopes Clement VII and Benedict XIII continued to hold court as pope in Avignon under the protection of the French monarchy. He was the last Pope who bore the name Boniface.
Piero (also Perino, Pietro) Tomacelli came of an ancient but impoverished baronial family of Casarano in the Kingdom of Naples. An unsympathetic German contemporary source, Dietrich of Nieheim, asserted that he was illiterate (nesciens scribere etiam male cantabat). Neither a trained theologian nor skilled in the business of the Curia, he was tactful and prudent in a difficult era, but Ludwig Pastor, who passes swiftly over his pontificate, says, "The numerous endeavours for unity made during this period form one of the saddest chapters in the history of the Church. Neither Pope had the magnanimity to put an end to the terrible state of affairs" by resigning. After his election at the papal conclave of 1389, Germany, England, Hungary, Poland, and the greater part of Italy accepted him as Pope. The remainder of Europe recognized the Avignon Pope Clement VII. He and Boniface mutually excommunicated each other.

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Pope Boniface V
Pope Boniface V (died 25 October 625) was pope from 619 to 625.
He was consecrated as pope on 23 December 619. He did much for the Christianising of England and enacted the decree by which churches became places of refuge for criminals.
Boniface V was a Neapolitan who succeeded Pope Adeodatus I after a vacancy of more than a year. Before his consecration, Italy was disturbed by the rebellion of the eunuch Eleutherius, Exarch of Ravenna. The patrician pretender advanced towards Rome, but before he could reach the city, he was slain by his own troops.
The Liber Pontificalis records that Boniface made certain enactments relative to the rights of sanctuary, and that he ordered the ecclesiastical notaries to obey the laws of the empire on the subject of wills. He also prescribed that acolytes should not presume to translate the relics of martyrs and that, in the Basilica di San Giovanni in Laterano, they should not take the place of deacons in administering baptism. Boniface completed and consecrated the cemetery of Saint Nicomedes on the Via Nomentana. In the Liber Pontificalis, Boniface is described as "the mildest of men", whose chief distinction was his great love for the clergy.

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Pope Boniface VI
Pope Boniface VI, a native of Rome, was elected Pope in April 896 as a result of riots soon after the death of Pope Formosus. Prior to his reign, he had twice incurred a sentence of deprivation of orders as a subdeacon and as a priest. After a pontificate of fifteen days, he is said by some to have died of the gout, by others to have been forcibly ejected to make way for Stephen VI, the candidate of the Spoletan party.
At a synod in Rome held by John IX in 898, his election was pronounced null and void.

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Pope Boniface VI". Catholic Encyclopedia. Robert Appleton Company.

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Pope Boniface VIII
Pope Boniface VIII (c. 1235 – 11 October 1303), born Benedetto Gaetani, was Pope of the Catholic Church from 1294 to 1303. Today, he is probably best remembered for his feuds with Dante, who placed him in the Eighth Circle of Hell in his Divina Commedia, among the simonists.
Benedetto was born in 1235 in Anagni, c. 50 kilometres southeast of Rome. He was the younger son of a minor noble family, the Gaetani. He took his first steps in the religious life when he was sent to the monastery of the Friars Minor in Velletri, where he was put under the care of his uncle Fra Leonardo Patrasso. He became a canon of the cathedral in Anagni in his teens. In 1252, when his uncle Pietro Gaetani became Bishop of Todi, in Umbria, Benedetto went with him and began his legal studies there. Benedetto never forgot his roots in Todi, later describing the city as "the dwelling place of his early youth," the city which "nourished him while still of tender years," and as a place where he "held lasting memories". In 1260, Benedetto acquired a canonry in Todi, as well as the small nearby castle of Sismano. Later in life he repeatedly expressed his gratitude to Anagni, Todi, and his family.

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Pope Caius
Pope Saint Caius or Gaius was Pope from 17 December 283 to 22 April 296. Christian tradition makes him a native of the Dalmatian city of Salona, today Solin near Split, the son of a man also named Caius, and a member of a noble family related to the Emperor Diocletian.
Little information on Caius is available except that given by the Liber Pontificalis, which relies on a legendary account of the martyrdom of St. Susanna for its information. According to legend, Caius baptized the men and women who had been converted by Saint Tiburtius (who is venerated with St. Susanna) and Saint Castulus. His legend states that Caius took refuge in the catacombs of Rome and died a martyr.
About 280, an early Christian house of worship was established on the site of Santa Susanna, which, like many of the earliest Christian meeting places, was in a house (domus ecclesiae). The domus belonged, according to the sixth-century acta, to brothers named Caius and Gabinus, prominent Christians. Caius may be this Pope, or Caius the Presbyter. Gabinus is the name given to the father of Saint Susanna. Thus, sources state that Caius was the uncle of Saint Susanna.

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Pope Callixtus I
Pope Saint Callixtus I or Callistus I was pope from about 217 to about 222, during the reigns of the Roman Emperors Elagabalus and Alexander Severus. He was martyred for his Christian faith and is a saint of the Roman Catholic Church.
His contemporary and enemy, the author of Philosophumena (probably Hippolytus of Rome), relates that Callixtus, as a young slave, was put in charge of collected funds by his master Carpophorus, funds which were given as alms by other Christians for the care of widows and orphans; Callixtus lost the funds and fled from Rome, but was caught near Portus. According to the tale, Callixtus jumped overboard to avoid capture but was rescued and taken back to his master. He was released at the request of the creditors, who hoped he might be able to recover some of the money, but was rearrested for fighting in a synagogue when he tried to borrow money or collect debts from some Jews.
Philosophumena claims that, denounced as a Christian, Callixtus was sentenced to work in the mines of Sardinia. He was released with other Christians at the request of Hyacinthus, a eunuch presbyter, who represented Marcia, the favourite mistress of Emperor Commodus. At this time his health was so weakened that his fellow Christians sent him to Antium to recuperate and he was given a pension by Pope Victor I.

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Pope Callixtus II
Pope Blessed Calixtus II (or Calistus II) (died 13 December 1124), born Guy de Burgundy, the fourth son of William I, Count of Burgundy, was elected Pope on 1 February 1119 after the death of Pope Gelasius II. His pontificate was shaped by the Investiture Controversy, which he was able to settle through the Concordat of Worms (in 1122).
Guy was a member of the highest aristocracy in Europe. The fourth son of one of the wealthiest rulers in Europe, his family was part of a network of noble alliances. He was a cousin of Arduin of Ivrea, the King of Italy. One sister, Gisela, was married to Humbert II, Count of Savoy, and then to Renier I of Montferrat; another sister, Maud, was the wife of Eudes I of Burgundy. His brother Raymond was married to Urraca, the heiress of León; they became the parents of King Alfonso VII of León. His brother Hugh was an Archbishop of Besançon.

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Pope Callixtus III
Pope Callixtus III (31 December 1378 – 6 August 1458) (Catalan: Calixt III, Spanish: Calixto III), né Alfons de Borja, was Pope from 8 April 1455 to his death in 1458.
Alfonso de Borja was born in La Torreta, now a neighbourhood of Canals, Valencia – today in Spain – but at that time in the Kingdom of Valencia under the Crown of Aragon. He was the son of Domingo de Borja and Francina Llançol. During the western schism he supported Antipope Benedict XIII, and was the driving force behind Antipope Clement VIII's submission to Pope Martin V in 1429. His early career was spent as a professor of law at the University of Lleida and then as a diplomat in the service of the Kings of Aragon, especially during the Council of Basel (1431–1439). He became a cardinal after reconciling Pope Eugene IV with King Alfonso V of Aragon.
He was raised to the papal chair in 1455 as Callixtus III at a very advanced age, as a "compromise candidate" in the papal conclave that year. He is viewed by historians as being feeble and incompetent. In 1456, he issued the papal bull Inter Caetera to Portugal (not to be confused with Inter Caetera of 1493). This bull reaffirmed the Portuguese right to reduce infidels and the Moors to servitude by the earlier bulls Romanus Pontifex and Dum Diversas, thus reaffirming the papal consent to the enslavement of Africans. This confirmation of Romanus Pontifex also gave the Portuguese the military Order of Christ under Prince Henry the Navigator.

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Pope Celestine I
Pope Saint Celestine I was elevated to the papacy in the year 422, on 3 November according to the Liber Pontificalis, but on 10 April according to Tillemont.
Celestine I was a Roman from the region of Campania. Nothing is known of his early history except that his father's name was Priscus. He is said to have lived for a time at Milan with St. Ambrose. The first known record of him is in a document of Pope Innocent I from the year 416, where he is spoken of as "Celestine the Deacon".
Various portions of the liturgy are attributed to him, but without any certainty on the subject. Though he did not attend personally, he sent delegates to the First Council of Ephesus of 431, in which the Nestorians were condemned. Four letters written by him on that occasion, all dated 15 March 431, together with a few others, to the African bishops, to those of Illyria, of Thessalonica, and of Narbonne, are extant in re-translations from the Greek; the Latin originals having been lost.
St. Celestine actively condemned the Pelagians and was zealous for orthodoxy. He sent Palladius to Ireland to serve as a bishop in 431. Bishop Patricius (Saint Patrick) continued this missionary work. Pope Celestine strongly opposed the Novatians in Rome; as Socrates Scholasticus writes, "this Celestinus took away the churches from the Novatians at Rome also, and obliged Rusticula their bishop to hold his meetings secretly in private houses." He was zealous in refusing to tolerate the smallest innovation on the constitutions of his predecessors. As St. Vincent of Lerins reported in 434:

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Pope Celestine II
Pope Celestine II (died 8 March 1144), born Guido di Castello, was pope from 1143 to 1144.
Guido di Castello, possibly the son of a local noble, Niccolo di Castello, was born either in Città di Castello, situated in Paterna Santa Felicità upon the Apennines, or at Macerata in the March of Ancona.
Guido had studied under Pierre Abélard, and eventually became a distinguished master in the schools. Eventually Guido began his career in Rome as a subdeacon and a scriptor apostolicus under Pope Callixtus II. He was created Cardinal-Deacon of Santa Maria in Via Lata by Pope Honorius II in 1127; as such, he signed the papal bulls issued between 3 April 1130 and 21 December 1133. In the double papal election of 1130 he joined the obedience of Pope Innocent II. In December 1133 Innocent promoted him to the rank of Cardinal-Priest of San Marco. He signed the papal bulls as S.R.E. indignus sacerdos between 11 January 1134 and 16 May 1143. As the cardinal of San Marco’s, he supported Innocent’s claims with regards to Monte Cassino, and as a mark of his confidence in him, Innocent made Guido the rector of Benevento. Afterwards, he made him a papal legate to France in 1140.

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Pope Celestine III
Pope Celestine III (ca. 1106 – 8 January 1198), born Giacinto Bobone, was elected Pope on 21 March 1191 and reigned until his death. He was born into the noble Orsini family in Rome, though he was only a cardinal deacon before becoming Pope. He was ordained a priest on 13 April 1191, ruled the church six years, nine months, and nine days before he died on 8 January 1198. He was buried at the Lateran.
Considered by the Curia as an expert on Spain, Giacinto conducted two legatine missions to Spain in (1154–55) and (1172–75) as Cardinal Deacon of St.Maria at Cosmedin.
He crowned the Holy Roman Emperor Henry VI on the day after his election in 1191 with a ceremony symbolizing his absolute supremacy, as described by Roger of Hoveden. He subsequently excommunicated the same Henry VI for wrongfully keeping King Richard I of England in prison. He placed Pisa under an interdict, which was lifted by his successor Innocent III in 1198. He condemned King Alfonso IX of León for his marriage to Teresa of Portugal on the grounds of consanguinity. Then, in 1196, he excommunicated Alfonso IX for making peace with the Muslims while making war on Castile. Following the marriage between Alfonso and Berenguela of Castile, Celestine excommunicated Alfonso and placed an interdict over León.

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Pope Celestine IV
Pope Celestine IV (died 10 November 1241), born Goffredo da Castiglione, was pope from 25 October 1241 until his death.
Born in Milan, Goffredo or Godfrey is often referred to as son of a sister of Pope Urban III, but this claim is without foundation. Nothing is known of his early life until he became chancellor of the church of Milan (perhaps as early as 1219, certainly in 1223–27). Pope Gregory IX made him a cardinal on 18 September 1227 [1] with the cure of San Marco, and in 1228–29 sent him as legate in Lombardy and Tuscany, where the cities and communes had generally remained true to the Hohenstaufen emperor, Frederick II. He was dispatched in an attempt to bring these territories around to the curial side, but without success. In 1238 he was made cardinal bishop of Sabina.
The papal election of 1241 that elevated Celestine to the papal chair was held under stringent conditions that hastened his death. The papal curia was disunited over the violent struggle to bring the Emperor and King of Sicily Frederick II to heel. One group of cardinals favored the ambitious schemes of the Gregorian Reform and aimed to humble Frederick as a papal vassal. Frederick, however, controlled as his unwilling guests in Tivoli two cardinals whom he had captured at sea, and in Rome Cardinal Giovanni Colonna was his ally, largely because the curia was in the hands of the Colonna archenemy, the senator Matteo Rosso Orsini. The latter held the consistory immured under his guards in the ramshackle palace of the Septizodium, where rains leaked through the roof of their chamber, mingled with the urine of Orsini's guards on the rooftiles. One of the cardinals fell ill and died.

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Pope Celestine V
Pope Saint Celestine V (1215 – 19 May 1296), born Pietro Angelerio (according to some sources Angelario, Angelieri, Angelliero, or Angeleri), also known as Pietro da Morrone, was elected Pope in the year 1294 in the last non-conclave papal election in the history of the Roman Catholic Church. He is notable for having abdicated the papacy. No subsequent pope has taken the name Celestine.
According to tradition, Pietro Angelerio was born to parents Angelo Angelerio and Maria Leone in a town called Sant'Angelo Limosano, in the Kingdom of Sicilia (Sicily). Sant'Angelo Limosano is now part of Provincia di Campobasso, in Molise, Italy.
After his father's death he began working in the fields. His mother Maria was a key figure in Pietro's spiritual development: she imagined a different future for her deeply-beloved son than becoming just a farmer or a shepherd. From the time he was a child, he showed great intelligence and love for others. He became a Benedictine monk at Faifoli in the Diocese of Benevento when he was 17. He showed an extraordinary disposition toward asceticism and solitude, and in 1239 retired to a solitary cavern on the mountain Morrone, whence his name. Five years later he left this retreat, and went with two companions, to a similar cave on the Mountain of Maiella in the Abruzzi region of central Italy, where he lived as strictly as possible according to the example of St. John the Baptist. There are accounts of the severity of his penitential practices. While living like this he founded, in 1244, the order subsequently named after him, the Celestines.

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Pope Clement I
Pope Clement I (fl. 96), also known as Saint Clement of Rome (in Latin, Clemens Romanus), is listed from an early date as a Bishop of Rome. He was the first Apostolic Father of the Church.
Few details are known about Clement's life. According to Tertullian, Clement was consecrated by Saint Peter, and he is known to have been a leading member of the church in Rome in the late 1st century. Early church lists place him as the second or third bishop of Rome after Saint Peter. The Liber Pontificalis presents a list that makes Pope Linus the second in the line of bishops of Rome, with Peter as first; but at the same time it states that Peter ordained two bishops, Linus and Pope Cletus, for the priestly service of the community, devoting himself instead to prayer and preaching, and that it was to Clement that he entrusted the Church as a whole, appointing him as his successor. Tertullian too makes Clement the immediate successor of Peter. And while in one of his works Jerome gives Clement as "the fourth bishop of Rome after Peter" (not in the sense of fourth successor of Peter, but fourth in a series that included Peter), he adds that "most of the Latins think that Clement was second after the apostle". Clement is put after Linus and Cletus/Anacletus in the earliest (c. 180) account, that of Irenaeus, who is followed by Eusebius of Caesarea. The meaning of these early reports is unclear, given the lack of evidence for monarchical episcopacy in Rome at so early a date.

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Pope Clement II
Pope Clement II (died October 1047), was Pope from 25 December 1046 until his death. He was the first in a series of reform-minded popes from Germany.
Born in Hornburg, Lower Saxony, Germany, he was the son of Count Konrad of Morsleben and Hornburg and his wife Amulrad.
In 1040, he became Bishop of Bamberg. In 1046, he accompanied King Henry III on his campaign to Italy and in December, participated in the Council of Sutri, which deposed former Popes Benedict IX and Sylvester III and persuaded Pope Gregory VI to resign. King Henry nominated Suidger for the papacy and the council elected him. Suidger took the name Clement II. Immediately after his election, King Henry and the new Pope moved to Rome, where Clement crowned Henry III as Holy Roman Emperor.
Clement II's short pontificate, starting with the Roman synod of 1047, initiated an improvement in the state of affairs within the Roman Church, particularly by enacting decrees against simony. A dispute for precedence among the Sees of Ravenna, Milan, and Aquileia was settled in favour of Ravenna.

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Pope Clement III
Pope Clement III (1130 – 20 March 1191), born Paulino (or Paolo) Scolari, was elected Pope on 19 December 1187 and reigned until his death.
A Roman by birth, Pope Alexander III appointed him in succession Archpriest of the patriarchal Liberian Basilica, Cardinal-deacon of Sergio e Bacco, and finally Cardinal bishop of Palestrina in December 1180. He appears as signatory of the papal bulls issued between 15 October 1179 and 11 December 1187.^{[citation needed]}
Shortly after his accession at the conclusion of the papal election of December 1187, Clement succeeded in allaying the conflict which had existed for half a century between the Popes and the citizens of Rome, with an agreement by which the citizens were allowed to elect their magistrates, while the nomination of the governor of the city remained in the hands of the Pope. On 31 May 1188 he concluded a treaty with the Romans which removed long standing difficulties, thus returning the Papacy to Rome.
Clement also inherited a depleted college of cardinals, consisting of no more than twenty cardinals. He orchestrated three series of promotions (March 1188, May 1189 and October 1190) that resulted in over thirty new cardinals.

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Pope Clement IV
Pope Clement IV (23 November 1190/1200 – 29 November 1268), born Gui Faucoi called in later life le Gros (Guy Foulques the Fat; Italian: Guido Fulcodi il Grosso), was Pope from 5 February 1265 until his death. He was elected in an election held at Perugia that lasted four months while cardinals argued over whether to call in Charles of Anjou, the youngest brother of King Louis IX of France to carry on the papal war against the imperial house of Hohenstaufen.
Guy was born in Saint-Gilles-du-Gard in the Languedoc region of France. After reaching adulthood, he was an unlikely candidate for holy orders: widowed and the father of two young women before taking orders, he was successively a soldier and a lawyer, and in the latter capacity had acted as secretary to King Louis IX, to whose influence he was chiefly indebted for his elevation to the cardinalate. Upon the death of his wife, he followed his father's example and gave up secular life for the Church. His rise was rapid: in 1257, he was appointed Bishop of Le Puy; in 1259, he was appointed Archbishop of Narbonne; and in December 1261, he became the first cardinal created by Pope Urban IV, for the See of Sabina. He was the papal legate in England between 1262 and 1264. He was named grand penitentiary in 1263.

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Pope Clement IX
Pope Clement IX (28 January 1600 – 9 December 1669), born Giulio Rospigliosi, was Pope from 1667 to 1669.
Born Giulio Rospigliosi to a noble family of Pistoia, Grand Duchy of Tuscany, he was a pupil of the Jesuits. After receiving his doctorate in philosophy at the University of Pisa, he taught theology there. Later Rospigliosi worked closely with Pope Urban VIII (1623–1644), a Barberini Pope, where he worked in the Papal diplomacy as nuncio to Spain, among other posts. He was also made vicar of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome.
Rospigliosi was an accomplished man of letters, who wrote poetry, dramas and libretti, as well as what may be the first comic opera^{[citation needed]}. He was also a patron of Nicolas Poussin, commissioning A Dance to the Music of Time from him and dictating its iconography.
During the reign of Pope Innocent X (1644–55), who was hostile to the Barberini and their adherents, Rospigliosi continued his appointment as papal nuncio to the court of Spain. After the accession of Pope Alexander VII (1655–67), he once again enjoyed papal favour. In 1657 he was named Cardinal-Priest of San Sisto and Secretary of State. After Alexander VII's death in 1667, an 18-day papal conclave concluded with Rospigliosi's election as Pope. Upon his succession, he took the name Clement IX.

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Pope Clement V
Pope Clement V, born Raymond Bertrand de Got (also occasionally spelled de Guoth and de Goth) (c. 1264 – 20 April 1314) was Pope from 1305 to his death. He is memorable in history for suppressing the order of the Knights Templar and executing some of its members, and as the Pope who moved the Curia from Rome to Avignon, ushering in the period known as the Avignon Papacy.
Born in Villandraut, Aquitaine, Bertrand was canon and sacristan of the Cathedral of Saint-André in Bordeaux, then vicar-general to his brother, the Archbishop of Lyon, who in 1294 was created Cardinal-Bishop of Albano. He was then made Bishop of St-Bertrand-de-Comminges, the cathedral church of which he was responsible for greatly enlarging and embellishing, and chaplain to Pope Boniface VIII, who made him Archbishop of Bordeaux in 1297.
Following the death of Benedict XI in 1304, there was a year's interregnum occasioned by disputes between the French and Italian cardinals, who were nearly equally balanced in the conclave, which had to be held at Perugia. Bertrand was elected Pope Clement V in June 1305 and consecrated on 14 November. Bertrand was neither Italian nor a cardinal, and his election might have been considered a gesture towards neutrality. The contemporary chronicler Giovanni Villani reports gossip that he had bound himself to King Philip IV of France by a formal agreement before his elevation, made at St. Jean d'Angély in Saintonge. Whether this was true or not, it is likely that the future pope had conditions laid down for him by the conclave of cardinals. At Bordeaux, Bertrand was formally notified of his election and urged to come to Italy, but he selected Lyon for his coronation on 14 November 1305, which was celebrated with magnificence and attended by Philip IV. Among his first acts was the creation of nine French cardinals.

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Pope Clement VI
Pope Clement VI (1291 – 6 December 1352), born Pierre Roger, the fourth of the Avignon Popes, was pope from May 1342 until his death in December of 1352. Clement is most notable as the Pope who reigned during the time of the Black Death (1348–1350), during which he granted remission of sins to all that died of the plague.
Clement was born in the village of Maumont, today part of the commune of Rosiers-d'Égletons, Corrèze, in Limousin, the son of the wealthy lord of Rosiers-d'Égletons.
He entered the Benedictine order as a boy, studied at the College de Sorbonne in Paris, and became successively prior of St. Baudil, Abbot of Fécamp, Bishop of Arras, Chancellor of France, Archbishop of Sens and Archbishop of Rouen. He was made cardinal-priest of Santi Nereo e Achilleo and administrator of the bishopric of Avignon by Benedict XII in 1338 and was chosen to succeed him as pope at the papal conclave of 1342.
Like his immediate predecessors, he was devoted to France, and he demonstrated his French sympathies by refusing a solemn invitation to return to Rome from the city's people, as well as from the poet Petrarch. He threw a sop to the Romans, however, by reducing the Jubilee term from one hundred years to fifty. He also purchased the sovereignty of Avignon from Queen Joan I of Naples for 80,000 crowns.

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Pope Clement VII
Clement VII (26 May 1478 – 25 September 1534), born Giulio di Giuliano de' Medici, was a cardinal from 1513 to 1523 and was Pope from 1523 to 1534.
He was born in Florence one month after his father's death. His father, Giuliano de' Medici, had been assassinated. Although his parents had not had a formal marriage, a canon law loophole allowing for the parents to have been betrothed per sponsalia de presenti meant that Giulio was considered legitimate. He was thus the nephew of Lorenzo the Magnificent, who educated him in his youth. Clement's mother, Fioretta Gorini, also died leaving him an orphan.
Giulio was made a Knight of Rhodes and Grand Prior of Capua, and, upon the election of his cousin Giovanni de' Medici to the pontificate as Leo X (1513–21), he soon became a powerful figure in Rome. Upon his cousin's accession to the papacy, Giulio became his principal minister and confidant, especially in the maintenance of the Medici interest at Florence as archbishop of that city. On 23 September 1513, he was made cardinal and he was consecrated on 29 September. He had the credit of being the main director of papal policy during the whole of Leo X's pontificate, especially as cardinal protector of England. He was also the titular Bishop of Worcester in the county of Worcestershire in England as Administrator or the See of Worcester.

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Pope Clement VIII
Pope Clement VIII (24 February 1536 – 3 March 1605), born Ippolito Aldobrandini, was Pope from 30 January 1592 to 3 March 1605.
He was made Cardinal-Priest of S. Pancrazio in 1585 by Pope Gregory XIII. Pope Sixtus V named him major penitentiary in January 1586 and in 1588 sent him as legate in Poland. He placed himself under the direction of the reformer Philip Neri, who for thirty years was his confessor. Aldobrandini won the gratitude of the Habsburgs by his successful diplomatic efforts in Poland to obtain the release of the imprisoned Archduke Maximilian, the defeated claimant to the Polish throne.
After the death of Pope Innocent IX (1591), another stormy conclave ensued, where a determined minority of Italian Cardinals were unwilling to be dictated to by Philip II of Spain. Cardinal Aldobrandini's election on 30 January 1592, was received as a portent of more balanced and liberal Papal policy in European affairs. He took the non-politicised name Clement VIII. He proved to be an able Pope, with an unlimited capacity for work and a lawyer's eye for detail, and a wise statesman, the general object of whose policy was to free the Papacy from its dependence upon Spain.

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Pope Clement X
Pope Clement X (13 July 1590 – 22 July 1676), born Emilio Bonaventura Altieri, was Pope from 29 April 1670 to 22 July 1676.
Emilio Altieri was born in Rome, the son of Lorenzo Altieri and Victoria Delphini, a Venetian lady. The Altieri family belonged to the ancient Roman nobility and had enjoyed the highest consideration at Rome for several centuries; they had occasionally contracted alliances with the Colonnas and the Orsinis. During earlier pontificates, Altieri held many important offices and had been entrusted with several delicate missions.
After finishing his studies, Altieri was named auditor of Giovanni Battista Lancellotti in 1623, in the nunciature of Poland. On his return to Rome, he was named Bishop of Camerino, then governor of Loreto and of all Umbria. Pope Urban VIII (1623–44) gave him charge of the works designed to protect the territory of Ravenna from the unruly Po River.
Pope Innocent X (1644–55) sent him as nuncio to Naples, where he remained for eight years. He is credited with the re-establishment of peace after the stormy days of Masaniello. Pope Alexander VII (1655–67) confided to him a mission to Poland.

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Pope Clement XI
Pope Clement XI (23 July 1649 – 19 March 1721), born Giovanni Francesco Albani, was Pope from 1700 until his death in 1721.
Albani was born in Urbino, into a noble family that had established itself there from northern Albania in the 15th century and were originally soldiers of Scanderbeg against the Ottoman Empire. During his reign as a Pope the famous Illyricum Sacrum was commissioned, and today it is one of the main sources of the field of Albanology, with over 5000 pages divided in several volumes written by Daniele Farlati and Dom. Coletti.
He was governor of Rieti and Urbino, and was created Cardinal-Deacon of S. Maria in Aquiro by Pope Alexander VIII. He succeeded as Pope on 23 November 1700.
Soon after his accession, the War of Spanish Succession broke out.
Despite initially holding an ambiguous neutrality, Clement was later forced to name Charles, Archduke of Austria, as King of Spain, since the imperial army had conquered much of northern Italy and was threatening Rome itself (January 1709).

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Pope Clement XII
Pope Clement XII (7 April 1652 – 6 February 1740), born Lorenzo Corsini, was Pope from 12 July 1730 to 6 February 1740.
Born in Florence, the son of Bartolomeo Corsini, Marquis of Casigliano and his wife Isabella Strozzi, sister of the Duke of Bagnuolo, Corsini had been an aristocratic lawyer and financial manager under preceding pontiffs. He is known for building the new façade of the Basilica di San Giovanni in Laterano, beginning construction of the Trevi Fountain, and the purchase of Cardinal Alessandro Albani's collection of antiquities for the papal gallery. He was created Cardinal-Priest of Santa Susanna in 1706.
Under Pope Benedict XIII (1724–30), the finances of the Papal States had been delivered into the hands of Cardinal Niccolò Coscia and other members of the curia, who had drained the financial resources of the see. After deliberating for four months, the College of Cardinals selected Corsini, 78 years old and with failing eyesight, who had held all the important offices of the Roman Curia. Clement XII was one of the oldest men to be elected Pope.

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Pope Clement XIII
Pope Clement XIII (7 March 1693 – 2 February 1769), born Carlo della Torre di Rezzonico, was Pope from 16 July 1758 to 2 February 1769.
He was born to a recently ennobled family of Venice, received a Jesuit education in Bologna and became a Cardinal-Deacon of San Nicola in Carcere in 1737. Previously he had filled various important posts in the Curia and had been bishop of Padua since 1743; during his tenure as bishop of Padua he visited all the parishes in the diocese, the first bishop to do that for 50 years. He became pope on 6 July 1758. In the same year the Rezzonico family were celebrating Ludovico Rezzonico's marriage into the powerful Savorgnan family. The son of the man who bought the unfinished palace on the Grand Canal (now Ca' Rezzonico) and finished its construction, Carlo the pontiff was notorious for his rampant nepotism.

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Pope Clement XIV
Pope Clement XIV (31 October 1705 – 22 September 1774), born Giovanni Vincenzo Antonio Ganganelli, was Pope from 1769 to 1774. At the time of his election, he was the only Franciscan friar in the College of Cardinals.
Ganganelli was born in Santarcangelo di Romagna. He received his education from the Jesuits at Rimini and the Piarists of Urbino, and in 1724, at the age of nineteen, entered the Order of Friars Minor Conventual of St. Francis with the Franciscan name of Lorenzo Francesco. In 1741 he was made definitor generalis of the order (Catholic Encyclopedia). Ganganelli became a friend of Pope Benedict XIV (1740–58). In 1758 he was appointed by that Pope to investigate the issue of the traditional blood libel regarding the Jews, which he found to be untrue [1]. Pope Clement XIII (1758–69) appointed him Cardinal-Priest of San Lorenzo in Panisperna in 1759, at the insistence of Lorenzo Ricci, the General of the Jesuits.
Ganganelli was elected Pope Clement XIV on 19 May 1769 and was installed on 4 June 1769, after a conclave that had been sitting since 15 February 1769, heavily influenced by the political manoeuvres of the ambassadors of Catholic sovereigns who were opposed to the Jesuits. Some of the pressure was subtle: for an unprecedented impromptu visit to the conclave by Emperor Joseph II (1765–90) and his brother Leopold, Grand Duke of Tuscany, officially incognito, the seals were broken, the Austrians inspected the proceedings with great interest and brought with them a festive banquet. During the previous pontificate the Jesuits had been expelled from Portugal and from all the Bourbon courts: France, Spain, Naples, and Parma; now the general suppression of the order was urged by the faction called the "court cardinals", who were opposed by the diminished pro-Jesuit faction, the Zelanti ("zealous"), who were generally opposed to the encroaching secularism of the Enlightenment.

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Pope Conon
Pope Conon (c. 630 – 21 September 687) was Pope from 21 October 686 until his death in Rome. He had been put forward as a compromise candidate, there being a conflict between the two factions resident in Rome—military and clerical. On his death, Conon was buried in the Patriarchal Basilica of St. Peter.
Conon was apparently the son of an officer in the Thracian troop. He was educated in Sicily then ordained priest at Rome. His age, venerable appearance, and simple character caused the clergy and soldiery of Rome, who were in disagreement, to put aside their respective candidates and to elect him as pope. He was consecrated on 21 October 686 after notice of his election had been sent to the Exarch of Ravenna, or after it had been confirmed by him.
He received the Irish missionaries Saint Kilian and his companions, consecrated Kilian bishop, and commissioned him and the others to preach the faith in Franconia. (Vita S. Kiliani, in Canisius, Lect. Antiquæ, III, 175–180.) He was in favour with Byzantine Emperor Justinian II, who informed him that he had recovered the Acts of the Third Council of Constantinople, by which, the Emperor wrote, it was his intention to abide. Justinian also remitted certain taxes and dues owing to the imperial exchequer from several papal patrimonies.

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Pope Constantine
Pope Constantine (664 – 9 April 715) was pope from 708 to 715. With the exception of Antipope Constantine, he was the only pope to take such a "quintessentially" Eastern name of an emperor. During this period, the regnal name was also used by emperors and patriarchs.
Selected as one of the last popes of the Byzantine Papacy, the defining moment of Constantine's pontificate was his 710/711 visit to Constantinople where he compromised with Justinian II on the Trullan canons of the Quinisext Council. Constantine was the last pope to visit Constantinople until Pope Paul VI did again in 1967.
Constantine was an Assyrian by birth, fluent in the Greek language and immersed in Eastern rituals and practices. By his upbringing, he would have been "fully at ease in the oriental milieu of the early-eight-century Byzantine court".
Before his selection as pope, he had visited Constantinople twice. He was one of the Roman legates to the Third Council of Constantinople there in 680/681. He also delivered a combative letter from Pope Leo II to Constantine IV in 682. He met and developed a rapport with Prince Justinian, the heir apparent to the Byzantine throne, on both occasions.

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Pope Cornelius
Pope Cornelius was pope from his election on 6 or 13 March 251 to his martyrdom in June 253.
Emperor Decius, who ruled from 249 to 251 AD, persecuted Christians in the Roman Empire rather sporadically and locally, but starting January in the year 250, he ordered all citizens to perform a religious sacrifice in the presence of commissioners, or else face death. Many Christians refused and were martyred, including the pope, St Fabian, on 20 January, while others partook in the sacrifices in order to save their own lives. Two schools of thought arose after the persecution. One side, led by Novatian, who was a priest in the diocese of Rome, believed that those who had stopped practicing Christianity during the persecution could not be accepted back into the church even if they repented. Under this philosophy, the only way to re-enter the church would be re-baptism. The opposing side, including Cornelius and Cyprian the Bishop of Carthage, did not believe in the need for re-baptism. Instead they thought that the sinners should only need to show contrition and true repentance to be welcomed back into the church. In hopes that Christianity would fade away, Decius prevented the election of a new pope. However, soon afterwards Decius was forced to leave the area to fight the invading Goths and while he was away the elections for pope were held. In the 14 months without a pope, the leading candidate, Moses, had died under the persecution. Novatian believed that he would be elected, however Cornelius was unwillingly elected the twenty-first pope in March 251.

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Pope Damasus I
Pope Saint Damasus I (

/ˈdæməsəs/ DAM-əs-əs) was the bishop of Rome from 366 to 384.
He was born around 305, probably near the city of Idanha-a-Velha (in Lusitania, Hispania), in what is present-day Portugal, then part of the Western Roman Empire. His life coincided with the rise of Emperor Constantine I and the reunion and re-division of the Western and Eastern Roman Empires, which is associated with the widespread legitimization of Christianity and the later adoption of Christianity as the official religion of the Roman state.
Damasus is known to have been raised in the service of the Basilica of Saint Lawrence outside the Walls in Rome, and following the death of Pope Liberius, he succeeded to the papacy amidst factional violence. A group of Damasus' supporters, previously loyal to his opponent Felix, attacked and killed rivals loyal to Liberius' deacon Ursinus in a riot that required the intervention of Emperor Valentinian I to quell.
Damasus faced accusations of murder and adultery (despite having not been married) in his early years as pope. The neutrality of these claims have come into question with some suggesting that the accusations were motivated by the schismatic conflict with the supporters of Arianism. His personal problems were contrasted with his religious accomplishments, which included restoring Saint Lawrence outside the Walls, encouraging his personal secretary Saint Jerome in his Vulgate translation of the Bible, and presiding over the Council of Rome in 382, which set down the canon of Scripture. He also did much to encourage the veneration of the Christian martyrs.

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Pope Damasus II
Pope Damasus II (died 9 August 1048), born Poppo, was Pope from 17 July 1048 to 9 August 1048, the second of the German pontiffs nominated by Emperor Henry III. A native of Bavaria, he was the third German to become Pope and had one of the shortest papal reigns. His original name was Poppo, and he was bishop of Brixen when the Emperor raised him to the papacy.
Given the display of imperial power Henry III had inflicted on the Romans in intervening against Pope Gregory VI and installing Clement II, it is not surprising that on Christmas Day of 1047, an emissary was sent by the Roman people bringing news of Clement II's death to Henry III and asking him, in his position as Patricius of the Romans, to appoint a successor. Henry had been engaged in an indecisive campaign in Frisia, and was in his palace at Pöhlde in Saxony when the embassy found him. The envoys, according to their instructions, suggested as a suitable candidate the handsome Halinard, Archbishop of Lyon, who was a fluent speaker of Italian, and was well respected in Rome.

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Pope Dionysius
Pope Saint Dionysius was pope from 22 July 259 to 26 December 268.
He may have been born in Magna Græcia, but this has not been verified. Dionysius was elected pope in 259, after the martyrdom of Sixtus II in 258. The Holy See had been vacant for nearly a year due to difficulty in electing a new pope during the violent persecution which Christians faced. When the persecution had begun to subside, Dionysius was raised to the office of Bishop of Rome. Emperor Valerian I, who had led the persecution, was captured and killed by the King of Persia in 260. The new emperor, Gallienus, issued an edict of toleration, bringing the persecution of Christians to an end and giving the Church legal status. To the new pope fell the task of reorganizing the Roman church, which had fallen into great disorder. On the protest of some of the faithful at Alexandria, he demanded from the bishop of Alexandria, also called Dionysius, explanations concerning his doctrine regarding the relation of God to the Logos, which was satisfied.

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Pope Donus
Pope Donus was Pope from 2 November 676 to 11 April 678.
He was the son of a Roman named Mauricius. Not much is known of this pope.
While he was Pope, he had the enclosed forecourt of St. Peter's Basilica paved, had the atrium (or quadrangle) in front of St. Peter's paved with great blocks of white marble, and restored other churches of Rome, notably the church of St. Euphemia on the Appian Way and the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls.
During the pontificate of Donus, Reparatus, the Archbishop of Ravenna, returned to the obedience of the Holy See, thus ending the schism created by Archbishop Maurus, who had aimed at making Ravenna autocephalous.
During the reign of Donus, a colony of Nestorian monks was discovered in a Syrian monastery at Rome — the Monasterium Boetianum. Donus is reported to have dispersed them through the various religious houses of the city and to have given their monastery to Roman monks.
Relations with Constantinople at the time of Donus' reign tended towards the conciliatory.

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Pope Eleuterus
Pope Saint Eleuterus, or Eleutherius, (Greek: Ελευθέριος) was Bishop of Rome from about 174 to 189 (the Vatican cites 171 or 177 to 185 or 193). He was born in Nicopolis in Epirus. His name is Greek for free.
His contemporary Hegesippus wrote that he was a deacon of the Roman Church under Pope Anicetus (c. 154–164), and remained so under Pope Soter, whom he succeeded in about 174.
The Montanist movement, which originated in Asia Minor, made its way to Rome and Gaul in the second half of the 2nd century, around the reign of Eleuterus. Its nature did not diverge so much from the orthodoxy of the time for it to initially be labeled heresy. During the violent persecution at Lyon, in 177, local confessors wrote from their prison concerning the new movement to the Asiatic and Phrygian communities, and also to Pope Eleuterus. The bearer of their letter to the pope was the presbyter Irenaeus, soon to become Bishop of Lyon. It appears from statements of Eusebius concerning these letters that the Christians of Lyon, though opposed to the Montanist movement, advocated patience and pleaded for the preservation of ecclesiastical unity.

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Pope Eugene I
Pope Saint Eugene I or Eugenius I, was pope from 10 August 654 to 1 June 657.
He was a native of Rome, born to one Rufinianus. He was elected pope on 10 August 654, ascended in 655, and died on 1 June 657 of natural causes.
Little is known of Pope Eugene's early life other than that he was a Roman from the Aventine and was known for his holiness, gentleness, and charity. He had been a cleric from his youth and held various positions within the Church of Rome.
On the banishment of Pope Martin I by Byzantine Empire Constans II, he showed greater deference than his predecessor to the emperor's wishes and made no public stand against the Monothelitism of the patriarchs of Constantinople.
Martin I was carried off from Rome on 18 June 653 and was kept in exile until his death in September 655. Little is known about what happened in Rome after Pope Martin's departure, but it was typical in those days for the Holy See to be governed by the archpriest and archdeacon.
After a year and two months, a successor was found to Martin in Eugene.

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Pope Eugene II
Pope Eugene II (in Latin: Eugenius II), pope (824–827), a native of Rome, was chosen to succeed Paschal I. Another candidate, Zinzinnus, was proposed by the plebeian faction, and the presence of Lothair I, son of the Frankish emperor Louis the Pious, was necessary in order to maintain the authority of the new pope. Lothair took advantage of this opportunity to redress many abuses in the papal administration, to vest the election of the pope in the nobles, and to confirm the statute that no pope should be consecrated until his election had the approval of the Frankish emperor.
He was elected pope on 6 June 824 after the death of Paschal I. The late pope had attempted to curb the rapidly increasing power of the Roman nobility, who had turned for support to the Franks to strengthen their positions against him. When Paschal died, these nobles made strenuous efforts to replace him with a candidate of their own; and despite the fact that the clergy put forward a candidate likely to continue the policy of Paschal, the nobles were successful in their attempt. They secured the consecration of Eugene, who was the archpriest of St Sabina on the Aventine, although by a decree of the Roman Council of 769, under Stephen IV, they had no right to a real share in a papal election. Their candidate is stated in earlier editions of the Liber Pontificalis to have been the son of Boemund, but in the more recent and more accurate editions his father's name is not given. While archpriest of the Roman Church, he is credited with having fulfilled most conscientiously the duties of his position. After he became pope, he beautified his ancient church of St. Sabina with mosaics and metalwork bearing his name that were still intact as late as the 16th century. Eugene is described by his biographer as simple and humble, learned and eloquent, handsome and generous, a lover of peace, and wholly occupied with the thought of doing what was pleasing to God.

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Pope Eugene III
Pope Blessed Eugene III (died 8 July 1153), born Bernardo da Pisa, was Pope from 1145 to 1153. He was the first Cistercian to become Pope.
Bernardo was born in Pisa, but little is known about his origins and family except that he was son of a certain Godius. From the 16th century he is commonly identified as member of the family of Paganelli di Montemagno, which belonged to the Pisan aristocracy, but this has not been proven and contradicts earlier testimonies that suggest he was a man of rather humble origins. In 1106 he was a canon of the cathedral chapter in Pisa and from 1115 is attested as subdeacon. 1133–1138 he acted as vicedominus of the archdiocese of Pisa. Between May 1134 and February 1137 he was ordained into the priesthood by Pope Innocent II, who resided at that time in Pisa. Under the influence of Bernard of Clairvaux he entered the Cistercian Order in the monastery of Clairvaux in 1138. A year later he returned to Italy as leader of the Cistercian community in Scandriglia. In Autumn 1140, Pope Innocent II named him abbot of the monastery of S. Anastasio alle Tre Fontane outside Rome. Some chronicles indicate that he was also elevated to the College of Cardinals, but these testimonies probably resulted from a confusion because Bernardo is not attested as cardinal in any document and from the letter of Bernard of Clairvaux addressed to the cardinals shortly after his election clearly appears that he was not a cardinal.

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Pope Eugene IV
Pope Eugene IV (1383 – 25 February 1447), born Gabriele Condulmer, was pope from 3 March 1431 until his death.
He was born in Venice to a rich merchant family, a Correr on his mother's side. Condulmer entered the Order of Saint Augustine at the monastery of St. George in his native city. At the age of twenty-four he was appointed by his uncle Pope Gregory XII as Bishop of Siena and came into prominence. In Siena, the political class objected to a 24-year old bishop who was a foreigner. Therefore, the issue was not pressed, and he resigned the appointment, becoming instead his uncle's papal treasurer, protonotary and Cardinal Priest of San Clemente. Pope Martin V named him Cardinal Priest of the Basilica di Santa Maria in Trastevere.
He made himself useful to Pope Martin V and was quickly elected to succeed him in the papal conclave of 1431. He was crowned as Eugene IV at St. Peter's Basilica on 11 March 1431. By a written agreement made before his election he pledged to distribute to the cardinals one-half of all the revenues of the Church and promised to consult with them on all questions of importance, both spiritual and temporal. Upon assuming the papal chair, Eugene IV took violent measures against the numerous Colonna relatives of his predecessor Martin V, who had rewarded them with castles and lands. This at once involved him in a serious contest with the powerful house of Colonna that nominally supported the local rights of Rome against the interests of the Papacy. A truce was soon arranged.

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Pope Eusebius
Pope Saint Eusebius (from Greek Εὐσέβιος "pious", from eu (εὖ) "well" and sebein (σέβειν) "to respect") was pope in the year 309 or 310.
His pontificate lasted only from 18 April to 17 August, after which, in consequence of disturbances within the Church which led to acts of violence, he was banished by the emperor Maxentius, who had been the ruler of Rome since 306, and had at first shown himself friendly to the Christians. The difficulty arose, as in the case of his predecessor Pope Marcellus I, out of his attitude toward the lapsi, which represented the milder standpoint.
Eusebius died in exile in Sicily and was buried in the catacomb of Callixtus. Pope Damasus I placed an epitaph of eight hexameters over his tomb; the epithet "martyr" contained in them is not to be taken in the strict sense.
His feast is celebrated on 26 September.

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Jackson, Samuel Macauley, ed. (1914). "^{article name needed}". New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge (third ed.). London and New York: Funk and Wagnalls.

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Pope Eutychian
Pope Saint Eutychian or Eutychianus was pope from 4 January 275 to 7 December 283 (according to the Annuario Pontificio of 2012).
His original epitaph was discovered in the catacomb of Callixtus (see Kraus, Roma sotterranea, p. 154 et seq.), but almost nothing more is known of him. Even the date of his reign is uncertain. Liber Pontificalis gives a reign of 8 years and 11 months, from 275 to 283. Eusebius, on the other hand says his reign was only 10 months.
He is said to have allowed the blessing of grapes and beans on the altar and to have buried 324 martyrs with his own hands. Some historians doubt these traditions, since there was no persecution after the death of Aurelian in 275 and blessing the produce of the fields is believed to belong to a later period.
His feast is kept on 8 December.

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Pope St. Eutychianus". Catholic Encyclopedia. Robert Appleton Company.

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Pope Evaristus
Pope Saint Evaristus is accounted the fifth Pope, holding office from c. 99 to 107 AD or from 99 to 108. He was also known as Aristus.
Little is known about St Evaristus. According to the Liber Pontificalis, he came from a family of Hellenic Jewish origin. He was elected during the reign of the Roman Emperor Domitian, the time of the second general persecution.
Eusebius, in his Ecclesiastical History IV, I, stated that Evaristus died in the 12th year of the reign of the Roman Emperor Trajan, after holding the office of bishop of the Romans for eight years.
It was once supposed that all the early Popes were martyrs. There is no confirmation of this in the case of Pope Evaristus, who is listed without that title in the Roman Martyrology, with a feast day on 26 October.
St Evaristus succeeded St Clement in the See of Rome during the reign of Trajan and governed the Church for about eight years, as the fourth successor of St. Peter. The Liber Pontificalis says that he was the son of a Hellenic Jew of Bethlehem, and, certainly incorrectly, that he divided Rome into several "titles" or Parishes, assigning a priest to each, and appointed seven deacons for the city. He is usually accorded the title of martyr, but his martyrdom is not proven. It is probable that St Evaristus was buried near St Peter's tomb in the Vatican. His feast day is celebrated on 26 October.

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Pope Fabian
Pope Fabian was Pope from 10 January 236 to 20 January 250, succeeding Pope Anterus.
Eusebius of Caesarea (Church History, VI. 29) relates how the Christians, having assembled in Rome to elect a new bishop, saw a dove alight upon the head of Fabian, a layman and stranger to the city, who was thus marked out for this dignity and was at once proclaimed bishop by acclamation, although there were several famous men among the candidates for the vacant position.
He is said to have baptized Philip the Arab and his son, to have done some building in the catacombs, to have improved the organization of the church in Rome, and to have appointed officials to register the deeds of the martyrs.
According to "later accounts, more or less trustworthy", Fabian sent out the "apostles to the Gauls" to Christianize Gaul after the persecutions under Emperor Decius had all but dissolved the small Christian communities. Fabian sent seven bishops from Rome to Gaul to preach the Gospel: Gatianus of Tours to Tours, Trophimus of Arles to Arles, Paul of Narbonne to Narbonne, Saturnin to Toulouse, Denis to Paris, Austromoine to the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Clermont, and Saint Martial to Limoges. He also had the bodies of Hippolytus of Rome and Pope Pontian brought from Sardinia to Rome. He was martyred during the persecution of Christians under Emperor Decius and was one of the first to die on 20 January 250.

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Pope Felix I
Pope Saint Felix I was Pope from 5 January 269 to 30 December 274.
A Roman by birth, Felix was chosen as Pope on 5 January 269, in succession to Pope Dionysius, who had died on 26 December 268
Felix was the author of an important dogmatic letter on the unity of Christ's Person. He received the emperor Aurelian's aid in settling a theological dispute between the anti-Trinitarian Paul of Samosata, who had been deprived of the bishopric Antioch by a council of bishops for heresy and the orthodox Domnus, Paul's successor. Paul refused to give way, and in 272 the emperor Aurelian was asked to decide between the rivals. He ordered the church building to be given to the bishop who was "recognized by the bishops of Italy and of the city of Rome" (Felix). See Eusebius, Hist. Ecc. vii. 30.
The text of that letter was later interpolated by a follower of Apollinaris in the interests of his sect.
The notice about Felix in the Liber Pontificalis ascribes to him a decree that Masses should be celebrated on the tombs of martyrs ("Hic constituit supra memorias martyrum missas celebrare"). The author of this entry was evidently alluding to the custom of celebrating Mass privately at the altars near or over the tombs of the martyrs in the crypts of the catacombs (missa ad corpus), while the solemn celebration always took place in the basilicas built over the catacombs. This practice, still in force at the end of the fourth century, dates apparently from the period when the great cemeterial basilicas were built in Rome, and owes its origin to the solemn commemoration services of martyrs, held at their tombs on the anniversary of their burial, as early as the third century. Felix probably issued no such decree, but the compiler of the Liber Pontificalis attributed it to him because he made no departure from the custom in force in his time.

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Pope Felix III
Pope Saint Felix III (though as Antipope Felix the "II" was not actually pope, he could also be called "Pope St. Felix II") was pope from 13 March 483 to 3 January 492. His repudiation of the Henoticon is considered the beginning of the Acacian schism.
Felix was born into a Roman senatorial family and was a great-great-grandfather of Pope Gregory I. He was a widower with two children when he was elected to succeed Pope Simplicius in 483.
It is said that Felix appeared as an apparition to one of his descendants, his great-granddaughter Trasilla (an aunt of Pope Gregory I), and asked her to enter Heaven through death, and on the eve of Christmas Trasilla died, seeing Jesus Christ beckoning.
His first act was to repudiate the Henoticon, a deed of union originating with Patriarch Acacius of Constantinople and published by Emperor Zeno with the view of allaying the strife between the Miaphysite Christians and Chalcedonian Christians. He also addressed a letter of remonstrance to Acacius. The latter proved refractory and sentence of deposition was passed against Acacius.

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Pope Felix IV
Pope Saint Felix IV was pope from 526 to 530.
He came from Samnium, the son of one Castorius. Following the death of Pope John I at the hands of the Ostrogoth King Theodoric the Great, the papal voters gave in to the king's demands and chose Cardinal Felix as Pope. Felix's favor in the eyes of the king caused him to push for greater benefits for the Church.
He was elected after a gap of nearly two months after the death of John I.
During his reign, an Imperial edict was passed granting that cases against clergy should be dealt with by the Pope. He defined church teaching on grace and free will in response to a request of Faustus of Riez, in Gaul, on opposing Semi-Pelagianism.
Felix attempted to designate his own successor: Pope Boniface II. The reaction of the Senate was to forbid the discussion of a pope’s successor during his lifetime or to accept such a nomination.
The majority of the clergy reacted to Felix's activity by nominating Dioscorus as Pope. Only a minority supported Boniface.
Felix built the Santi Cosma e Damiano in the Imperial forums.

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Pope Formosus
Pope Formosus (c. 816 – 896) was Pope of the Catholic Church from 891 to 896. His brief reign as Pope was troubled, and his remains were exhumed and put on trial in the notorious Cadaver Synod.
Born at Ostia, he became Cardinal Bishop of Portus in 864. He undertook diplomatic missions to Bulgaria (866) and France (869 and 872), and he persuaded Charles the Bald, King of France, to be crowned as emperor by the Pope in 875.
As early as 872 he was a candidate for the papacy, but due to political complications he left Rome and the court of Pope John VIII that year. John convened a synod, and Formosus was ordered to return or be excommunicated on charges that he had aspired to the Bulgarian Archbishopric and the Holy See; had opposed the emperor and had deserted his diocese without papal permission; had despoiled the cloisters in Rome; had performed the divine service in spite of the interdict; and had "conspired with certain iniquitous men and women for the destruction of the papal see"^{[citation needed]}. The condemnation of Formosus and others was announced in July 872. In 878 the sentence of excommunication was withdrawn after he promised never to return to Rome or exercise his priestly functions.

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Pope Gelasius I
Pope Saint Gelasius I (died 21 November 496) was pope from 492 until his death in 496. He was the third and last Bishop of Rome of Berber origin^{[citation needed]} in the Catholic Church. Gelasius was a prolific writer whose style placed him on the cusp between Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. Gelasius had been closely employed by his predecessor Felix III, especially in drafting papal documents. His reign was characterized by a call for strict orthodoxy, a more assertive push for papal authority, and increasing tension between the churches in the West and the East.
Gelasius' election on 1 March 492 was a gesture for continuity: Gelasius inherited Felix's struggles with Eastern Roman Emperor Anastasius I and the patriarch of Constantinople and exacerbated them by insisting on the removal of the name of the late Acacius, patriarch of Constantinople, from the diptychs, in spite of every ecumenical gesture by the current, otherwise quite orthodox patriarch Euphemius (q.v. for details of the Acacian schism).

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Pope Gelasius II
Pope Gelasius II (died 29 January 1119), born Giovanni Caetani (also called Coniulo), was pope from 24 January 1118 to 29 January 1119.
He was born between 1060 and 1064 at Gaeta into the Pisan branch of the Caetani family.
He became a monk of Monte Cassino, was taken to Rome by Pope Urban II, and made papal subdeacon (August 1088) and cardinal deacon of Santa Maria in Cosmedin (probably on 23 September 1088). As chancellor of the Holy Roman Church from 1089 to 1118, he drastically reformed the papal administration, establishing a permanent staff of clerks for the papacy, overcoming the previous custom of relying on Roman notaries to write papal documents, and introducing the minuscule curial script. His tenure also established the precedent of the papal chancellor always being a cardinal and holding the office for life or until elected pope.
Shortly after his unanimous election to succeed Pope Paschal II in 1118, he was seized by Cencio II Frangipane, a partisan of Holy Roman Emperor Henry V, but was freed by a general uprising of the Romans on his behalf. Henry V sought to enforce the privilege of investiture to the papacy conceded to the emperor by Paschal II, but then revoked. He drove Gelasius II from Rome in March 1118, pronounced his election null and void, and set up Maurice Bourdin, Archbishop of Braga, as antipope under the name of Gregory VIII.

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Pope Gregory I
Pope Gregory I (Latin: Gregorius I) (c. 540 – 12 March 604), better known in English as Gregory the Great, was pope from 3 September 590 until his death. Gregory is well known for his writings, which were more prolific than those of any of his predecessors as pope.
Throughout the Middle Ages he was known as “the Father of Christian Worship” because of his exceptional efforts in revising the Roman worship of his day.
He is also known as St. Gregory the Dialogist in Eastern Orthodoxy because of his Dialogues. For this reason, English translations of Orthodox texts will sometimes list him as "Gregory Dialogus". He was the first of the popes to come from a monastic background. Gregory is a Doctor of the Church and one of the Latin Fathers. He is considered a saint in the Roman Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, Anglican Communion, and some Lutheran churches. Immediately after his death, Gregory was canonized by popular acclaim. The Protestant reformer, John Calvin, admired Gregory and declared in his Institutes that Gregory was the last good pope. He is the patron saint of musicians, singers, students, and teachers.

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Pope Gregory II
Pope Saint Gregory II was pope from 19 May 715 to his death on 11 February 731 in succession to Pope Constantine. Having, it is said, bought off the Lombards for thirty pounds of gold after Charles Martel refused his call for aid, he used the tranquillity thus obtained for vigorous missionary efforts among the Germanic tribes, and for strengthening the papal authority in the churches of Britain and Ireland. By excommunicating the Byzantine emperor Leo III the Isaurian in the course of the iconoclastic controversy of the Eastern Empire, he prepared the way for a long series of revolts and civil wars that tended greatly to the establishment of the temporal power of the popes. His public letter to the Emperor denied the Imperial right to interfere in matters of doctrine, the central tenet of Caesaropapism.
The name he selected was significant, expressing his intention to follow in the policies of Gregory the Great
He died in 731, and subsequently attained the honour of canonization. The day that Gregory is remembered in the "Martyrology" seems to be any one of 11 February, 13 February, and 28 February.

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Pope Gregory III
Pope Saint Gregory III (died 28 November 741) was pope from 11 February 731 to 28 November 741. His pontificate, like that of his predecessor, was disturbed by the iconoclastic controversy in the Byzantine Empire, and by the ongoing advance of the Lombards, in which he vainly invoked the intervention of Charles Martel.
Gregory, was the son of a Syrian named John. He was elected pope by popular acclamation on 11 February, 731, but was not formally consecrated as Bishop of Rome until 18 March after receiving the approval of the Byzantine exarch in Ravenna. He was the last pope to seek the exarch’s ratification of a papal election.
Upon his accession as pope, Gregory immediately appealed to the Byzantine Emperor Leo III to moderate his position on the iconoclastic controversy. When Gregory’s representative was arrested on the orders of the emperor, Gregory called a synod in November 731, which condemned iconoclasm outright. Leo responded by trying to bring the Pope under control, although the fleet he sent to enforce the imperial will was shipwrecked in the Adriatic Sea. He then proceeded to appropriate papal territories in Sicily and Calabria, and transferring ecclesiastical jurisdictions in the former Praetorian prefecture of Illyricum to the Patriarch of Constantinople. However, his attempt to force the Duke of Naples to enforce an imperial decree to confiscate papal territory in the duchy failed, as the duke was supportive of the pope’s stand.

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Pope Gregory IV
Pope Gregory IV was Pope from October 827 to 25 January 844. His pontificate was notable for the papacy’s attempts to intervene in the quarrels between the emperor Louis the Pious and his sons. It also saw the breakup of the Carolingian Empire in 843.
The son of a Roman patrician called John, Gregory was apparently an energetic but mild churchman, renowned for his learning. Consecrated a priest during the pontificate of Pope Paschal I, at the time of Pope Valentine’s death in 827, Gregory was the Cardinal priest of the Basilica of St Mark in Rome. Like his predecessor, Gregory was nominated by the nobility, and the electors unanimously agreed that he was the most worthy to become the Bishop of Rome. They found him at the Basilica of Saints Cosmas and Damian where, despite his protestations, he was taken and installed at the Lateran Palace, after which he was enthroned as Pope-elect sometime in October 827. Gregory’s elevation to the papal see is believed to represent a continuation of the attempts to control the local political situation in Rome which had begun during Pope Eugene II’s pontificate.

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Pope Gregory IX
Pope Gregory IX (c. 1145/70 – 22 August 1241), born Ugolino di Conti, was pope from 19 March 1227 until his death.
The successor of Pope Honorius III, he fully inherited the traditions of Pope Gregory VII and of his cousin Pope Innocent III, and zealously continued their policy of Papal supremacy.
Ugolino was born in Anagni. The date of his birth varies in sources between ca. 1145 and 1170.
He was created Cardinal-Deacon of the church of Sant'Eustachio by his cousin Innocent III in December 1198. In 1206 he was promoted to the rank of Cardinal Bishop of Ostia e Velletri. He became Dean of the Sacred College of Cardinals in 1218 or 1219. He was also Cardinal Protector of the Order of Franciscans.
As Cardinal Bishop of Ostia he cultivated a wide range of acqaintances, among them Queen of England at that time, Isabella of Angoulême.
After his elevation to the papal chair at the conclusion of the papal election of 1227, Gregory IX began his pontificate by suspending the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II, then lying sick at Otranto, for dilatoriness in carrying out the promised Sixth Crusade. The suspension was followed by excommunication and threats of deposition, as deeper rifts appeared – Frederick II's control of the Sicilian Church, his feudal obligations to the Pope, even his continued presence in Sicily. Frederick II publicly appealed to the sovereigns of Europe complaining of his treatment. Frederick II went to the Holy Land and skirmished with the Saracens to fulfill his vow, but was soon back in Italy, where Gregory IX had taken advantage of his absence by invading his territories. A consequent invasion of the Papal states in 1228 having proved unsuccessful, the Emperor was constrained to give in his submission and beg for absolution.

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Pope Gregory V
Pope Gregory V, né Bruno of Carinthia (c. 972 – 18 February 999) was Pope from 3 May 996 to 18 February 999, a son of the Salian Otto I, Duke of Carinthia, who was a grandson of the Emperor Otto I the Great. Gregory V succeeded Pope John XV when only twenty-four years of age. He was the chaplain of his cousin Emperor Otto III, who presented him as candidate.
Gregory V was the first German Pope. Sometimes Pope Boniface II (530–532) is considered the first German Pope, although he was in fact an Ostrogoth.
Politically, Gregory V acted consistently as the Emperor's representative in Rome and granted many exceptional privileges to monasteries within the Holy Roman Empire. One of his first acts was to crown Otto III Emperor on 21 May 996. Together, they held a synod a few days after the coronation in which Arnulf, Archbishop of Reims, was ordered to be restored to his See of Reims, and Gerbert of Aurillac, the future Pope Silvester II, was condemned as an intruder. Robert II of France, who had been insisting on his right to appoint bishops, was ultimately forced to back down, and ultimately also to put aside his wife Bertha, by the rigorous enforcement of a sentence of excommunication on the kingdom.

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Pope Gregory VI
Pope Gregory VI (died 1048), born in Rome as John Gratian (Latin Johannes Gratianus), was Pope from 1 May 1045 until his abdication at the Council of Sutri on 20 December 1046.
Gratian, the Archpriest of St. John by the Latin Gate, was a man of great reputation for uprightness of character. He was also the godfather of Pope Benedict IX, who was foisted on the papacy by his powerful family, the Theophylacti, counts of Tusculum, at the age of twenty.
Benedict IX, wishing to marry and vacate the position into which he had been thrust by his family, consulted his godfather as to whether he could resign the supreme pontificate. When he was convinced that he might do so, he offered to give up the papacy into the hands of his godfather for a large sum of money. Desirous of ridding the See of Rome of such an unworthy pontiff, John Gratian paid him the money and was recognized as Pope in his stead.
The accession of Gratian, who took the name Gregory VI, did not bring peace to the Church, though it was hailed with joy even by such a strict upholder of the right as St. Peter Damian. When Benedict IX left the city after selling the papacy, there was already another aspirant to the See of Peter in the field. John, Bishop of Sabina, had been hailed as Pope Sylvester III by the faction of the nobility that had driven Benedict IX from Rome in 1044, and had then installed him in his place. Though Benedict IX soon returned, and forced Sylvester III to retire to his See of Sabina, he never gave up his claims to the papal throne, and through his political allies contrived apparently to keep some hold on a portion of Rome.

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Pope Gregory VII
Pope Gregory VII (c. 1015/1028 – 25 May 1085), born Hildebrand of Sovana (Italian: Ildebrando da Soana), was Pope from 22 April 1073 until his death.
One of the great reforming popes, he is perhaps best known for the part he played in the Investiture Controversy, his dispute with Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor that affirmed the primacy of papal authority and the new canon law governing the election of the pope by the College of Cardinals. He was also at the forefront of developments in the relationship between the emperor and the papacy during the years before he became pope.
He twice excommunicated Henry, who in the end appointed Antipope Clement III to oppose him in the political power struggles between the Catholic Church and his empire. Hailed as one of the greatest of the Roman pontiffs after his reforms proved successful, Gregory was, during his own reign, despised by some for his expansive use of papal powers.
Gregory was beatified by Gregory XIII in 1584 and canonized in 1728 by Pope Benedict XIII.

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Pope Gregory VIII
Pope Gregory VIII (c. 1100/1105 – 17 December 1187), born Alberto di Morra, was Pope from 25 October 1187 until his death.
Alberto di Morra was born about 1105 in Benevento, Italy. His father was the nobleman Sartorius di Morra. He became a monk early in life, either as a Cistercian in Laon, or a Benedictine at Monte Cassino. Alberto later joined a new religious order, the Premonstratensian or Norbertine order, probably between the ages of 20-30. He was a canon at St. Martin's Abbey in Laon. He later became a professor of canon law in Bologna.
In 1156, Pope Adrian IV made him cardinal-deacon of Sant'Adriano, and on 14 March 1158 he became cardinal-priest of San Lorenzo in Lucina. As a papal legate of Pope Alexander III, he was sent to teach canon law throughout Europe in the 1160s, and was sent to Portugal to crown Afonso II. He also brought an offer of reconciliation in 1163 to Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa, whom Pope Alexander III had excommunicated in 1160. Alexander also sent him to England to investigate the murder of Thomas Becket, and he absolved King Henry II of England of the murder during the Council of Avranches. From 1177-1179, Alberto also served as a legate in Italy and in February 1178 was named Chancellor of the Holy Roman Church. It was in this position that he "...compiled a Forma Dicendi, a collection of official papal acts, and also completed a codification of the cursus, a compilation of the very stringent rules governing the euphonious arrangements of sentence endings and phrasing in papal acts. In his honor, the cursus was called stylus gregorianus." These two documents were very influential in shaping the rhetoric used in papal documents. Shortly before his election to the papacy, Alberto founded a monastery in his hometown of Benevento.

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Pope Gregory X
Blessed Pope Gregory X (ca. 1210 – 10 January 1276), born Tedaldo Visconti, was Pope from 1271 to 1276. He was elected at the conclusion of a papal election that ran from 1268 to 1271, the longest papal election in the history of the Roman Catholic Church.
Born in Piacenza, he spent most of his ecclesiastical career in the north, in the Low Countries.
Gregory succeeded Pope Clement IV in 1271 after the papal chair had been vacant for three years due to divisions among the Cardinals. The College of Cardinals was equally split between French and Italian Cardinals who wanted a Pope from their country due to the ongoing political situation with Charles of Anjou, younger brother of King Louis IX of France, who had usurped the throne of Sicily by arms and perpetually intervened in the political affairs of the entire Italian peninsula. The deadlock was finally broken when the citizens of Viterbo, where the Cardinals were assembled, removed the roof from the building they were meeting in and locked them in, only allowing them bread and water. Three days later, the Cardinals elected Pope Gregory X. He was considered a strong choice because even though he was Italian, he had spent most of his career north of the Alps and thus had not been embroiled in recent Italian political controversies.

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Pope Gregory XI
Gregory XI (c. 1329 – 27 March 1378) was pope from 1370 until his death.
He was born Pierre Roger de Beaufort in Maumont in the modern commune of Rosiers-d'Égletons, Limousin, around 1330. He succeeded Pope Urban V at the papal conclave of 1370. He was the seventh and last of the Avignon Popes.
During his pontificate vigorous measures were taken against the heresies which had broken out in Germany, England, and other parts of Europe; a sincere effort was also made to cause a reformation in the various monastic orders.
John Wycliffe's 19 reformation articles on church related items as he wrote in his On Civil Dominion and 21 proposed reformation articles of Johannes Klenkoka's Decadecon were submitted to Pope Gregory XI in the early part of the 1370s. Gregory formally condemned fourteen articles of Decadecon in 1374 and nineteen propositions of Wycliffe's On Civil Dominion in 1377.
His return to Rome on 17 January 1377, is attributed in part to the stirring words of Catherine of Siena. This had been attempted by Gregory's predecessor, Urban V, without success. The project was delayed by a conflict between the pope and Florence, known as "the War of the Eight Saints" for the "Eight for War," the Florentine magistrates responsible for the conduct of the war. The pope put Florence under interdict for a time.

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Pope Gregory XII
Pope Gregory XII (c. 1326 – 18 October 1417), born Angelo Correr or Corraro, was Pope from 1406 to 1415. He succeeded Pope Innocent VII on 30 November 1406.
Gregory was chosen at Rome in 1406 by a conclave consisting of only fifteen cardinals under the express condition that, should Antipope Benedict XIII (1394–1423), the rival papal claimant at Avignon, renounce all claim to the Papacy, he would also renounce his, so that a fresh election might be made and the Western Schism (1378–1417) could be ended.
The two pontiffs opened wary negotiations to meet on neutral turf at Savona in Liguria, but soon began to waver in their resolve. The Correr relatives of Gregory XII in Venice and King Ladislaus of Naples, the supporter of Gregory XII and his predecessor for political reasons, used all their influence to prevent the meeting, and each Pope feared being captured by the party of the rival Pope.

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Pope Gregory XIII
Pope Gregory XIII (7 January 1502 – 10 April 1585), born Ugo Boncompagni, was Pope from 1572 to 1585. He is best known for commissioning and being the namesake for the Gregorian calendar, which remains the internationally accepted civil calendar to this date.
During his pontificate, Gregory fostered cultural patronages associated with his papacy. He strengthened many ecclesiastical and diplomatic envoys to Asia, namely the islands of Japan and the Philippines. He was also the first Pope to bestow the Immaculate Conception as Patroness to the Philippine Islands on 9 February 1579.
Ugo Boncompagni was born the son of Cristoforo Boncompagni (10 July 1470–1546) and of his wife Angela Marescalchi in Bologna, where he studied law and graduated in 1530. He later taught jurisprudence for some years, and his students included notable figures such as Cardinals Alexander Farnese, Reginald Pole and Charles Borromeo. He had an illegitimate son before he took holy orders.
At the age of thirty-six he was summoned to Rome by Pope Paul III (1534–1549), under whom he held successive appointments as first judge of the capital, abbreviator, and vice-chancellor of the Campagna. Pope Paul IV (1555–1559) attached him as datarius to the suite of Cardinal Carlo Carafa, Pope Pius IV (1559–1565) made him Cardinal-Priest of San Sisto Vecchio and sent him to the Council of Trent.

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Pope Gregory XIV
Pope Gregory XIV (11 February 1535 – 16 October 1591), born Niccolò Sfondrati, was Pope from 5 December 1590 until his death in 1591.
Niccolò Sfondrati was born at Somma Lombardo, then part of the Duchy of Milan, in the highest stratum of Milanese society. His mother, of the house of Visconti, died in childbirth. His father Francesco, a senator of the ancient comune of Milan, was created Cardinal-Priest by Pope Paul III in 1544.
In his youth he was known for his modest lifestyle and stringent piety. He studied at Perugia and Padua, was ordained a priest and swiftly appointed Bishop of Cremona, in 1560, in time to participate in the sessions of the Council of Trent from 1561 to 1563. Pope Gregory XIII made him a Cardinal-Priest of Santa Cecilia in Trastevere on 12 December 1583. Sfondrati was a close follower of Carlo Cardinal Borromeo, and when cardinal he celebrated the Requiem Mass for Borromeo on 7 November 1584. Sfondrati was an intimate friend and a great admirer of Philip Neri, an Italian priest who died in 1595 and was canonised in 1622.

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Pope Gregory XV
Pope Gregory XV (9 January or 15 January 1554 – 8 July 1623), born Alessandro Ludovisi, was pope from 1621, succeeding Pope Paul V on 9 February 1621.
He was born in Bologna to Pompeo Ludovisi, Count of Samoggia, now Savigno in the Province of Bologna, and of Camilla Bianchini, being one of seven children.
Educated at the Roman College run by the Jesuits in Rome, he went to the University of Bologna to get degrees in canon and Roman law, June 1575. His early career was as a papal jurist in Rome, and there is no evidence that he had been ordained. In March 1612, however, Pope Paul V appointed him as the Archbishop of Bologna, for which he was presumably ordained and then he was consecrated a bishop on 1 May of that year.
In August 1616 the pope sent him as nuncio to the Duchy of Savoy, to mediate between Charles Emmanuel I, Duke of Savoy and Philip III of Spain in their dispute concerning the Gonzaga Marquisate of Montferrat. In September 1616, Paul created him Cardinal Priest, his titular church being Santa Maria in Traspontina. Ludovisi remained in his episcopal see in Bologna until he went to Rome after the death of Pope Paul to take part in the conclave at which he was chosen as pope.

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Pope Gregory XVI
Pope Gregory XVI (18 September 1765 – 1 June 1846), born Bartolomeo Alberto Cappellari, was Pope of the Roman Catholic Church from 1831 to 1846. He had adopted the name Mauro upon entering the religious order of the Camaldolese. Strongly conservative and traditionalist, he opposed democratic and modernising reforms in the Papal States and throughout Europe, seeing them as fronts for revolutionary leftism, and he sought to strengthen the religious and political authority of the papacy (see Ultramontanism).
Cappellari was born at Belluno on 18 September 1765, to an Italian noble family. His parents were from a small village named Pesariis, in Friuli. At an early age he joined the order of the Camaldolese (part of the Benedictine monastic family) and entered the Monastery of San Michael in Murano, near Venice. As a Camaldolese monk, Cappellari rapidly gained distinction for his theological and linguistic skills. In 1799 he published a polemic against the Italian Jansenists titled II Trionfo della Santa Sede ("The Triumph of the Holy See"), which passed through various editions in Italy and was translated into several European languages. In 1800 he became a member of the Academy of the Catholic Religion, founded by Pope Pius VII (1800–23), to which he contributed memoirs on theological and philosophical questions. In 1805 he was made abbot of the Monastery of San Gregorio on Rome's Caelian Hill.

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Pope Hilarius
Pope Saint Hilarius (also Hilarus, Hilary) was Pope of the Roman Catholic Church from 461 to 28 February 468. He was canonized as a saint after his death.
The Sardinian archdeacon of Rome, Hilarius was elected bishop of Rome, probably on 17 November 461, and was consecrated on 19 November 461.
As archdeacon under Pope Leo I, he fought vigorously for the rights of the Roman See and vigorously opposed the condemnation of Flavian of Constantinople at the Second Council of Ephesus in 449 to settle the question of Eutyches. According to a letter to the Empress Pulcheria collected among the letters of Leo I, Hilarius apologized for not delivering to her the pope's letter after the synod, but owing to Dioscurus of Alexandria, who tried to hinder his going either to Rome or to Constantinople, he had great difficulty in making his escape in order to bring to the pontiff the news of the result of the council.

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Pope Honorius I
Pope Honorius I (died 12 October 638) was pope from 625 to 638.
Honorius, according to the Liber Pontificalis, came from Campania and was the son of the consul Petronius. He became pope on 27 October 625, two days after the death of his predecessor, Boniface V. The festival of the Elevation of the Cross is said to have been instituted during the pontificate of Honorius, which was marked also by considerable missionary enterprise. Much of this was centered on England, especially Wessex. He also succeeded in bringing the Irish Easter celebrations in line with the rest of the Catholic Church.
Although Honorius never issued a dogmatic (ex cathedra) decree in regards to the controversy of Christ's wills , he favoured Monothelitism. He supported a formula proposed by the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius with the design of bringing about a reconciliation between Monothelites and the rest of the Catholic Church. Monothelitism is the teaching that Christ has only one will, the divine will, in contrast with the teaching that He has both a divine will and a human will. To this end, Honorius "sent his deacon Gaios" to a synod in Cyprus in 634 hosted by archbishop Arkadios II with additional representatives from Patriarch Sergius I of Constantinople. The anti-Monothelite side in Jerusalem, championed by Maximus the Confessor and Sophronius of Jerusalem, sent to this synod Anastasius (a pupil of Maximus), George of Reshaina (a pupil of Sophronius), two of George of Raishana's own pupils, and eight bishops from Palestine. When the two sides were presented to the Emperor, the Emperor persisted with Monothelitism and so did Honorius. (George of Reshaina, "An Early Life of Maximus the Confessor", 316–7)

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Pope Honorius II
Pope Honorius II (died 13 February 1130), born Lamberto Scannabecchi, was Pope from 21 December 1124 to 13 February 1130. Although from a humble background, his obvious intellect and outstanding abilities saw him promoted up through the ecclesiastical hierarchy. Attached to the Frangipani family of Rome, his election as Pope was contested by a rival candidate, Celestine II, and force was used to guarantee his election. His pontificate was concerned with ensuring that the privileges the Roman Church had obtained through the Concordat of Worms were preserved and, if possible, extended. He was the first pope to confirm the election of the Holy Roman Emperor. Distrustful of the traditional Benedictine order, he favoured new monastic orders, such as the Augustinians and the Cistercians, and sought to exercise more control over the larger monastic centres of Monte Cassino and Cluny Abbey. He also approved the new military order of the Knights Templar in 1128. He failed to prevent Roger II of Sicily from extending his power in southern Italy and was unable to stop Louis VI of France from interfering in the affairs of the French church. Like his predecessors, he managed the wide-ranging affairs of the church through Papal Legates. With his death in 1130, the Church was again thrown into confusion with the election of two rival popes, Innocent II and the antipope Anacletus II.

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Pope Honorius III
Pope Honorius III (1148 – 18 March 1227), previously known as Cencio Savelli, was Pope from 1216 to 1227.
He was born in Rome as son of Aimerico. He was a member of the Roman Savelli family.
For a time he was canon at the church of Santa Maria Maggiore, then he became Camerlengo of the Holy Roman Church in January 1188 and Cardinal Deacon of Santa Lucia in Silice on 20 February 1193. Under Pope Clement III and Pope Celestine III he was treasurer of the Roman Church, notably compiling the Liber Censuum, and served as acting Vice-Chancellor of the Holy Roman Church from 1194 until 1198.
In 1197 he became tutor of the future Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II, who had been given as ward to Pope Innocent III by the Empress-widow Constance of Sicily.
Innocent III raised him to the rank of a Cardinal Priest in 1200, by which he obtained the Titulus of Ss. Ioannis et Pauli. He was dismissed as Camerlengo of the Holy Roman Church in 1198, but about the same time he assumed the post of Camerlengo of the Sacred College of Cardinals.

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Pope Honorius IV
Pope Honorius IV (c. 1210 – 3 April 1287), born Giacomo Savelli, was Pope for two years, from 1285 to 1287. During his pontificate he largely continued to pursue the pro-French political policy of his predecessor, Pope Martin IV. He was the last Pope who was married before he took Holy Orders.
Savelli was born in Rome into the rich and influential family of the Savelli. Initially, he was married and had at least two sons. One of them became podestà of Urbino and died before 1279. Another one was a senator in Rome and died in 1306. After the death of his wife, he entered ecclesiastical state.
He studied at the University of Paris, where he held a prebend and a canonry at the cathedral of Châlons-sur-Marne. Later he obtained the benefice of rector at the church of Berton in the Diocese of Norwich in England, a nation he never visited.
In 1261 he was created Cardinal Deacon of Santa Maria in Cosmedin by Pope Urban IV, who also appointed him papal prefect in Tuscany and captain of the papal army. Cardinal Savelli pursued a diplomatic career. Pope Clement IV sent him and three other cardinals to invest Charles of Anjou as King of Sicily at Rome on 28 July 1265. After the long deadlocked vacancy in the papal see after the death of Clement IV, a vacant seat of three years, he was one of the six cardinals who finally elected Pope Gregory X by compromise on 1 September 1271 in a conclave held at Viterbo because conditions in Rome were too turbulent.

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Pope Hormisdas
Pope Saint Hormisdas (c. 450 – 6 August 523) was Pope from 20 July 514 to 523. His papacy was dominated by the Acacian schism, started in 484 by Acacius of Constantinople's efforts to placate the Monophysites. His efforts to resolve this schism was successful, and on 28 March 519, the reunion of the Greek Church with Rome was ratified in the cathedral of Constantinople before a large crowd.
Jeffrey Richards explains Hormisdas' Persian name as probably in honor of an exiled Persian noble, Hormizd, "celebrated in the Roman martyrology (8 August) but not so honoured in the East." The names of his father and son suggest he had an otherwise "straightforward Italian pedigree."
He was born at Frosinone, Campagna di Roma, Italy. Before becoming a Roman deacon, Hormisdas was married, and his son became pope under the name of Silverius. During the Laurentian schism, Hormisdas was one of the most prominent clerical partisans of Pope Symmachus. He was notary at the synod held at St. Peter's in 502. Two letters of Magnus Felix Ennodius, bishop of Pavia, survive addressed to him, written when the latter tried to regain horses and money he had lent the pope.

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Pope Hyginus
Pope Saint Hyginus was bishop of Rome from about 136 or 138 to about 140 or 142. Tradition holds that during his papacy he determined the various prerogatives of the clergy and defined the grades of the ecclesiastical hierarchy. However, modern scholars tend to doubt this claim and view the governance of the church of Rome during this period as still more or less collective.
According to the Liber Pontificalis, Hyginus was a Greek born in Athens. The source further states that he previously was a philosopher, probably founded on the similarity of his name with that of two Latin authors.
Irenaeus says that the Gnostic Valentinus came to Rome in Hyginus's time, remaining there until Anicetus became pontiff (Against Heresies, III, iii). Cerdo, another Gnostic and predecessor of Marcion, also lived at Rome in the reign of Hyginus; by confessing his errors and recanting he succeeded in obtaining readmission into the bosom of the Church, but eventually he fell back into the heresies and was expelled from the Church. How many of these events took place during the time of Hyginus is not known.

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Pope Innocent I
Pope Saint Innocent I was pope from 401 to 12 March 417.
According to his biographer in the Liber Pontificalis, Innocent was the son of a man called Innocens of Albano, but according to his contemporary Jerome, his father was Pope Anastasius I (399–401), whom he was called by the unanimous voice of the clergy and laity to succeed (he had been born before his father's entry to the clergy).
Innocent I lost no opportunity in maintaining and extending the authority of the Roman Empire. (See as the ultimate resort for the settlement of all disputes.) His communications with Victricius of Rouen, Exuperius of Toulouse, Alexander of Antioch and others, as well as his actions on the appeal made to him by John Chrysostom against Theophilus of Alexandria, show that opportunities of this kind were numerous and varied. He took a decided view on the Pelagian controversy, confirming the decisions of the synod of the province of proconsular Africa, held in Carthage in 416, which had been sent to him, and also writing in the same year in a similar sense to the fathers of the Numidian synod of Mileve who had addressed him (Augustine of Hippo among them).

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Pope Innocent II
Pope Innocent II (died 24 September 1143), born Gregorio Papareschi, was pope from 1130 to 1143, and was probably one of the clergy in personal attendance on the antipope Clement III (Guibert of Ravenna).
Papareschi came from a Roman family, probably of the rione Trastevere.
Pope Paschal II made him a cardinal deacon. In this capacity, he accompanied Pope Gelasius II when he was driven into France. He was selected by Pope Calixtus II for various important and difficult missions, such as the one to Worms for the conclusion of the Concordat of Worms, the peace accord made with Holy Roman Emperor Henry V in 1122, and also the one to France in 1123 that made peace with King Louis VI.
In 1130, as Pope Honorius II lay dying, the cardinals decided to entrust the election to a commission of eight men led by papal chancellor Haimeric, who had his candidate Cardinal Gregory Papareschi hastily elected as Pope Innocent II. He was consecrated on 14 February, the day after Honorius' death. The other cardinals announced that Innocent had not been canonically elected and chose Cardinal Pietro Pierleoni, a Roman whose family were the enemy of Haimeric's supporters, the Frangipani; Pierleoni took the name Pope Anacletus II. Anacletus' mixed group of supporters were powerful enough to take control of Rome while Innocent was forced to flee north. Based on a simple majority of the entire college of cardinals, Anacletus was the canonically elected pope, and Innocent was the anti-Pope. However, the legislation of Pope Nicholas II (in the famous decree of 1059) pre-empted the choice of the majority of the cardinal priests and cardinal deacons. This rule was changed by the Second Lateran council of 1139.

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Pope Innocent III
Pope Innocent III (1160 or 1161 – 16 July 1216) was Pope from 8 January 1198 until his death. His birth name was Lotario dei Conti di Segni, sometimes anglicised to Lothar of Segni.
Pope Innocent was one of the most powerful and influential popes in the history of the papacy. He exerted a wide influence over the Christian regimes of Europe, claiming supremacy over all of Europe's kings. Pope Innocent was central in supporting the Catholic Church's reforms of ecclesiastical affairs through his decretals and the Fourth Lateran Council. This resulted in a considerable refinement of the Western canon law. Pope Innocent is notable for using interdict and other censures to compel princes to obey his decisions, although these measures were not uniformly successful. The pope called for crusades against militant heretics like the Cathars as well as Muslims. One of Pope Innocent's most critical decisions was calling upon Christian forces to begin the Fourth Crusade. Although the Crusades were, in part, originally intended to support the Byzantine Empire at Constantinople from attack by Turkish invaders, the Fourth Crusade resulted in the sack of Constantinople by the Crusaders in 1204, which greatly upset Pope Innocent.

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Pope Innocent IV
Pope Innocent IV (c. 1195 – 7 December 1254), born Sinibaldo Fieschi, was Pope from 25 June 1243 until his death in 1254.
Born in Genoa (although some sources say Manarola) in an unknown year, Sinibaldo was the son of Brumisan di Grillo and Ugo Fieschi, Count of Lavagna. The Fieschi were a noble merchant family of Liguria. Sinibaldo received his education at the universities of Parma and Bologna and, for a time, taught canon law at Bologna. He was considered one of the best canonists of his time and was called to serve the Pope in the Roman Curia in the year 1226.
Before his elevation to the papacy, Sinibaldo was Vice-Chancellor of the Holy Roman Church (1226–27), being created Cardinal Priest of San Lorenzo in Lucina on 18 September 1227 by Pope Gregory IX, later serving as governor of the March of Ancona from 1235 until 1240.
It is widely repeated from the 17th century on that he became bishop of Albenga in 1235, but there is no foundation to this claim.
Innocent's immediate predecessor was Pope Celestine IV, elected 25 October 1241, whose reign lasted a mere fifteen days. The events of Innocent IV's pontificate are therefore inextricably linked to the policies dominating the reigns of popes Innocent III, Honorius III and Gregory IX.

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Pope Innocent IX
Pope Innocent IX (20 July 1519 – 30 December 1591), born Giovanni Antonio Facchinetti, was Pope from 29 October 1591 to his death on 30 December of the same year. Prior to his short papacy, he had been a Canon Lawyer, diplomat, and chief administrator during the reign of Pope Gregory XIV (1590–1591).
Facchinetti, whose family came from Crodo, in the diocese of Novara, northern Italy, was born in Bologna on 20 July 1519. He was a lawyer, a graduate in 1544 of the University of Bologna, which was pre-eminent in jurisprudence, and became secretary to Cardinal Nicolò Ardinghelli before entering the service of Alessandro Cardinal Farnese, brother of the Duke of Parma and grandson of Pope Paul III (1534–1549), one of the great patrons of the time. The Cardinal, who was archbishop of Avignon, sent Facchinetti there as his ecclesiastical representative and subsequently recalled him to the management of his affairs at Parma, where he was acting governor of the city, from 1556 to 1558. In 1560, Facchinetti was named Bishop of Nicastro, in Calabria, and in 1562 was present at the Council of Trent. Pope Pius V (1566–1572) sent him as papal nuncio to Venice in 1566 to further the papal alliance with Spain and Venice against the Turks, which ultimately resulted in the victory of Lepanto in 1571. Relinquishing his see to pursue his career in Rome, he was named titular Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem in 1572.

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Pope Innocent V
The Blessed Pope Innocent V (c. 1225 – 22 June 1276), born Pierre de Tarentaise, was Pope from 21 January 1276 until his death.
He was born around 1225 near Moûtiers in the Tarentaise region of the County of Savoy, then part of the Kingdom of Arles in the Holy Roman Empire, but now in southeastern France. In early life, he joined the Dominican Order, in which he acquired great fame as a preacher. At the papal conclave of January 1276 he became the first member of that order to become Pope. The only noteworthy feature of his brief and uneventful pontificate was the practical form assumed by his desire for reunion with the Eastern Church. He was proceeding to send legates to Michael VIII Palaeologus, the Byzantine emperor, in connection with the recent decisions of the Second Council of Lyons, when he died at Rome. Pope Innocent V was the author of several works of philosophy, theology, and canon law, including commentaries on the Pauline epistles and on the Sentences of Peter Lombard. He is sometimes referred to as famosissimus doctor.

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Pope Innocent VI
Pope Innocent VI (1282 or 1295 – 12 September 1362), born Étienne Aubert, was Pope from 18 December 1352 until his death. His father was Adhemar Aubert (1260-?), seigneur de Montel-de-Gelat in Limousin province. His niece was Catherine Aubert, Dame de Boutheon, also the wife of Randon II, Baron of Joyeuse; she was an ancestor of La Fayette. A Pope at Avignon, the successor of Clement VI, he was a native of the hamlet of Les Monts, Diocese of Limoges (today part of the commune of Beyssac, département of Corrèze), and, after having taught civil law at Toulouse, he became successively Bishop of Noyon and Bishop of Clermont.
In 1342, he was raised to the position of cardinal. On the death of Clement VI, after each cardinal had bound himself to a particular line of policy should he be elected, Aubert was chosen at a papal conclave on 18 December 1352, taking the name of Innocent VI. One of the first acts of his pontificate was to declare the pact to have been illegal and null.
His subsequent policy compares favourably with that of the other Avignon Popes. He introduced many needed reforms in the administration of church affairs, and through his legate, Cardinal Albornoz, who was accompanied by Rienzi, he sought to restore order in Rome, where, in 1355, Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV was crowned with his permission, after previously having made an oath that he would quit the city on the day of the ceremony.

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Pope Innocent VII
Pope Innocent VII (probably1339 – 6 November 1406), born Cosimo de' Migliorati, was briefly Pope at Rome between 1404 and 1406 during the period of the Western Schism (1378–1417) while there was a rival Pope, Antipope Benedict XIII, at Avignon.
Migliorati was born to a simple family of Sulmona in the Abruzzi. He distinguished himself by his learning in both civil and Canon Law, which he taught for a time at Perugia and Padua. His teacher Giovanni da Legnano sponsored him at Rome, where Pope Urban VI (1378–89) took him into the Curia, sent him for ten years as papal collector to England, made him Bishop of Bologna in 1386 at a time of strife in that city, and Archbishop of Ravenna in 1387.
Pope Boniface IX made him cardinal-priest of S. Croce in Gerusalemme (1389) and employed him as legate in several delicate and important missions. When Boniface IX died, there were present in Rome delegates from the rival Pope at Avignon, Benedict XIII. The Roman cardinals asked these delegates whether their master would abdicate if the cardinals refrained from holding an election. When they were bluntly told that Benedict XIII would never abdicate (indeed he never did), the cardinals proceeded to an election. First, however, they all undertook a solemn oath to leave nothing undone, and, if need be, lay down the tiara to end the schism.

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Pope Innocent VIII
Pope Innocent VIII (1432 – 25 July 1492), born Giovanni Battista Cybo (or Cibo), was Pope from 1484 until his death.
Giovanni Battista Cybo (or Cibo) was born at Genoa of Greek ancestry, the son of Arano Cybo or Cibo (c. 1375-c. 1455) and his wife Teodorina de Mari (c. 1380-). His paternal grandparents were Maurizio Cybo and his wife Saeacina Marocelli. Arano Cybo was a senator in Rome under Pope Calixtus III (1455–58). Giovanni Battista's early years were spent at the Neapolitan court, and subsequently he went to Padua and Rome for his education.
In Rome he became a priest in the retinue of cardinal Calandnini, half-brother to Pope Nicholas V (1447–55). The influence of his friends procured for him, from Pope Paul II (1464–71), the bishopric of Savona, and in 1473, with the support of Giuliano Della Rovere, later Pope Julius II, he was made cardinal by Pope Sixtus IV, whom he succeeded on 29 August 1484 as Pope Innocent VIII.
The papal conclave of 1484 was riven with faction, while gangs rioted in the streets. Cardinal Giuliano did not have sufficient votes at the conclave to be elected, so he turned his energies towards the election of Cybo, whom he was confident that he could control.

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Pope Innocent X
Pope Innocent X (6 May 1574 – 7 January 1655), born Giovanni Battista Pamphilj (or Pamphili), was Pope from 1644 to 1655. Born in Rome of a family from Gubbio in Umbria who had come to Rome during the pontificate of Pope Innocent IX, he graduated from the Collegio Romano and followed a conventional cursus honorum, following his uncle Girolamo Pamphilj as auditor of the Rota, and like him, attaining the dignity of Cardinal-Priest of Sant'Eusebio, in 1629. Trained as a lawyer, he succeeded Pope Urban VIII (1623–44) on 15 September 1644, as one of the most politically shrewd pontiffs of the era, who much increased the temporal power of the Holy See. He was a great-great-great-grandson of Pope Alexander VI.
Pope Gregory XV (1621–23) sent him as nuncio to the court of the Kingdom of Naples. Urban VIII sent him to accompany his nephew, Francesco Barberini, whom he had accredited as nuncio, first in France and then in Spain, where Pamphilj had the first-hand opportunities to form an intense animosity towards the Barberini. In reward for his labors, Giovanni Battista was made apostolic nuncio at the court of Philip IV of Spain (1621–65). The position led to a life-long association with the Spaniards which was of great use during the Papal Conclave of 1644.

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Pope Innocent XI
Blessed Pope Innocent XI (16 May 1611 – 12 August 1689), born Benedetto Odescalchi, was Pope from 1676 to 1689.
Benedetto Odescalchi was born at Como in 1611 (either on 16 or 19 May), the son of a Como nobleman, Livio Odescalchi, and Paola Castelli Giovanelli from Gandino. In 1626 his father died, and Benedetto began schooling in human sciences taught by the Jesuits at his local college, before transferring to Genoa. In 1630 he narrowly survived an outbreak of plague, which killed his mother.
The Odescalchi family, although only of minor nobility, were nevertheless determined entrepreneurs. In 1619, Benedetto's brother founded a bank with his three uncles in Genoa which quickly grew into a successful money-lending business. After completing his studies in grammar and letters, the 15-year old Benedetto moved to Genoa to take part in the family business as an apprentice. Lucrative economic transactions were established with clients in the major Italian and European cities, such as Nuremberg, Milan, Kraków, and Rome.

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Pope Innocent XII
Pope Innocent XII (13 March 1615 – 27 September 1700), born Antonio Pignatelli, was Pope from 1691 to 1700.
He was born in Spinazzola (current Puglia) to one of the most aristocratic families of the Kingdom of Naples, which included many Viceroys, and ministers to the crown, and was educated at the Jesuit college in Rome.
In his twentieth year he became an official of the court of Pope Urban VIII (1623–1644); under successive Popes he served as nuncio at Florence and Vienna and in Poland; he served as inquisitor in Malta; and by Pope Innocent XI (1676–1689) he was created him Cardinal-Priest of S. Pancrazio in 1681 and archbishop of Naples. After the conclave held in the wake of the death of Alexander VIII had gone on for five months, Cardinal Pignatelli emerged as a compromise candidate between the cardinals of France and the Holy Roman Empire.
Immediately after his election on 12 July 1691, Innocent XII declared against the nepotism which had too much and too long been one of the greatest scandals of the Papacy; the bull Romanum decet Pontificem, issued in 1692, banned the curial office of the Cardinal Nephew and prohibited Popes at all times from bestowing estates, offices, or revenues on any relative; furthermore, only one relative, "if otherwise suitable", was to be raised to the cardinalate. At the same time he sought to check the simoniacal tendencies in the practices of the apostolic chamber, and in connection with this to introduce a simpler and more economical manner of life into his court. Innocent XII said that "the poor were his nephews", comparing his public benificence to the nepotism of many predecessors.

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Pope Innocent XIII
Pope Innocent XIII (13 May 1655 – 7 March 1724) was pope from 1721 until his death.
He was born Michelangelo Conti in Poli, near Rome. Like Pope Innocent III (1198–1216), Pope Gregory IX (1227–1241) and Pope Alexander IV (1254–1261), he was a member of the family of the Conti, counts and dukes of Segni. He included the family crest in his Pontifical coats of arms.
He became Cardinal-Priest of Santi Quirico e Giulitta under Pope Clement XI (1700–21) in 1706. From 1697 to 1710 he acted as papal nuncio to the Kingdom of Portugal, where he is believed to have formed those unfavourable impressions of the Jesuits which afterwards influenced his conduct towards them. In 1721 his high reputation for ability, learning, purity, and a kindly disposition secured his election to succeed Clement XI as Pope Innocent XIII. His pontificate was prosperous, but comparatively uneventful. Innocent XIII prohibited the Jesuits from prosecuting their mission in China, and ordered that no new members should be received into the order. This indication of his sympathies encouraged some French bishops to approach him with a petition for the recall of the bull Unigenitus by which Jansenism had been condemned; the request, however, was peremptorily denied.

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Pope John I
Pope Saint John I (c. 470 – 18 May 526) was Pope from 523 to 526. He was a native of Siena (or the "Castello di Serena"), near Chiusdino. He is the first pope known to have visited Constantinople while in office.
While a deacon in Rome, he is known to have been a partisan of the Antipope Laurentius, for in a libellus written to Pope Symmachus in 506, John confessed his error in opposing him, anathematized Peter of Altinum and Laurentius, and begged pardon of Symmachus. He would then be the deacon John who signed the acta of the Roman synod of 499 and 502; the fact the Roman church only had seven deacons at the time makes identifying him with this person very likely. He may also be the deacon John to whom Boethius dedicated three of his five religious tractates written between 512 and 520.
John was very frail when he was elected to the papacy. Despite his protests, he was sent by the Arian King Theodoric the Great of the Ostrogoths to Constantinople to secure a moderation of Emperor Justin's decree of 523 against the Arians. Theodoric threatened that if John should fail in his mission, there would be reprisals against the orthodox Catholics in the West. John proceeded to Constantinople with a considerable entourage: his religious companions included bishop Ecclesius of Ravenna, bishop Eusebius of Fanum Fortunae, and Sabinus of Campania. His secular companions were the senators Flavius Theodorus, Inportunus, Agapitus, and the patrician Agapitus.

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Pope John II
Pope John II (born Mercurius) was pope from 533 to 535.
He was the son of a certain Projectus, born in Rome and a priest of the Basilica di San Clemente on the Caelian Hill. He was made pope on 2 January 533. The basilica of St. Clement still retains several memorials of "Johannes surnamed Mercurius". Presbyter Mercurius is found on a fragment of an ancient ciborium, and several of the marble slabs which enclose the schola cantorum bear upon them, in the style of the sixth century, the monogram of Johannes.
He was the first pope to adopt a new name (regnal name) upon elevation to the papacy, as his theophoric birth name honoured the Roman god Mercury.
At this period simony (the purchase or sale of church offices or preferment) in the election of popes and bishops was rife among clergy and laity. During the sede vacante of over two months, "shameless trafficking in sacred things was indulged in. Even sacred vessels were exposed for sale". The matter had been brought before the Senate, and laid before the Arian Ostrogothic Court at Ravenna. The last decree (Senatus consultum) which the Roman Senate is known to have issued, passed under Boniface II, was directed against simony in papal elections. The decree was confirmed by Athalaric, king of the Ostrogoths. He ordered it to be engraved on marble and to be placed in the atrium of St. Peter's Basilica in 533. By one of Athalaric's own additions to the decree, it was decided that if a disputed election was carried before the Gothic officials of Ravenna by the Roman clergy and people, three thousand solidi would have to be paid into court. This sum was to be given to the poor. John remained on good terms with Athalaric, who, being of the Arian Christianity, was content to refer to John's tribunal all actions brought against the Roman clergy.

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Pope John III
Pope John III was pope from 561 to 13 July 574. He was born in Rome of a distinguished family. The Liber Pontificalis calls him a son of one Anastasius. His father bore the title illustris, more than likely being a vir illustris ("illustrius man", high-ranking member of the Roman Senate). According to the historian Evagrius, his birth name was Catelinus, but he took the name John on his accession.
He may be identical with the subdeacon John who made a collection of extracts from the Greek Fathers and completed the translation of the Vitae patrum into Latin which Pope Pelagius I had begun.
His pontificate is characterized by two major events over which he had no control. The first was the death of Emperor Justinian I in 565. Jeffrey Richards considers his reign was an "anomaly", "a temporary damning up of the stream of history." With his death, the Byzantine Empire turned its attention from Rome and the West to pressing problems in the Balkans, from the Avars, Persians and the Arabs. "Italy, being geographically peripheral to the imperial heartland, inevitably took bottom place on the strategic priority list."

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Pope John IV
Pope John IV (died 12 October 642) was elected Pope of the Catholic Church, after a four-month sede vacante, on 24 December 640.
Pope John was a native of Dalmatia (probably in the town of Salona). He was the son of the scholasticus (advocate) Venantius. At the time of his election he was archdeacon of the Roman Church, an important role in governing the see. As John's consecration on 24 December 640 followed very soon after his election, and it is supposed that the papal elections were being confirmed by the Exarch of Ravenna rather than by the Emperor in Constantinople.
Troubles in his native land caused by invasions of Slavs directed John's attention there. To alleviate the distress of the inhabitants, John sent the abbot Martin into Dalmatia and Istria with large sums of money for the redemption of captives. As the ruined churches could not be rebuilt, the relics of some of the more important Dalmatian saints were brought to Rome. John erected an oratory in their honour which still stands. It was adorned by the pope with mosaics depicting John himself holding in his hands a model of his oratory. John endeavoured thereby to convert the Slavs in Dalmatia and Istria to Christianity. Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus claimed that Porga, duke of the Dalmatian Croats, who had been invited into Dalmatia by Heraclius, sent to Emperor Heraclius for Christian teachers. It is supposed that the Emperor to whom this message was sent was Emperor Heraclius himself, and that he sent it to Pope John IV.

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Pope John IX
Pope John IX was Pope of the Roman Catholic Church from 898 to 900.
Little is known about John IX before he became Pope. Born in Tivoli in an unknown year, he was ordained as a Benedictine priest by Pope Formosus. With the support of the powerful House of Spoleto he was elected Pontiff in early 898 following the sudden death of Pope Theodore II.
With a view to diminish the violence of faction in Rome, John held several synods in Rome and elsewhere in 898. They not only confirmed the judgment of Pope Theodore II in granting Christian burial to Pope Formosus, but also at a council held at Ravenna decreed that the records of the synod held by Pope Stephen VI which had condemned him should be burned. Re-ordinations were forbidden, and those of the clergy who had been degraded by Stephen were restored to the ranks from which he had deposed them.
To keep their independence, which was threatened by the Germans, the Slavs of Moravia appealed to John to let them have a hierarchy of their own. Ignoring the complaints of the German hierarchy, John sanctioned the consecration of a metropolitan and three bishops for the Church of the Moravians.

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Pope John Paul I
Pope John Paul I (Latin: Ioannes Paulus PP. I, Italian: Giovanni Paolo I), born Albino Luciani (17 October 1912 – 28 September 1978), reigned as Pope of the Catholic Church and as Sovereign of Vatican City from 26 August 1978 until his death 33 days later. His reign is among the shortest in papal history, resulting in the most recent Year of Three Popes. John Paul I was the first Pope to be born in the 20th century and the last Pope to die in it.
In Italy he is remembered with the appellatives of "Il Papa del Sorriso" (The Smiling Pope) and "Il Sorriso di Dio" (The smile of God).Time magazine and other publications referred to him as The September Pope.
Albino Luciani was born on October 17, 1912 in Forno di Canale (now Canale d'Agordo) in Belluno, a province of the Veneto region in Northern Italy. He was the son of Giovanni Luciani (1872?–1952), a bricklayer, and Bortola Tancon (1879?–1948). Albino was followed by two brothers, Federico (1915–1916) and Edoardo (1917–2008), and a sister, Antonia (1920–2009).

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Pope John Paul II
Blessed Pope John Paul II (Latin: Ioannes Paulus PP. II, Italian: Giovanni Paolo II, Polish: Jan Paweł II), born Karol Józef Wojtyła (Polish: [ˈkarɔl ˈjuzɛf vɔjˈtɨwa]; 18 May 1920, Wadowice, Republic of Poland – 2 April 2005, Apostolic Palace, Vatican City), reigned as Pope of the Catholic Church from 1978 until his death in 2005. He was the second-longest serving Pope in history and the first non-Italian since 1523.
John Paul II was acclaimed as one of the most influential leaders of the 20th century. He was instrumental in ending communism in his native Poland and eventually all of Europe. John Paul II significantly improved the Catholic Church's relations with Judaism, Islam, the Eastern Orthodox Church, and the Anglican Communion. Though criticised by progressives for upholding the Church's teachings against artificial contraception and the ordination of women, and by traditionalists for his support of the Church's Second Vatican Council and its reform, he was also widely praised for his firm, orthodox Catholic stances.

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Pope John V
Pope John V was pope from July 685 to 2 August 686. John V was the first pope of the Byzantine Papacy allowed to be consecrated by the Byzantine Emperor without prior consent, and the first in a line of ten consecutive popes of Eastern origin. His papacy was marked by reconciliation between the city of Rome and the Empire.
John was a Syrian by birth, born in the province of Antioch.
On account of his knowledge of Greek, he was named papal legate to the Third Council of Constantinople in 680.
John V was the first pope of the Byzantine Papacy consecrated without the direct approval of the Byzantine Emperor.Constantine IV had done away with the requirement during the reign of Pope Benedict II, John V's predecessor, providing that "the one elected to the Apostolic See may be ordained pontiff from that moment and without delay". In a return to the "ancient practice", John V was selected "by the general population" of Rome. John was elected in July 685. Constantine IV doubtlessly trusted that the population and clergy of Rome had been sufficiently Easternized, and indeed the next ten pontiffs were of Eastern descent.

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Pope John VI
Pope John VI was a Greek pope from Ephesus who reigned during the Byzantine Papacy from 30 October 701 to 11 January 705. His papacy was noted for military and political breakthroughs on the Italian peninsula. He succeeded to the papal chair two months after the death of Pope Sergius I, and his election occurred after a vacancy of less than seven weeks. He was succeeded by Pope John VII after a vacancy of less than two months. The body of the pope is buried in St. Peter's Basilica.
During his reign, he assisted the Exarch Theophylactos, who had been sent to Italy by the emperor Justinian II, and prevented him from using violence against the Romans. John VI's interventions prevented Theophylactos from being injured, having come to Rome to "cause trouble for the pontiff".
Aside from this, he also succeeded in inducing Gisulf, the Lombard duke of Benevento, to withdraw from the territories of the empire, through tactics of persuasion and bribery. According to some sources, he "single-handedly convinced the Lombard duke Gisulf of Benevento to withdraw his forces and return home" after the duke had devastated the neighboring Campanian countryside and constructed an encampment within sight of the city walls of Rome.

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Pope John VII
Pope John VII (c. 650 – 18 October 707) was pope from 705 to 707. The successor of John VI, he was (like his predecessor) of Greek ancestry. He is one of the popes of the Byzantine captivity.
John was a native of Rossano in Calabria. His father, Plato (c. 620 – 686), was imperial cura palatii urbis Romae, or curator of the Palatine Hill. This makes John the first pope to be the son of a Byzantine official. His mother was called Blatta (c. 627 – 687). His paternal grandfather was Theodorus Chilas (c. 600 – aft. 655), a Senator in 655.
John VII had good relations with the Lombards, who then ruled much of Italy. However, his relations with Justinian II, the Byzantine Emperor, were far from smooth. Papal relations with Byzantium had soured over the Quinisext (or Trullan) council of 692. Scholarly debate contests John VII's stance on the Canons. He did not ratify the Canons, which were deeply unpopular in Italy. Nonetheless, he was criticized, most unusually, by the Liber Pontificalis for not signing them:

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Pope John VIII
Pope John VIII was pope from 13 December 872 to 16 December 882. He is often considered one of the ablest pontiffs of the ninth century.
He was born in Rome. Among the reforms achieved during his pontificate was a notable administrative reorganisation of the papal Curia. He asked for military aid from Charles the Bald and later Count Boso of Provence, in response to Saracens who were raiding Campania and the Sabine Hills. His efforts failed and he was forced to pay tribute to the Saracens.
In 873, John VIII learned of St. Methodius' imprisonment. Methodius had been imprisoned by his German enemies, who objected to his use of the Slavonic language in the liturgy. John forbade the celebration of Mass in Bavaria until Methodius was released. Following Methodius' release John allowed him to resume his episcopal duties in Illyricum, but forbid him to celebrate Mass in the Slavonic language.
In 879 he recognised the reinstatement of Photius as the legitimate patriarch of Constantinople; Photius had been condemned in 869 by Pope Adrian II. In 878 John crowned Louis II, king of France. He also anointed two Holy Roman Emperors: Charles II and Charles III. He was assassinated in 882.

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Pope John X
Pope John X, Pope from March 914 to May 928, was deacon at Bologna when he attracted the attention of Theodora, the wife of Theophylact, Count of Tusculum, the most powerful noble in Rome, through whose influence he was elevated first to the see of Bologna and then to the archbishopric of Ravenna.
In direct opposition to a decree of council, John X was, at the instigation of Theodora, promoted to the papal chair as the successor of Pope Lando (913–914). Like Pope John IX (898–900) he endeavoured to secure himself against his temporal enemies through a close alliance with Theophylact and Alberic, marquis of Camerino, then governor of the duchy of Spoleto.
In December 915 John X granted the imperial crown to Berengar of Friuli (915–924), and with the assistance of the forces of all the princes of the Italian Peninsula, he took the field in person against the Saracens, over whom he gained a great victory on the banks of the Garigliano. The defeat and death of Berengar in 924, through the combination of the Italian princes, again frustrated the hopes of a united Italy, and after witnessing several years of anarchy and confusion, John X perished as a result of the intrigues of Marozia, daughter of Theodora.

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Pope John XI
Pope John XI (910? – December 935) was a Pope from March 931 (at the age of 20) to December 935.
The parentage of John XI is still a matter of dispute. According to Liutprand of Cremona (Antapodosis, ii. c. 48) and the "Liber Pontificalis," he was the natural son of Pope Sergius III (904–911), ("Johannes, natione Romanus ex patre Sergio papa," "Liber Pont." ed. Duchesne, II, 243). Ferdinand Gregorovius,Ernst Dümmler, Thomas Greenwood (Cathedra Petri: A Political History of the great Latin Patriarchate), Philip Schaff, and Rudolf Baxmann agree with Liutprand that Pope Sergius III fathered Pope John XI by Marozia. If that is true, John XI would be the only known illegitimate son of a Pope to have become Pope himself. (Silverius was the legitimate son of Pope Hormisdas). On the other hand, Horace Kinder Mann, Reginald L. Poole, Peter Llewelyn (Rome in the Dark Ages), Karl Josef von Hefele, August Friedrich Gfrörer,Ludovico Antonio Muratori, and Francis Patrick Kenrick maintain that Pope John XI was sired by Alberic I of Spoleto, Count of Tusculum.

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Pope John XII
Pope John XII (c. 937 – 14 May 964), born Octavianus, was Pope from 16 December 955 to 14 May 964. The son of Alberic II, Patrician of Rome, and his stepsister Alda of Vienne, he was a seventh generation descendant of Charlemagne on his mother's side.
Before his death in 954, Alberic administered an oath to the Roman nobles in St. Peter's providing that the next vacancy for the papal chair would be filled by his son Octavianus. He succeeded his father as Patrician of Rome in 954 at only seventeen years of age. After the death of Agapetus II in November 955, Octavianus was actually chosen his successor on 16 December 955 at the age of eighteen. His adoption of the apostolic name of John XII was the third example of taking a regnal name upon elevation to the papal chair, the first being John II (533–535) and the second John III (561–574). Pope John XII was depicted as a coarse, immoral man in the writings which remain about his papacy, whose life was such that the Lateran was spoken of as a brothel, and the moral corruption in Rome became the subject of general disgrace.

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Pope John XIII
Pope John XIII of the Crescenzi family (died 6 September 972) served as Pope from 1 October 965 until his death.
Born in Rome, he spent his career in the papal court. He was the brother of Crescenzio II, patricius romanorum, and Stefania, lady of Palestrina.
After a period as bishop of Narni, he was elected Pope John XIII five months after the death of Pope Leo VIII as a compromise candidate with the agreement of Emperor Otto I (936–973). John XIII's behaviour and foreign backing made him disliked in Rome. There was a revolt that resulted in his temporary banishment in December 965, but he returned to Rome in November 966.
After John XIII's restoration, he worked with the Emperor on ecclesiastical improvements, including the creation of the Archbishopric of Magdeburg.
On Christmas 967, John XIII crowned Otto I's son Otto II as co-Emperor. Otto II afterwards married the niece of the Byzantine Emperor John I Tzimisces, princess Theophanu, as part of the ongoing attempt to reconcile Eastern and Western Churches. John XIII created new Latin archbishoprics in southern Italy, thus reducing the influence of the Byzantine Empire and Eastern Orthodox Church there.

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Pope John XIV
Pope John XIV (died 20 August 984) was Pope from December 983 to 20 August 984 as successor to Pope Benedict VII.
He was born at Pavia, and before his elevation to the papal chair was imperial chancellor of Emperor Otto II, yet still only the latter's second choice for pope.
His original name was Pietro Canepanova, but he took the name John XIV to avoid being linked to St. Peter himself.
Otto II died shortly after his election, his heir Otto III, being only 3 years old and unable to protect John's position as Pope. Antipope Boniface VII (974, 984–985), on the strength of the popular feeling against the new Pope, returned from Constantinople and placed John XIV in prison in the Castel Sant'Angelo, where he died either from starvation or poison.

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "John XIV (pope)". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.

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Pope John XIX
Pope John XIX (died October 1032), born Romanus in Rome, was Pope from 1024 to 1032.
He succeeded his brother Pope Benedict VIII, both members of the powerful house of Tusculum. Prior to being elected Pope, he was an unordained layman and was therefore ordained a bishop in order to enable him to ascend the papal chair, having previously been a consul and senator.
He played a role in the process leading to the Schism of 1054 by rejecting a proposal by Patriarch Eustathius of Constantinople to recognise that Patriarchate's sphere of interest in the east. Against the grain of ecclesiastical history, John XIX agreed, upon being paid a large bribe, to grant the title of ecumenical bishop to the Patriarch of Constantinople . However, this proposal excited general indignation throughout the Church, compelling him almost immediately to withdraw from the agreement.
On the death of the Emperor Henry II in 1024, he gave his support to Emperor Conrad II, who along with his consort was crowned with great pomp at St. Peter's Basilica on Easter of 1027.

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Pope John XV
Pope John XV (born in Rome, died March 996) was Pope from 985 to 996, succeeding Boniface VII. He was said to have been Pope after another Pope John who reigned four months after Pope John XIV (983–984) and was named "Papa Ioannes XIV Bis" or "Pope John XIVb". This supposed first John XIV never existed, rather he was confused with a certain cardinal deacon John, son of Robert, who was opposed to Boniface VII and is now excluded from the papal lists.
John XV was the son of Leo, a Roman presbyter. At the time he mounted the papal chair, Crescentius II was Patrician of Rome, significantly hampering the pope's influence, but the presence of the Empress Theophanu, regent for her son, Holy Roman Emperor Otto III in Rome from 989 to 991 restrained Crescentius' ambition.
The Pope's venality and nepotism made him very unpopular with the citizens of Rome, but to his credit, he was a patron and protector of the reforming monks of Cluny.
During this papacy, a serious dispute arose over the deposition in 991 of Arnulf, Archbishop of Reims, by French churchmen, the Pope's interference leading at first to no definite result. This affair is sometimes read as an early groundswell of the conflicts between Popes and the new kings of France that came to a head later in the Investiture Controversy, so it is worth relating in some detail. Hugh Capet, king of France, made Arnulf archbishop of Reims in 988, even though Arnulf was the nephew of the King's bitter rival, Charles of Lorraine. Charles thereupon succeeded in capturing Reims and took the archbishop prisoner. Hugh, however, considered Arnulf a turncoat and demanded his deposition by John XV. The turn of events outran the messages, when Hugh Capet captured both Charles and Archbishop Arnulf and convoked a synod at Reims in June 991, which obediently deposed Arnulf and chose as his successor Abbot Gerbert of Aurillac, afterwards Pope Silvester II.

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Pope John XVII
Pope John XVII (died 6 December 1003), born John Sicco, and the son of another John Sicco, was born in the region of Rome then referred to as Biveretica. He succeeded Pope Silvester II as Pope on 16 May 1003, but died less than six months later.
John XVII was nominated to the papacy by John Crescentius, a Roman noble who held power in the city in opposition to Emperor Otto III. John XVII's successor, Pope John XVIII, was also selected by Crescentius.
John died on 6 November 1003 and was buried in the Lateran Basilica between the two doors of the principal façade. According to John the Deacon, his epitaph began by stating that “here is the tomb of the supreme John, who is said to be Pope, for so he was called.”
Before entering the priesthood, Sicco had been married and had three sons who also entered Holy Orders:
The previous legitimate Pope John is generally considered to be John XV (985–996). John XVI (997–998) was an antipope according to official reckoning, and thus his regnal number XVI should have been reused. But this did not occur, and the sequencing has never been corrected.

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Pope John XVIII
Pope John XVIII (died June or July 1009) was Pope in Pisa from 1004 to 1009. He was born Fasanius at Rapagnano, near Ascoli Piceno, the son of a Roman priest named Leo.
During his whole pontificate he was allegedly subordinate to the head of the Crescentii clan who controlled Rome, the patricius (an aristocratic military leader) John Crescentius III. This period was disrupted by conflicts between the Ottonian Emperor Henry II and Arduin of Ivrea, who had styled himself King of Italy. Rome was wracked with bouts of plague, and Saracens operating freely out of Sardinia ravaged the Tyrrhenian coasts.
As Pope, John XVIII occupied his time mainly with details of ecclesiastical administration. He authorized a new Diocese of Bamberg to serve as a base for missionary activity among the Slavs, a concern of Henry II's. He also adjudicated a squabble between the abbot of Fleury and the bishops of Sens and Orléans.
Ultimately he abdicated and, according to one catalog of Popes, retired to a monastery, where he died shortly afterwards. His successor was Pope Sergius IV.

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Pope John XXI
Pope John XXI, born Pedro Julião (Latin, Petrus Iulianus (c. 1215 – 20 May 1277), a Portuguese often identified with Pedro Hispano (Latin, Petrus Hispanus; English, Peter of Spain), was Pope from 1276 until his death about eight months later. He was the only Portuguese Pope, although Damasus I can also be considered Portuguese, as he was born in territory that is nowadays in Portugal, and Paul IV had a Portuguese grandmother.
He was also the only Pope to have been a physician.
Because he decided to skip the number XX, the previous Pope named John was Pope John XIX (1024–32). Pope John XXI is technically the 19th actual Pope John.
Pedro Julião was probably born in Lisbon between 1210 and 1220. He started his studies at the episcopal school of Lisbon Cathedral and later joined the University of Paris, although some historians claim that he was educated at Montpellier. Wherever he studied, he concentrated on medicine, theology, logic, physics, metaphysics and Aristotle's dialectic.
There are some who believe he must be identified with an individual known as Peter of Spain. On the basis of this premise, he is the person who from 1245 to 1250 became known as Pedro Hispano (because he came from Hispania, the Iberian Peninsula), and taught medicine at the University of Siena. There, he wrote the Summulae Logicales, a reference manual on Aristotelian logic that remained in use in European universities for more than 300 years. He became famous as a university teacher, then returned to Lisbon. At the court of Guimarães he was the councilor and spokesman for King Afonso III of Portugal in church matters. Later, he became prior of Guimarães. He tried to become Bishop of Lisbon, but he was defeated. Instead, he became the master of the school of Lisbon. A notable philosopher with works in logic, he was also the responsible for the creation of the Square of opposition.

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Pope John XXII
Pope John XXII (1244 – 4 December 1334), born Jacques Duèze (or d'Euse), was pope from 7 August 1316 until his death. He was the second Pope of the Avignon Papacy (1309–1377), elected by a conclave in Lyon assembled by King Philip V of France. Like his predecessor, Clement V, he centralized power and income in the Papacy and lived a princely life in Avignon. He opposed the political policies of Louis IV of Bavaria as Holy Roman Emperor, which prompted Louis to invade Italy and set up an antipope, Nicholas V. Pope John XXII faced controversy in theology involving his views on the Beatific Vision, and he opposed the Franciscan understanding of the poverty of Christ and his apostles. He canonized St. Thomas Aquinas.
The son of a shoemaker in Cahors, Jacques Duèze studied medicine in Montpellier and law in Paris.
The death of Pope Clement V in 1314 was followed by an interregnum of two years due to disagreements between the cardinals, who were split into two factions. After two years, Philip V of France finally in 1316 managed to arrange a papal conclave of twenty-three cardinals in Lyon. This conclave elected Jacques Duèze, who took the name John XXII and was crowned in Lyon. He set up his residence in Avignon rather than Rome, continuing the Avignon Papacy of his predecessor.

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Pope John XXIII
Blessed Pope John XXIII (Latin: Ioannes PP. XXIII; Italian: Giovanni XXIII), born Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli (25 November 1881 – 3 June 1963), headed the Catholic Church and ruled Vatican City from 1958 until his death.
Pope John was elected on 28 October 1958. He called the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) but did not live to see it to completion. He died in 1963, only four-and-a-half years after his election, and two months after the completion of his final encyclical, Pacem in Terris. He was beatified, along with Pope Pius IX, on 3 September 2000.
Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli was born in Sotto il Monte, a small country village in the Bergamo province of the Lombardy region of Italy. He was the first-born son of Giovanni Battista Roncalli (1854–1935) and his wife Marianna Giulia Mazzolla (1854–1939), and fourth in a family of 13, including: Angelo Giuseppe, Alfredo (1889–??), Maria Caterina (1877–1883), Teresa (1879–1954), Ancilla (1880–1953), Domenico Giuseppe (22 February 1888 – 14 March 1888), Francesco Zaverio (1883–1976), Maria Elisa (1884–1955), Assunta Casilda (1886–??), Giovanni Francesco (1891–1956), Enrica (1893–1918), Giuseppe Luigi (1894–??) and Luigi (1896–1898). His family worked as sharecroppers as did most of the people of Sotto il Monte – a striking contrast to that of his predecessor, Eugenio Pacelli (Pope Pius XII), who came from an ancient aristocratic family, long connected to the Papacy. However, he was still a descendant of an Italian noble family, from a secondary and impoverished branch.

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Pope Julius I
Pope Saint Julius I, was pope from 6 February 337 to 12 April 352.
He was a native of Rome and was chosen as successor of Mark after the Roman seat had been vacant for four months. He is chiefly known by the part he took in the Arian controversy. After the followers of Eusebius of Nicomedia, who was now the Patriarch of Constantinople, had renewed their deposition of Athanasius as bishop of Alexandria, at a synod held in Antioch in 341, they resolved to send delegates to Constans, Emperor of the West, and also to Julius, setting forth the grounds on which they had proceeded. Julius, after expressing an opinion favourable to Athanasius, adroitly invited both parties to lay the case before a synod to be presided over by himself. This proposal, however, the Arian Eastern bishops declined to accept.
On this second banishment from Alexandria, Athanasius came to Rome, and was recognised as a regular bishop by the synod presided over by Julius in 342. Julius sent a letter to the Eastern bishops that is an early instance of the claims of primacy for the bishop of Rome. Even if Athanasius and his companions were somewhat to blame, the letter runs, the Alexandrian Church should first have written to the pope. "Can you be ignorant," writes Julius, "that this is the custom, that we should be written to first, so that from here what is just may be defined" (Epistle of Julius to Antioch, c. xxii).

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Pope Julius II
Pope Julius II (5 December 1443 – 21 February 1513), nicknamed "The Fearsome Pope" (Il Papa Terribile) and "The Warrior Pope" (Il Papa Guerriero), born Giuliano della Rovere, was Pope from 1503 to 1513. His papacy was marked by an active foreign policy, ambitious building projects, and patronage for the arts.
There is disagreement about Julius' date of birth. Some sources put his birth as late as 1453. Giuliano della Rovere was the son of Rafaello della Rovere brother of Pope Sixtus IV and of Theodora Manerola, a lady of Greek extraction. Giuliano was an altar boy of his uncle Pope Sixtus IV (Francesco della Rovere). He was educated among the Franciscans by his uncle, who took him under his special charge and later sent him to a convent in La Pérouse with the purpose of obtaining knowledge of the sciences. However, he does not appear to have joined the order of St. Francis, but rather remained a member of the secular clergy until his elevation to bishop of Carpentras, France, in 1471; very shortly after his uncle succeeded to the papal chair.

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Pope Julius III
Pope Julius III (10 September 1487 – 23 March 1555), born Giovanni Maria Ciocchi del Monte, was Pope from 7 February 1550 to 1555.
In his early career in the Church Julius established a reputation as an effective and trustworthy diplomat, and was elected to the Papacy as a compromise candidate when the Papal Conclave found itself deadlocked between the rival French and German factions. As Pope he lost, or failed to show, any of the qualities which had distinguished his previous career, devoting himself instead to a life of personal pleasure and indolence, and the achievements of his incumbency were very few. His lasting fame, or notoriety, rests rather on his relationship with the 17 year old boy whom he raised to the position of Cardinal-Nephew, and, it was said at the time, with whom he shared his bed: the resulting scandal did great harm to the reputation of the Church.
The last of the High Renaissance Popes, Julius III was born Giovanni Maria Ciocchi del Monte in Rome in 1487. His father was a famous jurist; and he himself studied law at Perugia and Siena, as well as theology under the direction of the Dominican, Ambrosius Catharinus.

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Pope Lando
Pope Lando (also known as Landus) was elected pope in either July or August 913. He died about six months later, in either February or March 914.
He was born in Sabina, Italy. His father was reportedly named Taino. He did not change his name on his accession.
Lando is thought to have had powerful friends who helped him to be elected pope. Little more is known about him. He was the last pope to use a papal name which had not been previously used until Pope John Paul I did so in 1978.
Lando was pope during the period later known as the Saeculum obscurum, which lasted from 904 to 964.

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Pope Leo I
Pope Leo I, also known as Leo the Great (c. 391 or 400 – 10 November 461) was the Bishop of Rome—the Pope—of the Catholic Church from 29 September 440 to his death on 10 November 461.
He was an Italian aristocrat, and was the first pope of the Catholic Church to have been called "the Great". He is perhaps best known for having met Attila the Hun in 452 and persuading him to turn back from his invasion of Italy. He is also a Doctor of the Church, most remembered theologically for issuing the Tome of Leo, a document which was foundational to the debates of the Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon. The Council of Chalcedon, the fourth ecumenical council, dealt primarily with Christology, and elucidated the orthodox definition of Christ's being as the hypostatic union of two natures—divine and human—united in one person, "with neither confusion nor division". The Council of Chalcedon gave rise to the first major schism in Christian history, the Monophysite schism.
According to the Liber Pontificalis, he was a native of Tuscany. By 431, as a deacon, he occupied a sufficiently important position for Cyril of Alexandria to apply to him in order that Rome's influence should be thrown against the claims of Juvenal of Jerusalem to patriarchal jurisdiction over Palestine—unless this letter is addressed rather to Pope Celestine I. About the same time John Cassian dedicated to him the treatise against Nestorius written at his request. But nothing shows more plainly the confidence felt in him than his being chosen by the emperor to settle the dispute between Aëtius and Caecina Decius Aginatius Albinus, the two highest officials in Gaul.

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Pope Leo II
Pope Saint Leo II was Pope from 17 August 682 to 28 June 683.
He was a Sicilian by birth (the son of a man named Paulus), and succeeded Agatho. Though elected pope a few days after the death of St. Agatho (10 January 681), he was not consecrated till after the lapse of a year and seven months (17 August 682). Leo was known as an eloquent preacher who was interested in music, and noted for his charity to the poor.
Elected shortly after the death of Agatho, Leo was not consecrated for over a year and a half. The reason may have been due to negotiations regarding imperial control of papal elections.
These negotiations were undertaken by Leo's predecessor Agatho between the Holy See and Emperor Constantine IV. They concerned the relations of the Byzantine Court to papal elections. Constantine had already promised Agatho to abolish or reduce the tax that the popes had had to pay to the imperial treasury on their consecration over the course of about a century.
Leo's short-lived pontificate did not allow him to accomplish much, but there was one achievement of major importance: he confirmed the acts of the Sixth Ecumenical Council (680–1). This council had been held in Constantinople against the Monothelite controversy, and had been presided over by the legates of Pope Agatho. After Leo had notified the Emperor that the decrees of the council had been confirmed, he made them known to the nations of the West. In letters written to the king, the bishops, and the nobles of Spain, he explained what the council had effected, and he called upon the bishops to subscribe to its decrees.

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Pope Leo III
Pope Saint Leo III (750 – 12 June 816) was Pope from 795 to his death in 816. Protected by Charlemagne from his enemies in Rome, he subsequently strengthened Charlemagne's position by crowning him as Roman Emperor.
Leo, who was of non-noble birth, had risen in the hierarchy of Rome and was elected Pope only one day after the burial of his predecessor, Pope Adrian I, who had worked for good relations between Rome and the Frankish Empire under Charlemagne. Leo announced his election to Charlemagne, sending him the keys of Saint Peter's tomb and the banner of Rome, requesting an envoy. Charlemagne's reply stated that it was his function to defend the Church, and the function of the Pope to pray for the realm and for the victory of his army.
Leo aroused the hostility of Rome's nobility, who saw the papal post as reserved only for noble candidates. During his rule, he was accused of adultery and perjury. In April 799, he was attacked by a gang who unsuccessfully attempted to gouge out his eyes and cut off his tongue for his earlier actions, only to be saved by Magnus Forteman and 700 Frisian nobles of his army. He was then formally deposed and sent to a monastery, but escaped and made his way to Paderborn, where he met Charlemagne.

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Pope Leo IV
Pope Saint Leo IV was pope from 10 April 847 to 17 July 855.
A Roman by birth, he was unanimously chosen to succeed Sergius II. When he was elected, on 10 April 847, he was cardinal of Santi Quattro Coronati and had been subdeacon of Gregory IV and archpriest under his predecessor. His pontificate was chiefly distinguished by his efforts to repair the damage done by the Saracens during the reign of his predecessor to various churches of the city, especially those of St Peter and St Paul.
The Saracens were besieging Gaeta, which led to Leo's order that the walls of the city be restored and strengthened between 848 and 849. When the Muslims approached Portus, he summoned the Repubbliche Marinare (or mariner cities of Italy) – Naples, Gaeta and Amalfi – to form a league. The command of the unified fleet was given to Cesarius, son of Duke Sergius I of Naples. The subsequent Battle of Ostia was one of the most famous in history of the papacy of the Middle Ages and is celebrated in a famous fresco by Raphael and his pupils in his Rooms of the Vatican Palace in the Vatican City. Another episode of Leo's life celebrated by the Urbinate in his series of frescoes for the Incendio di Borgo is the burning of the Anglo-Saxon district of Rome (the "Borgo"), which, according to the legend, was stopped by Leo simply making the sign of the cross.

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Pope Leo IX
Pope Saint Leo IX (21 June 1002 – 19 April 1054), born Bruno of Eguisheim-Dagsburg, was Pope from 12 February 1049 to his death. He was a German aristocrat and a powerful secular ruler of central Italy while holding the papacy. He is regarded as a saint by the Roman Catholic Church, his feast day celebrated on April 19. Leo IX is widely considered the most historically significant German Pope of the Middle Ages. His citing of the Donation of Constantine in a letter to the Patriarch of Constantinople brought about the Great Schism between the Catholic and Orthodox churches.
He was born to Count Hugh and Heilwig and was a native of Eguisheim, Upper Alsace(present day France). His family was of noble rank, and his father, Count Hugh, was a cousin of Emperor Conrad II (1024–1039). He was educated at Toul, where he successively became canon and, in 1026, bishop. In the latter capacity he rendered important political services to his relative Conrad II, and afterwards to Emperor Henry III. He became widely known as an earnest and reforming ecclesiastic by the zeal he showed in spreading the rule of the order of Cluny.

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Pope Leo V
Pope Leo V, a native of Ardea, was Pope for some thirty days in 903 after the death of Pope Benedict IV (900–903). He was dethroned by antipope Christopher (903–904), who is sometimes considered a legitimate pope. Elected while a priest, Leo V's pontificate occurred in the darkest period of papal history. He was deposed and murdered, presumably strangled by Christopher, who was in turn executed by Pope Sergius III (904–911) in 904.

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Pope Leo VI
Pope Leo VI, a Roman, succeeded Pope John X (914–928) as Pope in 928. He reigned a little over seven months; the exact dates are not known. He was succeeded by Pope Stephen VII (928 or 929–931). Leo VI was son of the primicerius Christopher and held the title of Cardinal-Priest of St. Susanna before being elected Pope.

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Pope Leo VII
Pope Leo VII (died 13 July 939) was Pope from 3 January 936 until his death in 939. He was preceded by Pope John XI and followed by Pope Stephen VIII. Leo VII's election to the papacy was secured by Alberic II of Spoleto, the ruler of Rome at the time. Alberic wanted to choose the pope so that the papacy would continue to yield to his authority. Leo was the priest of the church of St. Sixtus in Rome, thought to be a Benedictine monk. He had little ambition towards the papacy, but consented under pressure.
As pope, Leo VII reigned for only three years. Most of his bulls were grants of privilege to monasteries, especially including the Abbey of Cluny. Leo called for Odo of Cluny to mediate between Alberic and Hugh of Italy, Alberic's stepfather, the King of Italy. Odo was successful in negotiating a truce after arranging a marriage between Hugh's daughter Alda and Alberic. Leo VII also appointed Frederick, Archbishop of Mainz, as a reformer in Germany. Leo allowed Frederick to drive out Jews that refused to be baptized, but he did not endorse the forced baptism of Jews.

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Pope Leo VIII
Pope Leo VIII (died 1 March 965), a Roman by birth, is considered by the Church an Antipope from 963 to 964 and a true Pope from 964 to 965. He held the lay office of protoserinus when he was elected pope, allegedly invalidly, by the Roman synod in December 963, when it also invalidly deposed Pope John XII, who was still alive. This occurred at the insistence of Emperor Otto I the Great, "the first of the Germans to be called the emperor of Italy", who on 2 February 962 had been crowned emperor by John XII to rule the territories that would later become known as the Holy Roman Empire.
Having been hurried with unseemly haste through all the intermediate orders, Leo received consecration two days after his election, which was unacceptable to the Roman populace. In February 964, after the Emperor withdrew from the city, Leo VIII found it necessary to seek safety in flight, whereupon he was deposed by a synod held under the presidency of the restored John XII. On the sudden death of John XII, the populace chose Pope Benedict V (964–966) as his successor. But Otto I, after returning and laying siege to the city, compelled its acceptance of Leo VIII.

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Pope Leo X
Pope Leo X (11 December 1475 – 1 December 1521), born Giovanni di Lorenzo de' Medici, was the Pope from 1513 to his death in 1521. He was the last non-priest (only a deacon) to be elected Pope. He is known for granting indulgences for those who donated to reconstruct St. Peter's Basilica and his challenging of Martin Luther's 95 Theses. He was the second son of Lorenzo de' Medici, the most famous ruler of the Florentine Republic, and Clarice Orsini. His cousin, Giulio di Giuliano de' Medici, would later succeed him as Pope Clement VII (1523–34).
Giovanni di Lorenzo de Medici was born in Italy, the second son of Lorenzo the Magnificent, head of the Florentine Republic, and Clarice Orsini.
From an very early age, he was destined for an ecclesiastical career. He received the tonsure at the age of seven and was soon loaded with rich benefices and preferments. His father prevailed on his relative Innocent VIII to name him cardinal-deacon of Santa Maria in Domnica on 8 March 1489, although he was not allowed to wear the insignia or share in the deliberations of the college until three years later. Meanwhile he received a distinguished education at Lorenzo's brilliant humanistic court under such men as Angelo Poliziano, Pico della Mirandola, Marsilio Ficino and Bernardo Dovizio Bibbiena. From 1489 to 1491 he studied theology and canon law at Pisa under Filippo Decio and Bartolomeo Sozzini.

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Pope Leo XI
Pope Leo XI (2 June 1535 – 27 April 1605), born Alessandro Ottaviano de' Medici, was Pope from 1 April 1605 to 27 April of the same year.
He was born in Florence: his mother, Francesca Salviati, was a daughter of Jacopo Salviati and Lucrezia de' Medici, a sister of Leo X, while his father, Ottaviano, was a more distant scion of the Medici family. After a late start, he was ordained priest, and Cosimo I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, sent him as an appropriate ambassador to Pope Pius V, a position which he held for fifteen years. Gregory XIII made him bishop of Pistoia in 1573, archbishop of Florence in 1574, and Cardinal-Priest of Santi Quirico e Giulitta in 1583.
In 1596, Clement VIII sent him as legate to France where Maria de' Medici was queen. Alessandro was a friend and disciple of St. Philip Neri.
On 14 March 1605, eleven days after the death of Clement VIII, 62 cardinals entered the conclave. Prominent among the candidates for the papacy were the great historian Baronius and the famous Jesuit controversialist Robert Bellarmine. But Pietro Aldobrandini, the leader of the Italian party among the cardinals, allied with the French cardinals and brought about the election of Alessandro against the express wish of King Philip III of Spain. King Henry IV of France is said to have spent 300,000 écus in the promotion of Alessandro's candidacy. On 1 April 1605, Alessandro ascended the papal throne with the name Leo XI after his uncle Pope Leo X, being then almost seventy years of age, but was taken ill immediately after his coronation and died within the month.

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Pope Leo XII
Pope Leo XII (22 August 1760 – 10 February 1829), born Annibale Francesco Clemente Melchiore Girolamo Nicola Sermattei della Genga, was Pope from 1823 to 1829.
Della Genga was born of a noble family from La Genga, a small town in what is now the province of Ancona, then part of the Papal States. The place of his birth is uncertain, the usual candidates being Genga, Ancona, and Spoleto. He was educated at the Accademia dei Nobili Ecclesiastici at Rome, where he was ordained priest in 1783. In 1790 the attractive and articulate della Genga attracted favourable attention by a tactful oration commemorative of the late Emperor Joseph II.
He was the uncle of Gabriele della Genga Sermattei who in the 19th century was the only nephew of a Pope to be elevated to cardinal.
In 1792 Pope Pius VI made him his private secretary, in 1793 creating him titular archbishop of Tyre and despatching him to Lucerne as nuncio. In 1794 he was transferred to the nunciature at Cologne, but owing to the war had to make his residence in Augsburg. During the dozen or more years he spent in Germany he was entrusted with several honourable and difficult missions, which brought him into contact with the courts of Dresden, Vienna, Munich and Württemberg, as well as with Napoleon I of France. It is, however, charged at one time during this period that his finances were disordered, and his private life was not above suspicion. After the Napoleonic abolition of the States of the Church (1798), he was treated by the French as a state prisoner, and lived for some years at the abbey of Monticelli, solacing himself with music and with bird-shooting, pastimes which he continued even after his election as Pope.

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Pope Leo XIII
Pope Leo XIII (2 March 1810 – 20 July 1903), born Vincenzo Gioacchino Raffaele Luigi Pecci to an Italian comital family, was the 256th Pope of the Roman Catholic Church, reigning from 1878 to 1903. He was the oldest pope (reigning until the age of 93), and had the third longest pontificate, behind his immediate predecessor Pius IX and John Paul II.
He is known for intellectualism, the development of social teachings with his encyclical Rerum Novarum and his attempts to define the position of the Church with regard to modern thinking. He influenced Roman Catholic Mariology and promoted both the rosary and the scapular. He issued a record eleven encyclicals on the rosary, approved two new Marian scapulars and was the first Pope to fully embrace the concept of Mary as mediatrix.
Born in Carpineto Romano, near Rome, he was the sixth of the seven sons of Count Ludovico Pecci and his wife Anna Prosperi Buzzi. Until 1818 he lived at home with his family, "in which religion counted as the highest grace on earth, as through her, salvation can be earned for all eternity". Together with his brother he studied in the Jesuit College in Viterbo, where he stayed until 1824. He enjoyed the Latin language and was known to write his own Latin poems at the age of eleven.

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Pope Liberius
Pope Liberius, pope from 17 May 352 to 24 September 366, was consecrated according to the Catalogus Liberianus on 22 May as the successor of Pope Julius I. He is not mentioned as a saint in the Roman Martyrology. His first recorded act was, after a synod had been held at Rome, to write to Emperor Constantius II, then in quarters at Arles (353–354), asking that a council might be called at Aquileia with reference to the affairs of Athanasius of Alexandria, but his messenger Vincentius of Capua was compelled by the emperor at a conciliabulum held in Arles to subscribe against his will to a condemnation of the orthodox patriarch of Alexandria.
At the end of an exile of more than two years in Thrace, the emperor recalled him, but, as the Roman See was officially occupied by Antipope Felix II, a year passed before Liberius was sent to Rome. It was the emperor's intention that Liberius should govern the Church jointly with Felix, but on the arrival of Liberius, Felix was expelled by the Roman people. Neither Liberius nor Felix took part in the Council of Rimini (359).

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Pope Linus
Pope Saint Linus (died c. 76) was, according to several early sources, Bishop of the Diocese of Rome after Saint Peter. This would make Linus the second Pope. According to other early sources Pope Clement I was the Pope after Peter. Linus is the only person specifically mentioned in the New Testament, other than Peter, considered by the Catholic Church to have held the position of Pope.
The earliest witness is Irenaeus, who in about the year 180 wrote: "The blessed apostles, then, having founded and built up the Church, committed into the hands of Linus the office of the episcopate." The Oxford Dictionary of Popes interprets Irenaeus as saying that Linus was the first bishop of Rome. Linus is presented by Jerome as "the first after Peter to be in charge of the Roman Church", by Eusebius, as "the first to receive the episcopate of the church at Rome, after the martyrdom of Paul and Peter"John Chrysostom says "This Linus, some say, was second Bishop of the Church of Rome after Peter", while the Liberian Catalogue presents Peter as the first Bishop of Rome and Linus as his successor in the same office. The Liber Pontificalis also presents a list that makes Linus the second in the line of bishops of Rome, after Peter; but at the same time it states that Peter ordained two bishops, Linus and Cletus, for the priestly service of the community, devoting himself instead to prayer and preaching, and that it was to Clement that he entrusted the Church as a whole, appointing him as his successor. Tertullian too makes Clement the successor of Peter. And while, in another of his works, Jerome gives Clement as "the fourth bishop of Rome after Peter" (i.e., fourth in a series that included Peter), he adds that "most of the Latins think that Clement was second after the apostle."

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Pope Lucius I
Pope Saint Lucius I was Pope from 25 June 253 to 5 March 254.
St. Lucius was born in Rome at an unknown date; nothing is known about his family except his father's name, Porphyrianus. He was elected probably on 25 June 253 and died on 5 March 254. His election took place during the persecution which caused the banishment of his predecessor Pope Cornelius, and he also was banished soon after his consecration, but succeeded in gaining permission to return.
He is praised in several letters of St. Cyprian (see Epist. lxviii. 5) for condemning the Novationists for their refusal to readmit to communion Christians who repented for having lapsed under persecution.
His feast day is 5 March, on which date he is commemorated in the Roman Martyrology in the following terms: "In the cemetery of Callistus on the Via Appia, Rome, burial of Saint Lucius, Pope, successor of Saint Cornelius. For his faith in Christ he suffered exile and acted as an outstanding confessor of the faith, with moderation and prudence, in the difficult times that were his."

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Pope Lucius II
Pope Lucius II (died 15 February 1145), born Gherardo Caccianemici dal Orso, was pope from 9 March 1144 until his death on 15 February 1145. His pontificate was notable for the unrest in Rome associated with the Commune of Rome and its attempts to wrest control of the city from the papacy.
Gherardo Caccianemici dal Orso, the son of Orso Caccianemici was born in Bologna. He was for many years a canon of the Basilica di San Frediano before his elevation by Pope Honorius II to cardinal priest of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme in 1124. During this time there he renovated the basilica, attached a body of regular canons and improved its revenue stream. After he was elevated as pope, he presented to the church a copy of the Gospels bound with plates of gold and adorned with jewels, as well as an altar-cover and two chased silver-gilt ampullae for use at Mass. Honorius also appointed him the librarian of the Diocese of Rome before appointing him papal legate in Germany in 1125. While there, he helped support the candidacy of Holy Roman Emperor Lothair III as well as appointing Saint Norbert of Xanten as the Archbishop of Magdeburg. In 1128, Gherardo was sent to Benevento to govern the city, which had overthrown the previous rector.

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Pope Lucius III
Pope Lucius III (ca. 1100 – 25 November 1185), born Ubaldo, was pope from 1 September 1181 to his death.
A native of the independent republic of Lucca, he was born ca. 1100 (perhaps 1097) as Ubaldo, son of Orlando. He is commonly referred to as a member of the aristocratic family of Allucingoli, but this is not proven. He had close ties to the Cistercians, but it seems that he never joined the order. He was named cardinal by Pope Innocent II in December 1138, initially as cardinal-deacon of San Adriano, then (in May 1141) as cardinal-priest of Santa Prassede. Pope Adrian IV promoted him to the rank of Cardinal Bishop of Ostia and Velletri in December 1158. He was dean of the Sacred College of Cardinals and one of the most influential cardinals under his predecessor Pope Alexander III.
After being elected Pope in 1181, he lived at Rome from November 1181 to March 1182, but dissensions in the city compelled him to pass the remainder of his pontificate in exile, mainly at Velletri, Anagni and Verona.

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Pope Marcellinus
Pope Saint Marcellinus, according to the Liberian Catalogue, became bishop of Rome on 30 June 296; his predecessor was Pope St Caius
Marcellinus’ pontificate began at a time when Diocletian was Roman Emperor, but had not yet started to persecute the Christians. He left Christianity rather free and so the church’s membership grew. Caesar Galerius led the pagan movement against Christianity and arrived to bring up Diocletian against Christianity in the year 302: first Christian soldiers had to leave the army, later the Church's property was confiscated and Christian books were destroyed. After two fires in Diocletian’s palace he took harder measures against Christians: they had either to apostatize or they were sentenced to death.

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Pope Marcellus I
Pope Marcellus I, serving as pope from May or June 308 to 309, succeeded Pope Marcellinus after a considerable interval. Under Maxentius he was banished from Rome in 309 on account of the tumult caused by the severity of the penances he had imposed on Christians who had lapsed under the recent persecution. He died the same year, being succeeded by Pope Eusebius. His relics are under the altar of San Marcello al Corso in Rome. His third-class feast day is kept on January 16 in the extraordinary form of the Roman Rite.
For some time after the death of Marcellinus in 304 the Diocletian persecution continued with unabated severity. After the abdication of Diocletian in 305, and the accession in Rome of Maxentius to the throne of the Caesars in October of the following year, the Christians of the capital again enjoyed comparative peace. Nevertheless, nearly two years passed before a new Bishop of Rome was elected. Then in 308, according to the Catalogus Liberianus, Pope Marcellus first entered on his office: "Fuit temporibus Maxenti a cons. X et Maximiano usque post consulatum X et septimum". This abbreviated notice is to be read: "A cons. Maximiano Herculio X et Maximiano Galerio VII [308] usque post cons. Maxim. Herc. X et Maxim. Galer. VII [309]". At Rome, Marcellus found the Church in the greatest confusion. The meeting-places and some of the burial-places of the faithful had been confiscated, and the ordinary life and activity of the Church was interrupted. Added to this were the dissensions within the Church itself, caused by the large number of weaker members who had fallen away during the long period of active persecution and later, under the leadership of an apostate, violently demanded that they should be readmitted to communion without doing penance.

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Pope Marcellus II
Pope Marcellus II (6 May 1501 – 1 May 1555), born Marcello Cervini degli Spannochi, was Pope from 9 April 1555 to 1 May 1555, succeeding Pope Julius III. Before his accession as Pope he had been Cardinal-Priest of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme. He is the most recent Pope to choose to retain his birth name as his regnal name upon his accession. After his death, it would be 415 years before another Pope would choose a name with an ordinal number less than IV (John Paul I).
A native of Montefano, a small village near Macerata and Loreto he was the son of Ricardo Cervini who was the Apostolic Treasurer in Ancona. The family originated in Tuscany, in the town of Poliziano, which had once been subject to Siena, but later was under the control of Florence. Marcello had two half-brothers, Alexander and Romulus. One of his sisters, Cinzia Cervini, married Vinzenzo Bellarmino, parents of Roberto Bellarmino. Marcello was educated locally, and at Siena and Florence, where he became proficient in writing Latin, Greek, and Italian. He also received instruction in jurisprudence, philosophy, and mathematics. His father had an interest in astrology and upon discovering that his son's horoscope presaged high ecclesiastical honours, Riccardo set the young Cervini on a path to the priesthood. Marcello Cervini was ordained a priest in 1535.

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Pope Marinus I
Pope Marinus I (or Martin II), was Pope between 16 December 882 and 15 May 884. He succeeded John VIII in about the end of December 882.
Born the son of a priest, he was ordained as a deacon by Pope Nicholas I. Before his election as Pope, he served as Bishop of Caere, which made his election controversial, because, at this stage of history, a bishop was expected never to leave office to move to another see. On three separate occasions he had been employed by the three popes who preceded him as legate to Constantinople, his mission in each case having reference to the controversy started by Photius, Patriarch of Constantinople.
Among his first acts as pope were the restitution of Formosus as Cardinal Bishop of Portus and the anathematizing of Photius. Due to his respect for Alfred the Great (r. 871–899), he freed the Anglo-Saxons of Rome from tribute and taxation. He died in May or June 884, his successor being Adrian III.

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Marinus (popes)". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Pope Marinus I". Catholic Encyclopedia. Robert Appleton Company.

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Pope Marinus II
Pope Marinus II (or Martin III), was Pope from 30 October 942 to May 946.
Marinus was born in Rome, and prior to becoming pope he was attached to the Church of Saint Cyriacus in the Baths of Diocletian. He was said to have encountered St. Ulrich on his visit to Rome in 909, and reportedly predicted Ulrich’s eventual appointment as Bishop of Augsburg after the devastation of the Hungarian invasion.
Marinus was elevated to the papacy on 30 October 942 through intervention of Alberic II of Spoleto, Prince of the Romans, and concentrated on administrative aspects of the papacy, and sought to reform both the secular and regular clergy. He extended the appointment of Frederick, Archbishop of Mainz as Papal Vicar and Missus dominicus throughout Germany and Francia. Marinus later intervened when the Bishop of Capua seized without authorization a church which had been given to the local Benedictine monks. In fact, throughout his pontificate, Marinus favoured various monasteries, issuing a number of Papal bulls in their favour.

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Pope Mark
Pope Saint Mark the apostle or Marcus was Pope from 18 January 336 to 7 October 336, the date of his death.
Little is known of his early life. According to the Liber Pontificalis, he was a Roman, and his father's name was Priscus. Some evidence suggests that the early lists of bishops and martyrs known as the Depositio episcoporum and Depositio martyrum were begun during his pontificate. Mark also issued a constitution confirming the power of the Bishop of Ostia to consecrate newly-elected popes. Mark is credited with the foundation of the Basilica of San Marco in Rome, and a cemetery church over the Catacomb of Balbina, just outside the city.
Mark died of natural causes and was buried in the catacomb of Balbina, where he had built the cemetery church. His feast day is celebrated on 7 October.

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Pope Martin I
Pope Martin I, born near Todi, Umbria, in the place now named after him (Pian di San Martino), was pope from 649 to 653, succeeding Pope Theodore I on 5 July 649. He was the only pope during the Byzantine Papacy whose election was not approved by a iussio from Constantinople. Martin I was abducted by Emperor Constans II and died in the Crimean peninsula. He is considered a martyr by the Catholic Church.
He was the last apocrisiarius to be elected pope.
He had previously acted as papal apocrisiarius or legate at Constantinople, and was held in high repute for his learning and virtue.
One of his first official acts was to summon the Lateran Council of 649 to deal with the Monothelites, whom the Church considered heretical. The Council met in the church of St. John Lateran. It was attended by 105 bishops (chiefly from Italy, Sicily, and Sardinia, with a few from Africa and other quarters), held five sessions or secretarii from 5 October to 31 October 649, and in twenty canons condemned Monothelitism, its authors, and the writings by which Monothelitism had been promulgated. In this condemnation were included not only the Ecthesis (the exposition of faith of the Patriarch Sergius for which the emperor Heraclius had stood sponsor), but also the typus of Paul, the successor of Sergius, which had the support of the reigning Emperor (Constans II).

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Pope Martin IV
Pope Martin IV, (c. 1210/1220 – 28 March 1285), born Simon de Brion, held the papacy from 21 February 1281 until his death.
Simon de Brion, son of Jean, sieur de Brion, was born at the château of Meinpincien,Île-de-France, France, in the decade following 1210. The seigneurial family of Brion, who took their name from Brion near Joigny, flourished in the Brie française. He spent time at the University of Paris, and is said to have then studied law at Padua and Bologna. Through papal favour he received a canonry at Saint-Quentin in 1238 and spent the period 1248–1259 as a canon of the cathedral chapter in Rouen, finally as archdeacon. At the same time he was appointed treasurer of the church of St. Martin in Tours by King Louis IX of France, an office he held until he was elected pope in 1281. In 1259, he was appointed to the council of the king, who made him keeper of the great seal, chancellor of France, one of the great officers in the household of the king.
In December 1261, the new French Pope, Urban IV made him cardinal-priest, with the titulus of the church of St. Cecilia. This entailed Simon de Brion's residence in Rome.

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Pope Martin V
Pope Martin V (c. 1368 – 20 February 1431), born Odo (or Oddone) Colonna, was Pope from 1417 to 1431. His election effectively ended the Western Schism (1378–1417).
He was born at Genazzano, the son of Agapito Colonna and Caterina Conti. He belonged to one of the oldest and most distinguished families of Rome. His brother Giordano became Prince of Salerno and Duke of Venosa, while his sister Paola was Lady of Piombino between 1441 and 1445.
Oddone most likely studied at the University of Perugia. He became apostolic protonotary under Pope Urban VI (1378–89), and was created Cardinal-Deacon of San Giorgio al Velabro by Pope Innocent VII in 1405. In 1409 he took part in the Council of Pisa, and was one of the supporters of Antipope Alexander V. Later he confirmed his allegiance to another antipope, John XXIII, by whom his family obtained several privileges, while Oddone obtained for himself the vicariate of Todi, Orvieto, Perugia and Umbria. He was excommunicated for this by Pope Gregory XII. Oddone was with John XXIII's entourage at the Council of Constance and followed him in his escape at Schaffhausen on 21 March 1415. Later he returned to Constance and took part in the process leading to the deposition of John XXIII.

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Pope Miltiades
Pope Miltiades, also called Melchiades (Μελχιάδης ὁ Ἀφρικανός in Greek), was Pope from 2 July 311 to 10 January 314.
According to the Liber Pontificalis, Miltiades was African, although McBrien states he was probably Roman.
His elections marked the end of a period sede vacante lasting from the death of Pope Eusebius on 17 August 310 or, according to others, 309, soon after the Emperor Maxentius had exiled Eusebius to Sicily.
During his pontificate, in October 312, Constantine defeated Maxentius and assumed control over Rome. Constantine presented the pope with the Lateran Palace which became the papal residence and seat of Christian governance. Early in 313, Constantine and fellow Emperor Licinius reached an agreement at Milan that they would grant freedom of religion to the Christians and other religions and restore church property.
Later in 313, Miltiades presided over the Lateran Synod in Rome, which acquitted Caecilian of Carthage and condemned Donatus as a schismatic (see Donatism). He was then invited to the Council of Arles but died before it was held.

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Pope Nicholas I
Pope Nicholas I (c. 800 – 13 November 867), or Saint Nicholas the Great, reigned from 24 April 858 until his death. He is remembered as a consolidator of papal authority and power, exerting decisive influence upon the historical development of the papacy and its position among the Christian nations of Western Europe. Nicholas asserted that the pope should have suzerain authority over all Christians, even royalty, in matters of faith and morals.
He is venerated as a saint in the Roman Catholic Church, with a feast day on 13 November.
He refused to grant an annulment to King Lothair II of Lotharingia from Teutberga so that Lothar could marry his mistress Waldrada. When a Council pronounced in favor of annulment, Nicholas I declared the Council to be deposed, its messengers excommunicated, and its decisions void. Despite pressure from the Carolingians, who laid siege to Rome, his decision held. During his reign, relations with the Byzantine Empire soured over his support for Ignatius, Patriarch of Constantinople, who had been removed from his post in favor of Photius.

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Pope Nicholas II
Pope Nicholas II (died 27 July 1061), born Gérard de Bourgogne, was Pope from 1059 to July 1061. At the time of his election, he was Bishop of Florence.
Benedict X was elected in 1058, his election having been arranged by the Count of Tusculum. However, a number of Cardinals alleged that the election was irregular, and that votes had been bought; these cardinals were forced to flee Rome. Hildebrand, later Pope Gregory VII, when he heard of Benedict X's election, decided to oppose it, and obtained the support for the election of Gérard de Bourgogne instead. In December 1058, those cardinals who had opposed Benedict X's election met at Siena and elected Gérard as Pope instead. He then took the name Nicholas II.
Nicholas II proceeded towards Rome, along the way holding a synod at Sutri, where he pronounced Benedict X deposed and excommunicated. The supporters of Nicholas II then gained control of Rome and forced Benedict X to flee to the castle of Gerard of Galeria. Having arrived in Rome, Nicholas II then proceeded to wage war against Benedict X and his supporters with Norman assistance. An initial battle was fought in Campagna in early 1059, which was not wholly successful for Nicholas II. But later that same year, his forces conquered Praeneste, Tusculum and Numentanum, and then attacked Galeria, forcing Benedict X to surrender and renounce the Papacy.

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Pope Nicholas III
Pope Nicholas III (c. 1210/1220 – 22 August 1280), born Giovanni Gaetano Orsini, was Pope from 25 November 1277 until his death. He was a Roman nobleman who had served under eight Popes, been made cardinal-deacon of St. Nicola in Carcere Tulliano by Pope Innocent IV (1243–54), protector of the Franciscans by Pope Alexander IV (1254–61), inquisitor-general by Pope Urban IV (1261–64), and succeeded Pope John XXI (1276–77) after a six-month vacancy in the Holy See resolved in the papal election of 1277, largely through family influence.
Nicholas' brief pontificate was marked by several important events. He greatly strengthened the papal position in Italy. He concluded a concordat with Rudolph I of Habsburg in May 1278, by which the Romagna and the exarchate of Ravenna were guaranteed to the Pope. According to the chronist Bartholomew of Lucca, he discussed with Rudolph, in general terms at least, of splitting the German Empire into four separate kingdoms - Lombardy, Burgundy, Tuscia and Germany, where Rudolph's kingdom would be made hereditary in addition to himself becoming emperor. In July 1278 Nicholas III issued an epoch-making constitution for the government of Rome that forbade foreigners from taking civil office.

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Pope Nicholas IV
Pope Nicholas IV (30 September 1227 – 4 April 1292), born Girolamo Masci, was Pope from 22 February 1288 until his death. Originally a Franciscan friar, he had been legate to the Greeks under Pope Gregory X in 1272, succeeded Bonaventure as Minister General of his religious order in 1274, and was made Cardinal Priest of Santa Prassede and Latin Patriarch of Constantinople by Pope Nicholas III, Cardinal Bishop of Palestrina by Pope Martin IV. He succeeded Pope Honorius IV in February 1288 at the end of a papal election that took ten months to conclude.
Masci was born at Lisciano, near Ascoli Piceno. He was a pious, peace-loving friar with no ambition save for the Church, the crusades and the extirpation of heresy. He steered a middle course between the factions at Rome and sought a settlement of the Sicilian question. In May 1289 he crowned King Charles II of Naples and Sicily after the latter had expressly recognized papal suzerainty, and in February 1291 concluded a treaty with Kings Alfonso III of Aragon and Philip IV of France looking toward the expulsion of James II of Aragon from Sicily. The loss of Acre in 1291 stirred Nicholas IV to renewed enthusiasm for a crusade. He sent missionaries, among them the celebrated Franciscan John of Monte Corvino, to labour among the Bulgarians, Ethiopians, Mongols, Tatars and Chinese.

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Pope Nicholas V
Pope Nicholas V (Italian: Niccolò V) (15 November 1397 – 24 March 1455), born Tommaso Parentucelli, was Pope from 6 March 1447 until his death in 1455.
He was born at Sarzana, Liguria, where his father was a physician. His father died while he was young. Parentucelli later became a tutor, in Florence, to the families of the Strozzi and Albizzi, where he met the leading humanist scholars.
He studied at Bologna and Florence, gaining a degree in theology in 1422. Bishop Niccolò Albergati was so awe-struck with his capabilities that he took him into his service and gave him the chance to pursue his studies further by sending him on a tour through Germany, France and England. He was able to collect books, for which he had an intellectual's passion, wherever he went. Some of them survive with his marginal annotations.
He attended the Council of Florence and in 1444, when his patron died, he was appointed Bishop of Bologna in his place. Civic disorders at Bologna were prolonged, so Pope Eugene IV soon named him as one of the legates sent to Frankfurt. He was to assist in negotiating an understanding between the Papal States and the Holy Roman Empire, regarding undercutting or at least containing the reforming decrees of the Council of Basel (1431–1439).

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Pope Paschal I
Pope Saint Paschal I (baptismal name, Pascale Massimi) was pope of the Roman Catholic Church from 25 January 817 to 11 February 824.
A native of Rome and son of Bonosus, Paschal was serving as abbot of Santo Stefano Rotondo when he was raised to the pontificate by the acclamation of the clergy less than a day after the death of Pope Stephen IV. This decision occurred before the sanction of the emperor Louis the Pious had been obtained, and was a circumstance for which it was one of his first tasks to apologize. Paschal advised the emperor that the decision had been made to avoid factional strife in Rome, and his papal legate Theodore returned with a document titled Pactum cum Pashali pontiff, in which the Emperor congratulated Paschal, recognized his sovereignty over the Papal States and guaranteed the free election of future pontiffs. . This document was challenged by later historians as a forgery as Paschal’s relations with the imperial house never became cordial, and he was also unsuccessful in winning the sympathy of the Roman nobles.

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Pope Paschal II
Pope Paschal II (died 21 January 1118), born Ranierius, was Pope from 13 August 1099 until his death. A monk of the Cluniac order, he was created cardinal priest of the Titulus S. Clementi by Pope Gregory VII (1073–85) about 1076, and was consecrated pope in succession to Pope Urban II (1088–99) on 19 August 1099. His reign of almost twenty years was exceptionally long for a Pope of the Middle Ages.

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Pope Paul I
Pope Paul I (700 – 28 June 767) was pope from 29 May 757 to 28 June 767. He first served as a Roman deacon and was frequently employed by his brother, Pope Stephen II, in negotiations with the Lombard kings.
After Stephen's death on 26 April 757, Paul prevailed over a faction that wanted to place the Archdeacon Theophylact on the Holy See and was chosen his brother's successor by the majority that wished a continuation of the late pope's policy. The new pope's reign was dominated by relations with the Frankish and Lombard kings and with the Eastern emperor. He adopted an independent tone in informing the imperial Exarch in Ravenna of his election, but wrote to Pepin the Younger that the Frankish alliance should be maintained unimpaired, being possibly forced to this course by the Lombard king Desiderius. The Lombards held the cities of Imola, Osimo, Bologna, and Ancona, which were claimed by Rome, and in 758 seized upon the duchies of Spoleto and Benevento.
The same year he visited Rome and compelled Paul to write to Pepin asking him to concede all the Lombard Direct claims except that to Imola; another letter of exactly opposite tenor was sent by the same messenger. Pepin found it advisable to maintain good relations with Desiderius, and Paul apparently accomplished little by his double-dealing. Later, however, Pepin gave the pope some support and acted as arbiter between the Roman and Lombard claims.

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Pope Paul II
Pope Paul II (23 February 1417 – 26 July 1471), born Pietro Barbo, was Pope from 1464 until his death in 1471.
He was born in Venice, a nephew of Pope Eugene IV (1431–1447) through his mother. His adoption of the spiritual career, after having been trained as a merchant, was prompted by his uncle's election as pope. His consequent promotion was rapid; he became a cardinal in 1440 and gained popularity through his tender-hearted generosity.
He was elected to succeed Pope Pius II by the accessus in the first ballot of the papal conclave of 1464 with a majority of fourteen of the nineteen cardinals present. Beforehand, to secure to the cardinals a greater share of power than they had enjoyed under Pius II, a capitulation was subscribed by all except Ludovico Trevisan. It bound the future Pope to continue the Turkish war, but he was not to journey outside Rome without the consent of a majority of the cardinals, nor to leave Italy without the consent of all. The maximum number of cardinals was limited to twenty-four, and any new Pope was to be limited to only one cardinal-nephew. All creations of new cardinals and advancements to certain important benefices were to be made only with the consent of the College of Cardinals. Upon taking office, Paul II was to convene an ecumenical council within three years. But these terms of subscription were modified by Paul II at his own discretion, and this action lost him the confidence of the College of Cardinals. The justification for setting aside the capitulations, seen to be under way by the Duke of Milan's ambassador as early as 21 September, lay in connecting any abridgement of the Pope's absolute monarchy in the Papal States with a consequent abridgement of his sole authority in spiritual matters. Almost from his coronation, Paul withdrew and became inaccessible: audiences were only granted at night; even good friends waited a fortnight to see him; his suspiciousness was widely attested.

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Pope Paul III
Pope Paul III (29 February 1468 – 10 November 1549), born Alessandro Farnese, was Pope of the Roman Catholic Church from 1534 to his death in 1549. He came to the papal throne in an era following the sack of Rome in 1527 and rife with uncertainties in the Catholic Church following the Protestant Reformation. During his reign, and in the spirit of the Counter-Reformation, new Catholic religious orders and societies, such as the Jesuits, the Theatines, the Barnabites and the Congregation of the Oratory, attracted a popular following and he convened the Council of Trent in 1545. He was a significant patron of the arts and employed nepotism to advance the power and fortunes of his family. It is to Pope Paul III that Nicolaus Copernicus dedicated De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres).
Born in 1468 at Canino, Latium (then part of the Papal States), Alessandro Farnese was the oldest son of Pier Luigi I Farnese, Signore di Montalto (1435–1487) and his wife Giovanna Caetani, a member of the Caetani family which had also produced Pope Boniface VIII. The Farnese family had prospered over the centuries but it was Alessandro’s ascendency to the papacy and his dedication to furthering family interests which saw the vastly significant increase in the family’s wealth and power.

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Pope Paul IV
Pope Paul IV, C.R. (28 June 1476 – 18 August 1559), né Giovanni Pietro Carafa, was Pope from 23 May 1555 until his death.
Giovanni Pietro Carafa was born in Capriglia Irpina, near Avellino, into a prominent noble family of Naples. His father Giovanni Antonio Carafa died in West Flanders in 1516 and his mother Vittoria Camponeschi was the daughter of Pietro Lalle Camponeschi, 5th Conte di Montorio, a Neapolitan nobleman, and wife Dona Maria de Noronha, a Portuguese noblewoman of the House of Pereira Senhores dos Lagares de El-Rei and Senhores de Paiva, Baltar e Cabeceiras de Basto. His title in the Prophecy of St. Malachy is "Of the Faith of Peter."
He was mentored by Cardinal Oliviero Carafa, his relative, who resigned the see of Chieti (Latin Theate) in his favour. Under the direction of Pope Leo X, he was ambassador to England and then papal nuncio in Spain, where he conceived a violent detestation of Spanish rule that affected the policies of his later papacy.
However, in 1524, Pope Clement VII allowed Carafa to resign his benefices and join the ascetic and newly founded Congregation of Clerks Regular, popularly called the Theatines, after Carafa's see of Theate. Following the sack of Rome in 1527, the order moved to Venice. But Carafa was recalled to Rome by the reform-minded Pope Paul III (1534–49), to sit on a committee of reform of the papal court, an appointment that forecast an end to a humanist papacy, and a revival of scholasticism, for Carafa was a thorough disciple of Thomas Aquinas.

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Pope Paul V
Pope Paul V (17 September 1552 – 28 January 1621), born Camillo Borghese, was Pope from 16 May 1605 until his death.
He was born into the noble Borghese family of Siena which had recently fled to Rome, and ROMANUS appears in most of his inscriptions. He began as a lawyer educated at Perugia and Padua.
In June 1596 he was made Cardinal-Priest of Sant'Eusebio and Cardinal Vicar of Rome by Pope Clement VIII, and had as secretary Niccolò Alamanni.
When Pope Leo XI died, 1605, Cardinal Borghese became Pope over a number of candidates including Caesar Baronius and Roberto Cardinal Bellarmine; his neutrality in the factional times made him an ideal compromise candidate. In character he was very stern and unyielding, a lawyer rather than diplomat, who defended the privileges of the Church to his utmost. His first act was to send home to their sees the bishops who were sojourning in Rome, for the Council of Trent had insisted that every bishop reside in his diocese. Soon after his accession as Pope Paul V, Borghese determined to humiliate Venice, as his predecessor had done, for attempting to preserve its independence from the papacy in the administration of its government.

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Pope Paul VI
Paul VI (Latin: Paulus PP. VI; Italian: Paolo VI), born Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini (26 September 1897 – 6 August 1978), reigned as Pope of the Catholic Church from 21 June 1963 until his death on 6 August 1978. Succeeding Pope John XXIII, who had convened the Second Vatican Council, he decided to continue it. He fostered improved ecumenical relations with Orthodox and Protestants, which resulted in many historic meetings and agreements.
Montini served in the Vatican's Secretariat of State from 1922 to 1954. While in the Secretariat of State, Montini and Domenico Tardini were considered as the closest and most influential co-workers of Pope Pius XII, who named him in 1954 Archbishop of Milan, the largest Italian diocese, yet denying him the Cardinal designation that traditionally accompanies being Archbishop of Milan, a function which made him automatically Secretary of the Italian Bishops Conference. John XXIII elevated him to the College of Cardinals in 1958, and after the death of John XXIII, Montini was considered one of his most likely successors.

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Pope Pelagius I
Pope Pelagius I was Pope from 556 to 4 March 561. He was the second pope of the Byzantine Papacy, like his predecessor a former apocrisiarius to Constantinople.
He came from a Roman noble family. His father John seems to have been vicar of one of the two civil "dioceses", or districts, into which Italy was then divided.
Pelagius accompanied Pope Agapetus I to Constantinople and was appointed by him nuncio of the Roman Church to that city.[1]
When Pope Vigilius went to Constantinople on the orders of Emperor Justinian I, Pelagius stayed in Rome as the pope's representative. Totila, King of the Goths, had begun to blockade the city. Pelagius poured out his own fortune for the benefit of the famine-stricken people, and tried to induce the king to grant a truce. Though he failed, he afterwards induced Totila to spare the lives of the people when he captured Rome in December 546. Totila sent Pelagius to Constantinople in order to arrange a peace with Justinian I, but the emperor sent him back to say that his general Belisarius was in command in Italy.

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Pope Pelagius II
Pope Pelagius II was Pope from 579 to 590.
He was a native of Rome, but probably of Ostrogothic descent, as his father's name was Winigild.
Pelagius appealed for help from Emperor Maurice against the Lombards, but the Byzantines were of little help, forcing Pelagius to "buy" a truce and turn to the Franks, who invaded Italy, but left after being bribed by the Lombards.
Pelagius labored to promote the celibacy of the clergy, and he issued such stringent regulations on this matter that his successor Pope Gregory I thought them too strict, and modified them to some extent.
During his pontificate, the bishop of Milan, who had broken communion with Rome in the Schism of the Three Chapters, returned to full communion around 581, while other bishops in Northern Italy remained in schism.
Pelagius ordered the construction of the Basilica di San Lorenzo fuori le Mura, a church shrine over the place where Saint Lawrence was martyred. During his reign, the Visigoths of Spain converted, but he also faced conflict with the See of Constantinople over the adoption of the title of "Ecumenical Patriarch," which Pelagius believed to undermine the authority of the papacy.

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Pope Pius I
Pope Saint Pius I was Bishop of Rome, according to the Annuario Pontificio, from 142 or 146 to 157 or 161, respectively. Others suggest that his pontificate was perhaps from 140 to 154.
Pius is believed to have been born at Aquileia, in Northern Italy, during the late 1st century. His father was called "Rufinus", who was also said to be of Aquileia according to the Liber Pontificalis.
It is stated in the 2nd century Muratorian Canon, and in the Liberian Catalogue, that he was the brother of Hermas, author of the text known as The Shepherd of Hermas. The writer of the later text identifies himself as a former slave. This has led to speculation that both Hermas and Pius were freedmen.
St Pius I governed the Church in the middle of the 2nd century during the reigns of the Emperors Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius. He was the ninth successor of Saint Peter. He decreed that Easter should only be kept on a Sunday. Although being credited with ordering the publication of the Liber Pontificalis, compilation of that document was not started before the beginning of the 6th century. He is said to have built one of the oldest churches in Rome, Santa Pudenziana.

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Pope Pius II
Pope Pius II, born Enea Silvio Piccolomini (Latin Aeneas Sylvius; 18 October 1405 – 14 August 1464) was Pope from 19 August 1458 until his death in 1464. Pius II was born at Corsignano in the Sienese territory of a noble but decayed family. His longest and most enduring work is the story of his life, the Commentaries, which is the only autobiography ever written by a reigning Pope.
After studying at the universities of Siena and Florence, he settled in the former city as a teacher, but in 1431 accepted the post of secretary to Domenico Capranica, bishop of Fermo, then on his way to the Council of Basel (1431–39). Capranica was protesting against the new Pope Eugene IV's refusal of a cardinalate for him, which had been designated by Pope Martin V. Arriving at Basel after enduring a stormy voyage to Genoa and then a trip across the Alps, he successively served Capranica, who ran short of money, and then other masters.
In 1435 he was sent by Cardinal Albergati, Eugenius IV's legate at the council, on a secret mission to Scotland, the object of which is variously related even by himself. He visited England as well as Scotland, underwent many perils and vicissitudes in both countries, and left a valuable account of each. The journey to Scotland proved so tempestuous that Piccolomini swore that he would walk barefoot to the nearest shrine of Our Lady from their landing port. This proved to be Dunbar; the nearest shrine was 10 miles distant at Whitekirk. The journey through the ice and snow left Aeneas afflicted with pain in his legs for the rest of his life. In Scotland he fathered his second natural child, the other one having been born in Strasbourg.

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Pope Pius III
Pope Pius III (29 May 1439 – 18 October 1503), born Francesco Todeschini Piccolomini, was Pope from 22 September to 18 October 1503.
He was born in Siena, the nephew of Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini, the future Pope Pius II, by his sister Laodamia. He was received as a boy into the household of Aeneas Silvius, who permitted him to assume the name and arms of the Piccolomini family (his brother Antonio being made Duke of Amalfi during the pontificate of Pius II). Pius II appointed him in 1460, when only 21 years of age, to the See of Siena, which he had just raised to an archbishopric, and made him a cardinal at his first consistory, on 5 March 1460. Within months he sent him as legate to the March of Ancona with the experienced Bishop of Marsico as his counsellor. He proved studious and effective.
Cardinal Piccolomini participated in the conclave that elected Pope Paul II (1464–71) in 1464, but was absent when Pope Sixtus IV (1471–84) was elected in 1471. He was employed in several important legations, as by Paul II at the Imperial diet at Regensburg/Ratisbon, and later by Sixtus IV to restore ecclesiastical authority in Umbria. He participated in the conclave of 1484 which elected Innocent VIII and in the conclave of 1492 which elected Alexander VI. The cardinal was involved in Alexander's short-lived effort to reform the Roman Curia following the murder of his son Giovanni Borgia in 1497.

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Pope Pius IV
Pius IV (31 March 1499 – 9 December 1565), born Giovanni Angelo Medici, was Pope from 1559 to 1565. He is notable for presiding over the culmination of the Council of Trent.
Giovanni Angelo Medici was born of humble parentage in Milan, distantly related to the Medicis of Florence. His early career connects itself in some measure with the rise of his elder brother, Gian Giacomo Medici, from the position of a mere bravo to that of Marchese di Marignano.
After studying at Bologna and acquiring a reputation as a jurist, he went in 1527 to Rome, and as the favourite of Pope Paul III was rapidly promoted to the governorship of several towns, the archbishopric of Ragusa, the vice-legateship of Bologna, and in April 1549, to the cardinalate. On the death of Pope Paul IV, he was elected Pope Pius IV on 25 December 1559, and installed on 6 January 1560. His first public acts of importance were to grant a general pardon to the participators in the riot which had closed the previous pontificate, and to bring to trial the nephews of his predecessor, of whom Cardinal Carlo Carafa was strangled, and Duke Giovanni Carafa of Paliano, with his nearest connections, beheaded.

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Pope Pius IX
Blessed Pope Pius IX (13 May 1792 – 7 February 1878), born Giovanni Maria Mastai-Ferretti, was the longest-reigning elected Pope in the history of the Catholic Church, serving from 16 June 1846 until his death, a period of nearly 32 years. During his pontificate, he convened the First Vatican Council in 1869, which decreed papal infallibility. The Pope defined the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, meaning that Mary was conceived without original sin. Pius IX also granted the Marian title of Our Mother of Perpetual Help, a famous Byzantine icon from Crete entrusted to the Redemptorist priests. In addition to this, Pius IX was also the last Pope to rule as the Sovereign of the Papal States, which fell completely to Italian nationalist armies by 1870 and were incorporated into the Kingdom of Italy. He was beatified in 2000.

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Pope Pius V
Pope Pius V (17 January 1504 – 1 May 1572), born Antonio Ghislieri (from 1518 called Michele Ghislieri, O.P.), was pope from 1566 to 1572 and is a saint of the Catholic Church. He is chiefly notable for his role in the Council of Trent, the Counter-Reformation, and the standardization of the Roman rite within the Latin Church. Pius V declared Thomas Aquinas a Doctor of the Church and patronized prominent sacred music composer Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina.
As a cardinal, Ghislieri gained a reputation for putting orthodoxy before personalities, prosecuting eight French bishops for heresy. He also stood firm against nepotism, rebuking his predecessor Pope Pius IV to his face when he wanted to make a 13-year old member of his family a cardinal and subsidise a nephew from the Papal treasury.
In affairs of state, Pius V excommunicated Elizabeth I of England for schism and persecutions of English Catholics during her reign. He also arranged the formation of the Holy League, an alliance of Catholic states. Although outnumbered, the Holy League famously defeated the Ottoman Empire, which had threatened to overrun Europe, at the Battle of Lepanto. This victory Pius V attributed to the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary and instituted the feast of Our Lady of Victory.

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Pope Pius VI
Pope Pius VI (25 December 1717 – 29 August 1799), born Count Giovanni Angelo Braschi, was Pope from 1775 to 1799.
Braschi was born in Cesena. After completing his studies in the Jesuit college of Cesena and receiving his doctorate of law (1734), Braschi continued his studies at the University of Ferrara, where he became the private secretary of Tommaso Ruffo, papal legate, in whose bishopric of Ostia and Velletri he held the post of auditor until 1753. His skill in the conduct of a mission to the court of Naples won him the esteem of Pope Benedict XIV (1740–58), who appointed him one of his secretaries, 1753, and canon of St Peter's. In 1758, putting an end to an engagement to be married (Pastor 1952) he was ordained priest, and in 1766 appointed treasurer of the camera apostolica by Pope Clement XIII (1758–69). Those who suffered under his conscientious economies cunningly convinced Pope Clement XIV (1769–74) to make him Cardinal-Priest of Sant'Onofrio on 26 April 1773 – a promotion which rendered him, for a time, innocuous. In the four months' conclave which followed the death of Clement XIV Spain, France and Portugal at length dropped their objection to Braschi, who was after all one of the more moderate opponents of the anti-Jesuit policy of the previous Pope, and he was elected to the Holy See on 15 February 1775, taking the name of Pius VI.

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Pope Pius VII
Pope Pius VII (14 August 1742 – 20 August 1823), born Barnaba Niccolò Maria Luigi Chiaramonti, was a monk, theologian and bishop, who reigned as Pope from 14 March 1800 to 20 August 1823.
Chiaramonti was born at Cesena, the son of Count Scipione Chiaramonti; his mother, Giovanna, was the daughter of the Marquess Ghini and was related to the Braschi family. He joined the Benedictine Order in 1756 at the Abbey of St Maria del Monte of Cesena, where he received the monastic name Gregory. He then became a teacher at Benedictine colleges in Parma and Rome. He was ordained to the priesthood on 21 September 1765.
His career became a series of promotions following the election of his relative, Giovanni Angelo Braschi, as Pope Pius VI (1775–99). In 1776 Pius VI appointed the 34-year-old Dom Gregory, who had been teaching at the Monastery of Sant'Anselmo in Rome, as honorary abbot in commendam of his monastery. Though this was an ancient practice, this drew complaints from the monks of the community, as monastic communities generally felt it was not in keeping with the Rule of St. Benedict. In December 1782 the pope appointed Dom Gregory as the Bishop of Tivoli, near Rome. Pius VI soon named him, in February 1785, simultaneously both as a Cardinal-Priest, with his titular church being the Basilica of St. Callistus, and as the Bishop of Imola, an office he held until 1816.

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Pope Pius VIII
Pope Pius VIII (20 November 1761 – 30 November 1830), born Francesco Saverio Castiglioni was Pope in 1829 and 1830.
He was born in Cingoli, Marche, the son of Count Ottavio Castiglioni and his wife Sanzia Ghislieri. He studied Canon law and, in 1800 became bishop of Montalto. After he refused to swear allegiance to Napoleon I of France (1804–14, 1815) he was taken to France, but following the defeat of France, he was, in 1816, made a Cardinal-Priest of Santa Maria in Traspontina. He held various high offices thereafter, including that of Major Penitentiary. He soon became cardinal bishop of the suburbicarian see of Frascati.
"As a Cardinal, Castiglione had continued to live modestly, made no enemies, and although his own private life had always been irreproachable, he had shown no signs of censoriousness where others were concerned. He suffered from a very painful and distressing complaint, having perpetually suppurating sores on his neck and body, and was far too ill and feeble to do more than sign the documents presented to him by Cardinal Giuseppe Albani, who ruled the Papal States as autocratically as though he had himself worn the triple crown."

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Pope Pius X
Pope Pius X (Ecclesiastical Latin: Pius PP. X) (2 June 1835 – 20 August 1914), born Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto, was the 257th Pope of the Catholic Church, serving from 1903 to 1914. He was the first pope since Pope Pius V to be canonized. Pius X rejected modernist interpretations of Catholic doctrine, promoting traditional devotional practices and orthodox theology. His most important reform was to publish the first Code of Canon Law, which collected the laws of the Church into one volume for the first time. He was a pastoral pope, encouraging personal piety and a lifestyle reflecting Christian values. He was born in the town of Riese, which would later append "Pio X" (Pius X's name in Italian) to the town's name.
Pius was particularly devoted to Mary; his encyclical Ad Diem Illum expresses his desire through Mary to renew all things in Christ, which he had defined as his motto in his first encyclical. Pius believed that there is no surer or more direct road than by the Virgin Mary to achieve this goal. Pius X was the only Pope in the 20th century with extensive pastoral experience at the parish level,^{[citation needed]} and pastoral concerns permeated his papacy; he favoured the use of the vernacular in catechesis. Frequent communion was a lasting innovation of his papacy. Pius X, like Pope Pius IX, was considered by some^[who?] to be too outspoken or brusque. His direct style and condemnations did not gain him much support in the aristocratic societies of pre–World War I Europe.

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Pope Pius XI
Pope Pius XI (Latin: Pius PP. XI; Italian: Pio XI; 31 May 1857 – 10 February 1939), born Ambrogio Damiano Achille Ratti, was Pope from 6 February 1922, and sovereign of Vatican City from its creation as an independent state on 11 February 1929 until his death on 10 February 1939. He issued numerous encyclicals including Quadragesimo Anno, highlighting capitalistic greed of international finance, and social justice issues, and Quas Primas, establishing the feast of Christ the King. He took as his papal motto, "Christ's peace in Christ's kingdom".
Achille Ratti was an accomplished scholar, librarian and priest. He celebrated his 60th birthday as a priest on 31 May 1917. Fewer than five years later, on 6 February 1922, he was elected Pope, succeeding Pope Benedict XV, who was only thirty months older and thus from the same generation as Ratti. In those five years, he had short stints as papal nuncio in Poland, which forced him to leave the country, and as Archbishop of Milan and Cardinal-Priest of Ss. Silvestro e Martino ai Monti, where he served for a few months before being elected Pope. He chose the name Pius, and his personality was strong, similar to Pius IX and Pius X. But as a scholar, he was open to science and research like no other Pope since Leo XIII.

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Pope Pius XII
The Venerable Pope Pius XII (Latin: Pius PP. XII; Italian: Pio XII), born Eugenio Marìa Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli (2 March 1876 – 9 October 1958), reigned as Pope, head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of Vatican City State, from 2 March 1939 until his death in 1958.
Before election to the papacy, Pacelli served as secretary of the Department of Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs, papal nuncio and Cardinal Secretary of State, in which capacity he worked to conclude treaties with European and Latin American nations, most notably the Reichskonkordat with Nazi Germany. The concordat of 1933 which saw the self-destruction of the Centre (Catholic) Party, on the orders of the Holy See, and Pius' leadership of the Catholic Church during World War II, including his "decision to stay silent in public about the fate of the Jews", remain the subject of controversy.
After the war Pius XII advocated peace and reconciliation, including lenient policies towards Axis and Axis-satellite nations. The Church experienced severe persecution and mass deportations of Catholic clergy in the Eastern Bloc. In light of his overt involvement in Italian politics – anyone who voted for a Communist candidate in the 1948 elections was threatened with automatic excommunication – Pius XII became known as a staunch opponent of the Italian Communist Party. Pius XII explicitly invoked ex cathedra papal infallibility with the dogma of the Assumption of Mary in his 1950 Apostolic constitution Munificentissimus Deus. His magisterium includes almost 1,000 addresses and radio broadcasts. His forty-one encyclicals include Mystici Corporis, the Church as the Body of Christ; Mediator Dei on liturgy reform; and Humani generis on the Church's positions on theology and evolution. He eliminated the Italian majority in the College of Cardinals in 1946.

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Pope Pontian
Pope Pontian or Pontianus was Pope from 21 July 230 to 29 September 235.^{[citation needed]}
A little more is known of Pontian than his predecessors, apparently from a lost papal chronicle that was available to the compiler of the Liberian Catalogue of bishops of Rome, made in the fourth century.
During his pontificate the schism of Hippolytus of Rome came to an end. Pontian and other church leaders (among them Hippolytus) were exiled by the emperor Maximinus Thrax to Sardinia, and in consequence of this sentence he resigned on 25 or 28 September 235. It is unknown how long he lived in exile: according to Liber Pontificalis he died due to the inhuman treatment and hardships he received in the Sardinian mines. According to tradition, he died on the island of Tavolara.
His feast day was 19 November, but he is now celebrated jointly with Hippolytus on 13 August.
His remains were brought to Rome by Pope Fabian and buried in the Catacomb of Pope Callixtus I. His epitaph was rediscovered in 1909 in the Catacomb of Callixtus, near the papal crypt, reading "PONTIANOS, EPISK.". The inscription "MARTUR" had been added in another hand.

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Pope Romanus
Pope Romanus was Pope from August to November 897.
He was born in Gallese, Italy near Civita Castellana.
He was elected to succeed the murdered Pope Stephen VI and was deposed a few months later by one of the factions, which then governed Rome. His short rule was regarded as a virtuous one by the historian Frodoard. He ended his days as a monk, although this may mean simply that he was deposed. His date of death is unknown.

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Pope Sabinian
Pope Sabinian (died 22 February 606) was pope from 604 to 606. He was born at Blera (Bieda) near Viterbo. Pope during the Byzantine Papacy, he was fourth former apocrisiarius to Constantinople elected pope.
He had been sent by Pope Gregory I as Apostolic nuncio, to Constantinople, but he apparently was not entirely satisfactory in that office. He returned to Rome in 597.
He was probably consecrated pope on 13 September 604.
He incurred unpopularity by his unseasonable economies, although the Liber Pontificalis states that he distributed grain during a famine at Rome under his pontificate. The erudite Italian Augustinian Onofrio Panvinio (1529–1568), in his Epitome pontificum Romanorum (Venice, 1557), attributes to him the introduction of the custom of ringing bells at the canonical hours and the celebration of the Eucharist. The first attribution was this was in Guillaume Durand's thirteenth-century Rationale Divinorum Officiorum.
During his reign, Sabinian was seen as a counterfoil to his predecessor Pope Gregory I. Whereas Gregory distributed grain to the Roman populace as invasion loomed, Sabinian sold it for high prices (though this may be a later interpolation by Gregory's biographers). The Liber Pontificalis praises him for "filling the church with clergy," in contrast to Gregory, who rose rapidly from simple monk to bishop of Rome.

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Pope Sergius I
Pope Saint Sergius I (c. 650 – 8 September 701) was pope from 687 to 701. Selected to end a schism between Antipope Paschal and Antipope Theodore, Sergius I ended the last disputed sede vacante of the Byzantine Papacy.
His papacy was dominated by his response to the Quinisext Council, whose canons he refused to accept. As a result of the dispute, the Byzantine Emperor Justinian II ordered Sergius I's abduction (as his predecessor Constans II had done with Pope Martin I), but with the assistance of the exarch of Ravenna, Sergius I was able to avoid trial in Constantinople.
Sergius I came from an Antiochene Syrian family which had settled at Palermo in Sicily. Sergius left Sicily and arrived in Rome during the pontificate of Pope Adeodatus II. A fellow Sicilian, Pope Leo II, ordained him cardinal-priest of Santa Susanna on 27 June 683, and he rose through the ranks of the clergy. He remained cardinal-priest of S. Susanna until his selection as pope.
Sergius I owed his election as Pope Conon's successor to skillful intrigues against Antipope Paschal and Antipope Theodore, the other candidates. The two armed factions entered into open combat before Sergius I was chosen by a group of judges, soldiers, clergy, and citizens. He was brought to the Palatine imperial palace and then the Lateran. The "numerical superiority" of this new faction forced Theodore from the patriarchium, whereafter he acknowledged Sergius I as pope.

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Pope Sergius II
Pope Sergius II was Pope from January 844 – 24 January 847.
On the death of Gregory IV, the archdeacon John was proclaimed pope by popular acclamation, while the nobility elected Sergius, a Roman of noble birth. The opposition was suppressed, with Sergius intervening to save John's life. Sergius was then consecrated immediately by the nobles (or the bishops)^{[citation needed]}, without seeking the ratification of the Frankish court.
The Holy Roman Emperor Lothair I, however, disapproved of this abandonment of the Constitutio Romana of 824, which included a statute that no pope should be consecrated until his election had the approval of the Frankish emperor. He sent an army under his son Louis, the recently appointed Viceroy of Italy, to re-establish his authority. The Church and the Emperor reached an accommodation, with Louis being crowned king of Lombardy by Sergius, although the Pope did not accede to all the demands made upon him.
Sergius contributed to urban redevelopment in Rome, relying on what some consider to be dubious means of gaining money. Simony is said to have flourished during the reign of Sergius II^{[citation needed]}.

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Pope Sergius III
Pope Sergius III was a pope of the Roman Catholic Church from 29 January 904 to 14 April 911. Because Sergius III was possibly the only pope known to have ordered the murder of another pope and the only pope to have fathered an illegitimate son who later became pope (John XI), his pontificate has been described as "dismal and disgraceful".
Sergius was the son of Benedictus and came from a noble Roman family. His tenure was part of a period of feudal violence and disorder in central Italy, when the Papacy was a pawn of warring aristocratic factions, often led by prominent women.
The pontificate of Sergius III, according to Liutprand of Cremona, was remarkable for the rise of what papal historians saw as a "pornocracy", or "rule of the harlots", a reversal of the natural order as they saw it, according to Liber pontificalis and a later chronicler who was also biased against Sergius III. This "pornocracy" was an age with women in power: Theodora, whom Liutprand characterized as a "shameless whore... [who] exercised power on the Roman citizenry like a man" and her daughter Marozia, the mother of Pope John XI (931–935) and reputed to be the mistress of Sergius III, largely upon a remark by Liutprand (see Brook link below).

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Pope Sergius IV
Pope Sergius IV (died 12 May 1012), born in Rome as Pietro Martino Buccaporci, was Pope from 31 July 1009 until his death. The date of his birth is unknown. His birth name is believed to have been Pietro Martino (Peter Martin) Buccaporci. This name essentially translates as "Peter Pig's Snout." Pietro adopted the name Sergius IV upon accession to the pontificate.
Buccaporci was the son of a shoemaker (also named Pietro). Despite his family's poor background, he performed well after entering the Church and rose quickly through the ranks. In 1004, he became Bishop of Albano. Upon the abdication of Pope John XVIII in 1009. he was elected pope and adopted the name Sergius IV.
The power held by Sergius IV was often overshadowed by John Crescentius III, the ruler of the city of Rome at the time. Some historians have claimed that Sergius IV was essentially a puppet ruler for Crescentius III. Others, however, claimed that the Pope resisted his power; there is some evidence that Sergius IV gave political backing to an anti-Crescentius faction in the city.

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Pope Severinus
Pope Severinus was pope in the year 640 who became caught up in a power struggle with the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius over the ongoing Monothelite controversy.
He was a Roman. His father was named Avienus, according to the Liber Pontificalis. The name of the father suggests descent from members of the Roman Senate. A previous Avienus was Roman consul in 501.
Severinus was elected on the third day after the death of his predecessor, Honorius I, and the Papal apocrisiarii went to Constantinople to obtain imperial confirmation of his election in October 638. But Emperor Heraclius refused to grant his confirmation unless Severinus signed his Ecthesis, a Monothelite profession of faith. The envoys were unwilling to agree to this demand, but they were also unwilling to allow the Roman See to remain vacant indefinitely, so they offered to show Severinus the document and ask him to sign it if he thought it was correct. This offer was apparently satisfactory, and imperial recognition of the papal election was granted.

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Pope Silverius
Pope Saint Silverius was Pope from 8 June 536 until March 537.
He was a legitimate son of Pope Hormisdas, born before his father entered the priesthood. Silverius was probably consecrated 8 June 536. He may have been married to a woman called Antonia before receiving holy orders, however this remains debated by historians.^{[citation needed]} He was a subdeacon when king Theodahad of the Ostrogoths forced his election and consecration. Jeffrey Richards interprets his low rank prior to becoming pope as an indication that Theodahad was eager to put a pro-Gothic candidate on the throne on the eve of the Gothic War and "had passed over the entire diaconate as untrustworthy". The Liber Pontificalis alleges that Silverius had purchased his elevation from King Theodahad.
On 9 December 536, the Byzantine general Belisarius entered Rome with the approval of Pope Silverius. Theodahad's successor Witiges gathered together an army and besieged Rome for several months, subjecting the city to privation and starvation. In the words of Richards, "What followed is as tangled a web of treachery and double-dealing as can be found anywhere in the papal annals. Several different versions of the course of events following the elevation of Silverius exist." In outline, all accounts agree: Silverius was deposed by Belisarius in March 537 and sent into exile. Vigilius, who was in Constantinople as apocrisiarius or papal legate, was brought to Rome to replace him. They differ over the motivations of the parties involved.

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Pope Simplicius
Pope Saint Simplicius was Pope from 468 AD to 10 March 483 AD.
He was born in Tivoli, Italy, the son of a citizen named Castinus. Most of what is known of him is derived from the Liber Pontificalis.
Simplicius defended the action of the Council of Chalcedon against the Eutychian heresy, labored to help the people of Italy against the marauding raids of barbarian invaders, and saw the Heruli mercenaries revolt and proclaim Odoacer king of Italy in 476, having deposed Romulus Augustulus, the last Western Roman Emperor. Odoacer made few changes in the administration in Rome, firmly in the hands of its Bishop, St. Simplicius. He worked to maintain the authority of Rome in the West.
Simplicius is credited for the construction of a church named in memory of the virgin and martyr St. Bibiana.
St. Simplicius's feast day is celebrated on 10 March, the day of his death.

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Pope Siricius
Pope Saint Siricius, Bishop of Rome from December 384 (the date in December—15 or 22 or 29—is uncertain) until his death on 26 November 399, was successor to Damasus I and was himself succeeded by Anastasius I.
Siricius was elected Bishop of Rome unanimously, despite attempts by the Antipope Ursinus to promote himself. Tradition suggests that Siricius left his wife and children in order to become Pope.^{[citation needed]} The number of Siricius' children is unknown, however. He was an active Pope, involved in the administration of the Church and the handling of various factions and viewpoints within it. He was the first Pope to issue decretals, the first of which was the Directa Decretal sent to Himerius of Tarragona. He was the author of two decrees concerning clerical celibacy. The decree of 385 stated that priests should stop cohabiting with their wives.
When the Spanish bishop and ascetic Priscillian, accused by his fellow bishops of heresy, was executed by the emperor Magnus Maximus under the charge of magic, Siricus—along with Ambrose of Milan and Martin of Tours—protested against this verdict.

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Pope Sisinnius
Pope Sisinnius (c. 650 – 4 February 708) was Pope for about three weeks in 708.
A Syrian by birth, Sisinnius' father's name was John. The paucity of donations to the papacy during his reign (42 pounds of gold and 310 pounds of silver, a fraction of the personal donations of other contemporary pontiffs) indicate that he was probably not from the aristocracy.
Sisinnius was selected as pope during the Byzantine Papacy. He succeeded Pope John VII after a sede vacante of three months. He was consecrated around 15 January 708.
Sisinnius remained pope for just twenty days. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, "although he was so afflicted with gout that he was unable even to feed himself, he is nevertheless said to have been a man of strong character, and to have been able to take thought for the good of the city". Among his few acts as pope was the consecration of a bishop for Corsica. He also ordered "that lime be burned in order to restore portions" of the walls of Rome. The restoration of the walls planned by Sisinnius was carried out by Pope Gregory II. The book True Christianity: The Catholic Way credits him with defending the Church against the Lombards and Saracens.

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Pope Sixtus I
Pope Saint Sixtus I was bishop of Rome from about 114 or 119 to 124 or 128 C.E., succeeding Pope Alexander I and succeeded by Pope Telesphorus. In the oldest documents, Xystus is the spelling used for the first three popes of that name. Pope Sixtus I is also the sixth Pope after Peter.
The Holy See's Annuario Pontificio (2012) identifies him as a Roman who reigned from 117 or 119 to 126 or 128. According to the Liberian Catalogue of popes, he ruled the Church during the reign of Hadrian "a consulatu Negro et Aproniani usque Vero III et Ambibulo", that is, from 117 to 126.
Eusebius states in his Chronicon that Sixtus I was pope from 114 to 124, while his Historia Ecclesiastica, using a different catalogue of popes, claims his rule from 114 to 128. All authorities agree that he reigned about ten years.
Sixtus I is credited as having instituted several Roman Catholic liturgical and administrative traditions, but historians believe that these were attributed to him by later writers who were interested in bolstering the papacy's claims to ancient supremacy. Like most of his predecessors, Sixtus I was believed to be buried near Saint Peter's grave on Vatican Hill, although there are differing traditions concerning where his body lies today.

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Pope Sixtus II
Pope Sixtus II or Pope Saint Sixtus II (a corruption of Greek Ξυστος, Xystus, "polished") was Pope from 30 August 257 to 6 August 258. He died as a martyr during the persecution by Emperor Valerian.
According to the Liber Pontificalis, he was Greek by birth; however this is uncertain and disputed by modern western historians arguing that the authors of Liber Pontificalis confused him with that of the contemporary author Xystus who was Greek student of Pythagoreanism. He restored the relations with the African and Eastern Orthodox churches which had been broken off by his predecessor on the question of heretical baptism (see Novatianism).
In the persecutions under Emperor Valerian I in 258, numerous bishops, priests, and deacons were put to death. Pope Sixtus II was one of the first victims of this persecution, being beheaded on 6 August. He was martyred along with six deacons— Januarius, Vincentius, Magnus, Stephanus, Felicissimus and Agapitus. St. Lawrence of Rome, his most well-known deacon, suffered martyrdom on 10 August, 3 days after his master, as Sixtus had prophecied.

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Pope Sixtus III
Pope Saint Sixtus III was pope from 31 July 432 to 18 August 440.
The name of Sixtus is often connected with a great building boom in Rome: Santa Sabina on the Aventine Hill was dedicated during his pontificate and he built Santa Maria Maggiore, whose dedication to Mary the Mother of God reflected his acceptance of the Ecumenical council of Ephesus which closed in 431. At that council the debate over Christ's human and divine natures turned on whether Mary could legitimately be called the "Mother of God" or only "Mother of Christ". The council gave her the Greek title Theotokos (literally "God-bearer", or "Mother of God"), and the dedication of the large church in Rome is a response to that.
Prior to being made Pope, Sixtus was a patron of Pelagius, who was later condemned as a heretic.
One of his main concerns was in restoring peace between Cyril of Alexandria and the Syrians.
He also maintained the rights of the Pope over Illyria and the position of the archbishop of Thessalonica as head of the local Illyrian church.

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Pope Sixtus IV
Pope Sixtus IV (21 July 1414 – 12 August 1484), born Francesco della Rovere, was Pope from 1471 to 1484. His accomplishments as Pope included the establishment of the Sistine Chapel; the group of artists that he brought together introduced the Early Renaissance into Rome with the first masterpiece of the city's new artistic age, the Vatican Archives. Sixtus also furthered the agenda of the Spanish Inquisition and annulled the decrees of the Council of Constance. He was famed for his nepotism and was personally involved in the infamous Pazzi Conspiracy.
Francesco was born to a family of modest means from Liguria, Italy, the son of Leonardo della Rovere and Luchina Monleoni. He was born in Celle Ligure, a town near Savona.
As a young man he joined the Franciscan Order, an unlikely choice for a political career, and his intellectual qualities were revealed while he was studying philosophy and theology at the University of Pavia. He went on to lecture at many eminent Italian universities.
In 1464, Francesco della Rovere was elected Minister General of the Franciscan order at the age of 50. In 1467, he was appointed Cardinal of San Pietro in Vincoli by Pope Paul II. Before his papal election, Cardinal della Rovere was renowned for his unworldliness and had even written learned treatises entitled On the Blood of Christ and On the Power of God. His pious reputation was one of the deciding factors that prompted the College of Cardinals to elect him pope upon the unexpected death of Paul II at the age of fifty-four.

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Pope Sixtus V
Pope Sixtus V (13 December 1520 – 27 August 1590), born Felice Peretti di Montalto, was Pope from 1585 to 1590. OFM (Ordo Fratrum Minorum).
Felice Peretti was born in December 1520 at Grottammare, in the Papal States, to Piergentile, nicknamed "Peretto", and Marianna da Frontillo. His father came from Montalto, a nearby village. Rumors about a Croatian origin of the Peretti family are late and false: the Peretti family came from Piceno, today Marche, in Italy Felice later adopted "Peretti" as his family name in 1551, but was more generally known as "di Montalto". He was reared in poverty. Born in a shanty allegedly so ill-thatched that the sun shone through the roof, he later jested that he was "nato di casa illustre" — born of an illustrious (i.e. "illuminated") house.
At an early age he entered a Franciscan friary at Montalto and was known as Felice di Montalto. He soon gave evidence of rare ability as a preacher and a dialectician. A legend has it that while a friar he was approached by the ageing Nostradamus who knelt, kissed the friar's robe and then exclaimed he was kissing the robe of the future pope^{[citation needed]}.

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Pope Soter
Pope Saint Soter (died 174) was the Bishop of Rome during the latter half of the 2nd Century with his pontificate, according to the Annuario Pontificio, beginning between 162 and 168 then ending between 170 and 177. Although his name is derived from the Greek word "σωτήρ" (sōtēr), meaning a "saviour" or "deliverer", he was born in Fondi, Campania, Italy. Soter is known for declaring that marriage was valid only as a sacrament blessed by a priest and he also formally inaugurated Easter as an annual festival in Rome.
Saint Soter's feast day is celebrated on 22 April, as is that of Saint Caius. The Roman Martyrology, the official list of recognized saints, references Soter: "At Rome, Saint Soter, Pope, whom Dionysius of Corinth praises for his outstanding charity towards needy exiled Christians who came to him, and towards those who had been condemned to the mines."
It has often been supposed that all the earliest Popes suffered martyrdom; but the Roman Martyrology does not give Pope Soter the title of Martyr. The book detailing the 1969 revision of the General Roman Calendar states: "There are no grounds for including Saint Soter and Saint Caius among the martyrs."

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Pope Stephen I
Pope Saint Stephen I served as Bishop of Rome from 12 May 254 to 2 August 257.
Of Roman birth but of Greek ancestry, he became bishop of Rome in 254, having served as archdeacon of Pope Lucius I, who appointed Stephen his successor.
Following the Decian persecution of 250–251, there was disagreement about how to treat those who had lapsed from the faith, and Stephen was urged by Faustinus, Bishop of Lyon, to take action against Marcian, Bishop of Arles, who denied penance and communion to the lapsed who repented, the position called Novatianism, after Novatian, later declared a heretic, who held for the strictest approach.
Stephen held that converts who had been baptized by splinter groups did not need re-baptism, while Cyprian and certain bishops of the Roman province of Africa held rebaptism necessary for admission to the Eucharist. Stephen's view eventually won broad acceptance.
He is also mentioned as having insisted on the restoration of the bishops of León and Astorga, who had been deposed for unfaithfulness during the persecution but afterwards had repented.

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Pope Stephen II
Pope Stephen II (715 – 26 April 757) was Pope from 752 to 757, succeeding Pope Zachary following the death of Pope-elect Stephen. Stephen II marks the historical delineation between the Byzantine Papacy and the Frankish Papacy.
The Lombards to the north of Rome had captured Ravenna, capital of the Eastern Roman Empire Exarchate of Ravenna, in 751, and began to put pressure on the city of Rome.
Relations were very strained in the mid-8th century between the papacy and the Eastern Roman emperors over the support of the Isaurian Dynasty for iconoclasm. Likewise, maintaining political control over Rome became untenable as the Eastern Roman Empire itself was beset by the Abbasid Caliphate to the south and Bulgars to the northwest. As a result, Rome was unable to secure military support from Constantinople to push back Lombard forces.
Stephen turned to Pepin the Younger, the recently-crowned King of the Franks, and even traveled to Paris to plead for help in person. On 6 January 754, Stephen re-consecrated Pepin as king. In return, Pepin assumed the role of ordained protector of the Church and set his sights on the Lombards.

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Pope Stephen III
Pope Stephen III (c. 720 – 1 February 772) was pope from 1 August 768 to 1 February 772.
Born around the year 720 in Sicily, Stephen III was the son of a man named Olivus. Coming to Rome during the pontificate of Pope Gregory III, he was placed in the monastery of St. Chrysogonus, where he was ordained a Benedictine monk. During the pontificate of Pope Zachary, he was ordained a priest, after which the pope decided to keep him to work at the Lateran Palace. Gregory gradually rose to high office in the service of successive popes, and was at the bedside of the dying Pope Paul I as powerful factions began manoeuvring to ensure the election of their own candidate in late June 767.
The next year was consumed by the rival claims of antipopes Constantine II (installed by a faction of Tuscan nobles) and Philip (the candidate of the Lombards), who were forced out of office by the efforts of Christophorus, the Primicerius of the notaries, and his son Sergius, the Treasurer of the Roman church. With the capture of Constantine II, Christophorus set about organising a canonical election, and on August 1 he summoned not only the Roman clergy and army, but also the people to assemble before the Church of St. Adrian in the area of the old Comitium. Here the combined assembly elected Stephen as pope. They then proceeded to the Church of Santa Cecilia in Trastevere, where they acclaimed Stephen as pope-elect, and escorted him to the Lateran Palace.

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Pope Stephen IV
Pope Saint Stephen IV was Pope from June 816 to January 817.
The son of a Roman noble called Marinus, Stephen IV belonged to the same family which also produced the Popes Sergius II and Adrian II. At a young age he was raised at the Lateran Palace during the pontificate of Pope Adrian I, and it was under Stephen's predecessor Pope Leo III that he was first ordained a Subdeacon before he was subsequently made a Deacon. Very popular among the Roman people, within ten days of Leo III’s death, he was escorted to Saint Peter’s Basilica and consecrated Bishop of Rome on 22 June 816. It has been conjectured that his rapid election was an attempt by the Roman clergy to ensure that the Roman emperor could not interfere in the election.
Immediately after his consecration he ordered the Roman people to swear fidelity to the Frankish king and Roman emperor Louis the Pious, after which Stephen sent envoys to the emperor notifying him of his election, and to arrange a meeting between the two at the emperor’s convenience. With Louis’ invitation, Stephen left Rome in August 816, crossing the Alps together with Bernard, the King of the Lombards, who was ordered to accompany Stephen to the emperor. In early October, the Pope and Emperor met at Rheims, where Louis prostrated himself three times before Stephen. At Mass on Sunday, 5 October 816, Stephen consecrated and anointed Louis as emperor, placing a crown on his head that was claimed to belong to Constantine the Great. At the same time he also crowned Louis’ wife Ermengarde of Hesbaye, and saluted her as Augusta. This event has been seen as an attempt by the Papacy to establish a role in the creation of an emperor, which had been placed in doubt by Louis' self-coronation in 813.

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Pope Stephen IX
Pope Stephen IX (c. 1020 – 29 March 1058) was Pope from 3 August 1057 to 29 March 1058.
His baptismal name was Frederick of Lorraine (French: Frédéric de Lorraine), and he was a younger brother of Godfrey III, Duke of Lower Lorraine, who, as Margrave of Tuscany (by his marriage to Beatrice of Bar, widow of Boniface III of Tuscany), played a prominent part in the politics of the period.
Frederick, who had been raised to the cardinalate by Pope Leo IX, for some time discharged the function of papal legate at Constantinople. He was with Leo IX in his expedition against the Normans and at one time had to take refuge from Emperor Henry II in Monte Cassino. Five days after the death of Pope Victor II (who had made him cardinal-priest and abbot of Monte Cassino) he was chosen to succeed him as Pope Stephen IX. He enforced the policies of the Gregorian Reform as to clerical celibacy, was planning for the expulsion of the Normans from Italy and the elevation of his brother to the imperial throne, when he was seized by a severe illness, from which he only partially and temporarily recovered. Stephen IX died at Florence on 29 March 1058 and is considered by the current-day Roman Catholic Church to have been succeeded by Pope Nicholas II, though others consider his successor to be Pope Benedict X, officially regarded as an antipope.

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Pope Stephen V
Pope Stephen V was pope from 885 to 891. He succeeded Pope Adrian III, and was in turn succeeded by Pope Formosus. In his dealings with Constantinople in the matter of Photius, as also in his relations with the young Slavic Orthodox church, he pursued the policy of Pope Nicholas I.
His father Hadrian, who belonged to the Roman aristocracy, entrusted his education to his relative, Bishop Zachary, librarian of the Holy See. Stephen was created cardinal-priest of Santi Quattro Coronati by Marinus I, and his obvious holiness was the cause of his being chosen pope.
He was consecrated in September 885 without waiting for the imperial confirmation; but when Charles the Fat found with what unanimity he had been elected he let the matter rest.
Stephen was called upon to face a famine caused by a drought and by locusts, and as the papal treasury was empty he had to fall back on his father's wealth to relieve the poor, to redeem captives, and to repair churches.
Following the death of Saint Methodius, a disciple of Methodius, Gorazd, became his successor. However, due to the influence of the German clergy, Stephen forbid the use of the Slavonic liturgy. Thus forcing the Slavs to join the Orthodox church.

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Pope Stephen VI
Pope Stephen VI (died August 897) was Pope from 22 May 896 to August 897.
He had been made bishop of Anagni by Pope Formosus. The circumstances of his election are unclear, but he was sponsored by one of the powerful Roman families, the house of Spoleto, that contested the papacy at the time.
Stephen is chiefly remembered in connection with his conduct towards the remains of Pope Formosus, his last predecessor but one. The rotting corpse of Formosus was exhumed and put on trial in the so-called Cadaver Synod (or Synodus Horrenda) in January 897. Pressure from the Spoleto contingent and Stephen's fury with his predecessor probably precipitated this extraordinary event. With the corpse propped up on a throne, a deacon was appointed to answer for the deceased pontiff, who was condemned for performing the functions of a bishop when he had been deposed and for receiving the pontificate while he was the bishop of Porto, among other revived charges that had been leveled against Formosus in the strife during the pontificate of John VIII. The corpse was found guilty, stripped of its sacred vestments, deprived of three fingers of its right hand (the blessing fingers), clad in the garb of a layman, and quickly buried; it was then re-exhumed and thrown in the Tiber. All ordinations performed by Formosus were annulled.

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Pope Stephen VII
Pope Stephen VII (?– 15 March 931). Stephen was a Roman by birth, the son of Theodemundus, and perhaps a member of the Gabrielli family.^{[citation needed]} He was elected—probably handpicked—by Marozia from the Tusculani family, as a stop-gap measure until her own son John was ready to assume the throne of Peter. He had been before cardinal-priest of St Anastasia in Rome.
During his reign as Pope, he confirmed the privileges of a few religious houses in France and Italy. The validity of his papacy is disputed. Like his predecessor, Pope Leo VI, he was elected while Pope John X was still alive and in prison.

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Pope Stephen VIII
Pope Stephen VIII was pope from 14 July 939, until his death towards the end of October 942.
Stephen VIII was born of a Roman family, and prior to becoming pope was attached to the church of Saints Silvester and Martin. With his elevation as Bishop of Rome, Stephen gave his attention to the situation in West Francia, or as the Romans still referred to it, Gaul. In early 940, Stephen intervened on behalf of Louis IV of France, who had been trying to bring to heel his rebellious dukes, Hugh the Great and Herbert II, Count of Vermandois, both of whom had appealed for support from the German king Otto I. The Pope dispatched a Papal legate to the Frankish nobles, instructing them to acknowledge Louis, and to cease their rebellious actions against him, under threat of excommunication. Although the embassy did not achieve its stated objective, it did have the effect of removing the support of the Frankish bishops who had been backing Hugh and Herbert.
Emboldened by this, Stephen then sought to break up the alliance against Louis by offering Herbert’s son, Hugh of Vermandois, the office of Archbishop of Reims. Along with the Pallium (the symbol of office for the archbishop), Stephen sent another legate, with instructions to the Frankish nobility, insisting that they submit to Louis. This time they were informed that if the pope had not received their embassies by Christmas, notifying him of their intent to submit to the king, they would be excommunicated. This time, there was a shift in support to Louis, as a number of the more important nobles declared for him, and by the end of 942, all of the nobility had affirmed their loyalty to Louis, and notified the pope of their intent.

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Pope Sylvester I
Pope Sylvester I served as pope from 31 January 314 to 31 December 335, succeeding Pope Miltiades. He filled the See of Rome at an important era in the history of the Catholic Church, yet very little is known of him. The accounts of the papacy of Pope Sylvester I preserved in the Liber Pontificalis (7th or 8th century) are little else than a record of the gifts said to have been conferred on the Church by Constantine I, but it does say that he was the son of a Roman named Rufinus.
During his pontificate were built the great churches founded at Rome by Constantine, e.g. the Basilica of St. John Lateran, Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, St. Peter's Basilica, and several cemeterial churches over the graves of martyrs.
Sylvester did not himself attend the First Council of Nicaea in 325, but he was represented by two legates, Vitus and Vincentius, and he approved the council's decision.
Part of the Symmachean forgeries, the Vita beati Sylvestri (c. 501–508), which has been preserved in Greek and Syriac, and in Latin in the Constitutum Sylvestri, is an apocryphal account of an alleged Roman council, introduced legends of Sylvester's close relationship with the first Christian emperor. They also appear in the Donation of Constantine.

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Pope Sylvester II
Pope Sylvester II (or Silvester II) (c. 946 – 12 May 1003), born Gerbert d'Aurillac, was a prolific scholar, teacher, and Pope. He endorsed and promoted study of Arab/Greco-Roman arithmetic, mathematics, and astronomy, reintroducing to Europe the abacus and armillary sphere, which had been lost to Europe since the end of the Greco-Roman era. He was the first French Pope, reigning from 999 until his death. Due to his efforts to root out simony and other corruption within the Church, and his connection with science and intellectualism, there were many rumors and legends spread of Sylvester II being a sorcerer in league with the devil.
Gerbert was born about 946 in the town of Belliac, near the present-day commune of Saint-Simon, Cantal, France. Around 963, he entered the monastery of St. Gerald of Aurillac. In 967, Borrell II of Barcelona (947–992), visited the monastery, and the abbot asked the Count to take Gerbert with him so that the lad could study mathematics in Spain and acquire there some knowledge of Arabic learning. In the following years, Gerbert studied under the direction of Atto, Bishop of Vic, some 60 km north of Barcelona, and probably also at the nearby Monastery of Santa Maria de Ripoll.

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Pope Sylvester III
Pope Sylvester III, né Giovanni dei Crescenzi–Ottaviani (died 1062 or 1063), born in Rome, was Pope for a short time in 1045. When Pope Benedict IX was driven from Rome in September 1044, John, bishop of Sabina, was elected after fierce and protracted infighting. He took the name Sylvester III in January 1045. He was later charged with having bribed his way into the election, a charge that was never confirmed. Benedict IX issued an excommunication of the new Pope and within three months returned to Rome and expelled his rival, who himself returned to Sabina to again take up his office of bishop in that diocese. Nearly two years later (in December 1046), the Council of Sutri deprived him of his bishopric and priesthood and ordered him sent to a monastery. This sentence was obviously suspended because he continued to function and was recognized as Bishop of Sabina until at least 1062, having occupied that see for over twenty years (from 1041). A successor bishop to the see of Sabina is recorded for October 1063, indicating that John must have died prior to that date.

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Pope Symmachus
Saint Symmachus was pope from 498 to 514. His tenure was marked by a serious schism over who was legitimately elected pope by the citizens of Rome.
He was born on Sardinia, the son of Fortunatus; Jeffrey Richards notes that he was born a pagan, and "perhaps the rankest outsider" of all the Ostrogothic Popes, most of whom were members of aristocratic families. Symmachus was baptized in Rome, where he became archdeacon of the Church under Pope Anastasius II.
Symmachus was elected pope on 22 November 498 in the Constantinian basilica. The archpriest of Santa Prassede, Laurentius, was elected pope that same day at the church of St. Mary's by a dissenting minority faction with Byzantine sympathies, who were supported by Emperor Anastasius. Both factions agreed to allow the Gothic King Theodoric the Great to arbitrate. He ruled that the one who was elected first and whose supporters were the most numerous should be recognized as pope. An investigation found the facts favored Symmachus and his election was recognized as proper. However, an early document known as the "Laurentian Fragment" claims that Symmachus obtained the decision by paying bribes, while deacon Magnus Felix Ennodius of Milan later wrote that 400 solidi were distributed amongst influential personages, whom it would be indiscreet to name.

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Pope Telesphorus
Pope Saint Telesphorus was Pope from 126 or 127 to 136 or 137 or 138, during the reigns of Roman Emperors Hadrian and Antoninus Pius. He was Greek by birth.
Telesphorus is traditionally reckoned as being the seventh Roman bishop in succession after Saint Peter. The Liber Pontificalis mentions that he had been an anchorite (or hermit) monk prior to assuming office. According to the testimony of Irenæus (Against Heresies III.3.3), he suffered a "glorious" martyrdom. Although all early popes are called martyrs by sources such as the Liber Ponificalis, Telesphorus is the first to whom Ireneaus, writing considerably earlier, gives this title.
Eusebius (Church History iv.7; iv.14) places the beginning of his pontificate in the twelfth year of the reign of Emperor Hadrian (128–129) and gives the date of his death as being in the first year of the reign of Antoninus Pius (138–139).
In the Roman Martyrology his feast is celebrated on 2 January; the Greek Church celebrates it on 22 February.
The tradition of Christmas Midnight Masses, the celebration of Easter on Sundays, the keeping of a seven-week Lent before Easter and the singing of the Gloria are usually attributed to his pontificate, but some historians doubt that such attributions are accurate.

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Pope Theodore I
Pope Theodore I (died 14 May 649), who was pope from 24 November 642 until his death, is considered a Greek, but was born in Jerusalem. He was made a cardinal deacon (possibly around 640) and a full cardinal by Pope John IV.
His election was supported by the exarch and he was installed on 24 November 642, succeeding John IV. The main focus of his pontificate was the continued struggle against the heretical Monothelites. He refused to recognize Paul as the Patriarch of Constantinople, because his predecessor, Pyrrhus, had not been correctly replaced. He pressed Emperor Constans II to withdraw the Ecthesis of Heraclius. While his efforts made little impression on Constantinople, it increased the opposition to the heresy in the West; Pyrrhus even briefly recanted his heresy (645), but was excommunicated in 648. Paul was excommunicated in 649. In response, Paul destroyed the Roman altar in the palace of Placidia and exiled or imprisoned the papal nuncios. But he also sought to end the issue with the Emperor by promulgating the Type of Constans, ordering that the Ecthesis be taken down and seeking to end discussion on the doctrine.

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Pope Urban I
Pope Saint Urban I was Pope from 14 October 222 to 230. He was born in Rome, Roman Empire and succeeded St. Callixtus I who had been martyred. For centuries it was believed that Urban too was martyred. However, recent historical discoveries now lead scholars to believe that he died of natural causes.
Much of Urban's life is shrouded in mystery, leading to many myths and misconceptions. Despite the lack of sources he is the first Pope whose reign can be definitely dated. Two prominent sources do exist for Urban's pontificate: Eusebius' history of the early Church and also an inscription in the Coemeterium Callisti which names the Pope.
Urban ascended to the Chair of Saint Peter in the year of the Roman Emperor Elagabalus' assassination and served during the reign of Alexander Severus. It is believed that Urban's pontificate was during a peaceful time for Christians in the Empire as Severus did not promote the persecution of Christianity.
Urban is a canonized saint of the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church.

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Pope Urban II
Blessed Pope Urban II (ca. 1035 – 29 July 1099), born Otho de Lagery (alternatively: Otto, Odo or Eudes), was Pope from 12 March 1088 until his death on 29 July 1099. He is best known for starting the First Crusade (1096–1099) and setting up the modern-day Roman Curia in the manner of a royal court to help run the Church.
Pope Gregory VII named him cardinal-bishop of Ostia ca. 1080. He was one of the most prominent and active supporters of the Gregorian reforms, especially as legate in Germany in 1084 and was among the few whom Gregory VII nominated as possible successors to be Pope. Desiderius, abbot of Monte Cassino was first chosen Pope as Victor III when Gregory VII died in 1085, but after Victor's short reign, Otho was elected Pope Urban II by acclamation (March 1088) at a small meeting of cardinals and other prelates held in Terracina in March 1088. He took up the policies of Pope Gregory VII, and while pursuing them with determination, showed greater flexibility and diplomatic finesse. At the outset, he had to reckon with the presence of the powerful antipope Clement III in Rome, but a series of well-attended synods held in Rome, Amalfi, Benevento, and Troia supported him in renewed declarations against simony, Investiture Controversy, clerical marriages, and continued opposition to Emperor Henry IV.

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Pope Urban III
Pope Urban III (died 20 October 1187), born Uberto Crivelli, was Pope from 1185 to 1187. He was made cardinal and Archbishop of Milan by Pope Lucius III, whom he succeeded on 25 November 1185. He vigorously took up his predecessor's quarrels with Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa, including the standing dispute about the disposal of the territories of the countess Matilda of Tuscany. Even after his elevation to the papacy, Urban continued to hold the archbishopric of Milan, and in this capacity refused to crown as King of Italy Frederick I's son Prince Henry, who had married Constance of Sicily, the heiress of the kingdom of Sicily. While Henry in the south cooperated with the rebel Senate of Rome, Frederick I in the north blocked the passes of the Alps and cut off all communication between the Pope, then living in Verona, and his German adherents. Urban III now resolved on excommunicating Frederick I, but the Veronese protested against such a proceeding being resorted to within their walls. He accordingly withdrew to Ferrara, but died before he could give effect to his intentions. His successor was Gregory VIII.

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Pope Urban IV
Pope Urban IV (c. 1195 – 2 October 1264), born Jacques Pantaléon, was Pope from 1261 to 1264. He was not a cardinal, one of only a few popes since his time that have not been Cardinals, including Urban V and Urban VI.
Urban IV was the son of a cobbler of Troyes, France. He studied theology and common law in Paris and was appointed a canon of Laon and later Archdeacon of Liège. At the First Council of Lyon (1245) he attracted the attention of Pope Innocent IV, who sent him on two missions in Germany. One of the missions was to negotiate the Treaty of Christburg between the pagan Prussians and the Teutonic Knights. He became Bishop of Verdun in 1253. In 1255, Pope Alexander IV made him Patriarch of Jerusalem.
He had returned from Jerusalem, which was in dire straits, and was at Viterbo seeking help for the oppressed Christians in the East when Alexander IV died. After a three-month vacancy, Pantaléon was chosen by the eight cardinals of the Sacred College to succeed him in a papal election that concluded on 29 August 1261. He chose the regnal name of Urban IV.

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Pope Urban V
The Blessed Pope Urban V (1310 – 19 December 1370), born William de Grimoard, reigned as Pope from 1362 to 1370.
He was born in 1310 in the Castle of Grizac in the French region of Languedoc (today part of the commune of Le Pont-de-Montvert, department of Lozère), the son of William de Grimoard, Lord of Bellegarde, and of Amphélise de Montferrand.
As a young man, Grimoard became a Benedictine monk in the small Priory of Chirac, near his home, which was a dependency of the ancient Abbey of St. Victor near Marseille, and he was sent there for his novitiate. After his profession of monastic vows, he was ordained a priest in his own monastery in Chirac. Showing great academic talent, he was then sent to the great universities of Europe, earning a doctorate in Canon Law. He became acclaimed as a foremost canonist of the age, himself teaching at Montpellier, Paris and Avignon. In August 1361 he was elected as the abbot of the Abbey of St. Victor.
In September 1362, Abbot William arrived in Avignon, returning from Naples, where he had been sent by Pope Innocent IV as papal legate, only to learn that the pope had died. At that time, a conclave was already being held to elect a successor to the recently-deceased pope. In a surprise move, on the 28th of that month he himself was elected Pope. He then took the name of Urban, the fifth pope with that name to rule the Church.

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Pope Urban VI
Pope Urban VI (c. 1318 – 15 October 1389), born Bartolomeo Prignano, was Pope from 1378 to 1389. He was the last Pope to be elected from outside the College of Cardinals.
Born in Itri, he was a devout monk and learned casuist, trained at Avignon. On 21 March 1364 he was consecrated Archbishop of Acerenza in the Kingdom of Naples. He became Archbishop of Bari in 1377. On the death of Pope Gregory XI in 1378, a Roman mob surrounded the papal conclave to demand a Roman pope. The cardinals being under some haste and great pressure to avoid the return of the Papal seat to Avignon, Prignano was unanimously chosen Pope on 8 April 1378 as acceptable to the disunited majority of French cardinals, taking the name Urban VI. Not being a Cardinal, he was not well known. Immediately following the conclave, most of the cardinals fled Rome before the mob could learn that not a Roman (though not a Frenchman either), but a subject of Queen Joan I of Naples, had been chosen.
Prignano had developed a reputation for simplicity and frugality and a head for business when acting Vice-Chancellor. He also demonstrated a penchant for learning, and, according to Cristoforo di Piacenza, he was without famiglia in an age of nepotism, although once in the papal chair he elevated four cardinal-nephews and sought to place one of them in control of Naples. His great faults undid his virtues: Ludwig Pastor summed up his character: "He lacked Christian gentleness and charity. He was naturally arbitrary and extremely violent and imprudent, and when he came to deal with the burning ecclesiastical question of the day, that of reform, the consequences were disastrous."

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Pope Urban VII
Pope Urban VII (4 August 1521 – 27 September 1590), born Giovanni Battista Castagna, was Pope for thirteen days in September 1590, the shortest papal reign in history. He was of Genoese origin, although born in Rome. He was created Cardinal-Priest of S. Marcello in 1584. He was chosen successor of Pope Sixtus V (1585–1590) on 15 September 1590, but died of malaria (27 September 1590) before coronation, making his the shortest papal reign in history.
He had previously served as governor of Bologna and as archbishop of Rossano, and was for many years nuncio to Spain; his election to the papacy was largely backed by the Spanish faction.
Urban VII's short passage in office gave rise to the world's first known public smoking ban, as he threatened to excommunicate anyone who "took tobacco in the porchway of or inside a church, whether it be by chewing it, smoking it with a pipe or sniffing it in powdered form through the nose".

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Pope Urban VIII
Pope Urban VIII (baptised 5 April 1568 – 29 July 1644), born Maffeo Barberini, was pope from 1623 to 1644. He was the last pope to expand the papal territory by force of arms, and was a prominent patron of the arts and reformer of Church missions. However, the massive debts incurred during his papacy greatly weakened his successors, who were unable to maintain the papacy's longstanding political and military influence in Europe. He was also involved in a controversy with Galileo and his theory on heliocentrism during his reign.
Maffeo Barberini was born in 1568 into the wealthy merchant Barberini family in Florence, Italy. He was educated by the Jesuits and received a doctorate of law from the University of Pisa in 1589.
In 1601, Maffeo, through the influence of an uncle who had become apostolic protonotary, was able to secure from Clement VIII, the appointment as papal legate to the court of King Henry IV of France. In 1604 Clement VIII appointed him archbishop of Nazareth, although this was an honorary position as the Holy Land was under Turkish rule. On the death of his uncle, he inherited his riches, with which he bought a palace in Rome which he made a luxurious Renaissance residence.

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Pope Valentine
Pope Valentine, (in Latin: Valentinus), was elected pope for a short time in 827.
Born in Rome in the region of the Via Lata, Valentine was the son of a Roman noble called Leontius. Showing an early aptitude for learning, he was moved from the school attached to the Lateran Palace and, according to the Liber Pontificalis, was made a Deacon by Paschal I (817–824). Paschal grew attached to the young man, and soon raised him rank of Archdeacon. He also was clearly favoured by Paschal’s successor, Pope Eugene II, to the point where rumours were circulated that Valentine was really the son of Eugene. Other rumours declared that Valentine and Eugene were involved in an illicit relationship.
With the death of Eugene, the Roman clergy, nobility and people all acclaimed Valentine as being the most worthy to occupy the Apostolic See. They took him from the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore, and installed him in the Lateran Palace, ignoring his protests. In their haste, they enthroned him before he was consecrated a priest; this was an unusual reversal of the normal proceedings, and in fact was the first time it had happened in the recorded history of the papacy, although it would be repeated during the pontificate of Pope Benedict III. On the following Sunday, he was formally consecrated bishop at St. Peter's Basilica. There were no imperial representatives present during the election, and Valentine had no opportunity to ratify his election with the emperor, as he was dead within five weeks, dying on 10 October 827.

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Pope Victor I
Pope Saint Victor I was Pope from 189 to 199 (the Vatican cites 186 or 189 to 197 or 201).
Pope Victor I was the first bishop of Rome born in the Roman Province of Africa: probably he was born in Leptis Magna (or Tripolitania). He was later canonized. His feast day is celebrated on 28 July as "St Victor I, Pope and Martyr".
Before his elevation to the Roman episcopacy, a difference in dating the celebration of the Christian Passover/Easter between Rome and the bishops of Asia Minor had been tolerated by both the Roman and Eastern churches. The churches in Asia Minor celebrated it on the 14th of the Jewish month of Nisan, the day before Jewish Passover, regardless of what day of the week it fell on, as the Crucifixion had occurred on the Friday before Passover. The Latins called them Quartodecimans. Rome and the West celebrated Easter on the Sunday following the 14th of Nisan. Victor is remembered for the great concern he displayed for order in the church by severing ties with bishops such as Polycrates of Ephesus who opposed his views on Easter. He also broke with Theodotus of Byzantium for his beliefs about Christ.

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Pope Victor II
Pope Victor II (c. 1018 – 28 July 1057), born Gebhard, Count of Calw, Tollenstein, and Hirschberg, was Pope from 1055 to 1057. He was one of a series of German reform Popes.
He was born Gebhard of Calw, a son of the Swabian Count Hartwig of Calw and a kinsman of Emperor Henry III. At the insistence of Gebhard, Bishop of Ratisbon, the 24-year-old Gebhard was appointed Bishop of Eichstätt. In this position, he supported the Emperor's interests and eventually became one of his closest advisors.
After the death of Pope Leo IX, a Roman delegation headed by Hildebrand, later Pope Gregory VII, travelled to Mainz and asked the Emperor for the nomination of a successor. He suggested Gebhard, who was duly nominated in September 1054. Gebhard, taking the name Victor II, moved to Rome and was enthroned in St. Peter's Basilica on 13 April 1055.
In June 1055, Victor met the Emperor at Florence and held a council, which reinforced Pope Leo IX's condemnation of clerical marriage, simony, and the loss of the church's properties. In the following year, he was summoned to the Emperor's side, and was with Henry III when he died at Bodfeld in the Harz on 5 October 1056. As guardian of Henry III's infant son Henry and adviser of the Empress Agnes, Henry IV's mother and regent, Victor II now wielded enormous power, which he used to maintain peace throughout the empire and to strengthen the papacy against the aggressions of the barons. He died shortly after his return to Italy, at Arezzo, on 28 July 1057.

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Pope Victor III
Pope Blessed Victor III (c. 1026 – 16 September 1087), born Daufer (Dauphar), Latinised Dauferius, was Pope as the successor of Pope Gregory VII from 24 May 1086, yet his pontificate is far less impressive in history than his time as Desiderius, the great Abbot of Monte Cassino.
He was born in 1026 or 1027 of a non-regnant branch of the Lombard dukes of Benevento as eldest son of Prince Landulf V of Benevento. As he was an only son, both parents opposed his desire to embrace the monastic state. After his father died in battle with the Normans in 1047, he fled from an arranged marriage and, though brought back by force, eventually fled again. He went to Cava de' Tirreni, where he obtained permission to enter the monastery of S. Sophia at Benevento, where he changed his name from Dauferius to Desiderius. The life at S. Sophia was not strict enough for the young monk, who betook himself first to the island monastery of Tremite in the Adriatic and in 1053 to some hermits at Majella in the Abruzzi. About this time he was brought to the notice of St. Leo IX, and it is probable that the pope employed him at Benevento to negotiate peace with the Normans after the fatal battle of Civitate.

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Pope Vigilius
Pope Vigilius (died 7 June 555) reigned as pope from 537 to 555, is considered the first pope of the Byzantine Papacy.
He belonged to an aristocratic Roman family; his father Johannes is identified as a consul in the Liber pontificalis, having received that title from the emperor. According to Procopius, his brother Reparatus was one of the senators taken hostage by Witigis, but managed to escape before the Ostrogothic king ordered their slaughter in 537.
Vigilius entered the service of the Roman Church and was ordained a deacon in 531, in which year the Roman clergy agreed to a decree empowering the pope to determine the succession to the Papal See (something theologians now consider invalid). Vigilius was chosen by Pope Boniface II as his successor and presented to the clergy assembled in St. Peter's Basilica. The opposition to such a procedure led Boniface in the following year to withdraw his designation of a successor and to burn the decree respecting it.
The second successor of Boniface, Pope Agapetus I (535–536), appointed Vigilius papal representative (apocrisiary) at Constantinople. Empress Theodora sought to win him as a confederate to revenge the deposition of the Monophysite Patriarch Anthimus I of Constantinople by Agapetus and also to gain aid for her efforts in behalf of the Monophysites. Vigilius is said to have agreed to the plans of the intriguing empress who promised him the Papal See and a large sum of money (700 pounds of gold).

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Pope Vitalian
Pope Saint Vitalian was Pope of the Catholic Church from 30 July 657 until 27 January 672.
He was born in Segni, Lazio, the son of Anastasius.
After the death of Pope Eugene I on 2 or 3 June 657, Vitalian was elected his successor, and was consecrated and enthroned on 30 July.
Like Eugene, Vitalian tried to restore the connection with Constantinople by making friendly advances to the Eastern Emperor Constans II and to prepare the way for the settlement of the Monothelite controversy. He sent letters (synodica) announcing his elevation to the Emperor and to Patriarch Peter of Constantinople, who was inclined to Monothelitism. The Emperor confirmed the privileges of the Holy See as head of the Catholic Church and sent to Rome a codex of the Gospels in a cover of gold richly ornamented with precious stones as a good-will gesture.
The Patriarch Peter also replied, although his answer was somewhat noncommittal as to Monothelitism, a belief he defended. In his letter, he gave the impression of being in accord with the pope, whose letter to Peter had expounded the Catholic Faith. Thus ecclesiastical intercourse between Rome and Constantinople was restored, but the mutual reserve over the dogmatic question of Monothelitism remained. Vitalian's name was entered on the diptychs of the churches in Byzantium—the only name of a pope so entered between the reign of Honorius I (d. 638) and the Sixth Ecumenical Council of 680–81.

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Pope Zachary
Pope Saint Zachary (Greek: Zacharias) was Pope of the Catholic Church from 741 to 752. A Greek from Calabria, he was the last pope of the Byzantine Papacy. Most probably he was a deacon of the Roman Church and as such signed the decrees of the Roman council of 732 and was on intimate terms with Gregory III, whom he succeeded on 10 December 741.
Zachary was a wise and subtle diplomat. Finding that his predecessor's alliance with the Lombard Duke of Spoleto was not protecting papal cities against the Lombard king, Zachary turned to Liutprand the Lombard directly. The contemporary history (Liber pontificalis) dwells chiefly on Zachary's great personal influence with Liutprand, and with his successor Ratchis. His tact in dealing with these princes in a variety of emergencies contributed to save the Exarchate of Ravenna from the Lombard attacks.
A correspondence of considerable extent and of great interest between Zachary and Saint Boniface, the apostle of Germany, survives, and shows how great was the influence of this pope on events in France and Germany. He encouraged the deposition of the last Merovingian king of the Franks, Childeric III, and it was with his sanction that Boniface crowned Pepin the Short as King of the Franks at Soissons in 752. Zachary is stated to have remonstrated with the Byzantine emperor Constantine V Copronymus on the part he had taken in the iconoclastic controversy. He died on 22 March 752 and was buried in St. Peter's Basilica. His successor was Stephen, who died soon before his consecration and is not considered a valid pope. He was then succeeded by another Stephen who became Stephen II.

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Pope Zephyrinus
Pope Saint Zephyrinus, born in Rome, was bishop of Rome from 199 to 217. His predecessor was bishop Victor I. Upon his death on 20 December 217, he was succeeded by his principal advisor, bishop Callixtus I.
During the 17-year pontificate of Zephyrinus, the young Church endured severe persecution under the Emperor Severus until his death in the year 211. To quote Butler (Ref. A. Butler: Lives of the Saints Vol VIII, 1866), St Zephyrinus was the support of his flock. He also endured the trials associated with new heresies and apostases. The chief among these were Marcion, Praxeas, Valentine and the Montanists. St. Optatus testifies that all of these were subdued by Zephyrinus, Bishop of Rome. (Ref. Optat. 1,1 De Schismate, n.9 et Albaspinæus, not.ib.) Eusebius insists that Zephyrinus fought vigorously against the blasphemies of the two Theodotuses, who in response treated him with contempt, but later called him the greatest defender of the divinity of Christ. Although he was not physically martyred for the faith, his suffering – both mental and spiritual – during his pontificate have earned him the title of martyr. (Ref. Berti in Sæc 3. Diss. 1.t. 2 p 158)

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Pope Zosimus
Pope Saint Zosimus was Pope from 18 March 417 to 26 December 418 (or 27 December).
He succeeded Innocent I and was followed by Boniface I. Zosimus took a decided part in the protracted dispute in Gaul as to the jurisdiction of the See of Arles over that of Vienne, giving energetic decisions in favour of the former, but without settling the controversy. His fractious temper coloured all the controversies in which he took part, in Gaul, Africa and Italy, including Rome, where at his death the clergy were very much divided.
According to the Liber Pontificalis, Zosimus was a Greek and his father's name was Abram. Historian Adolf von Harnack deduced from this that the family was of Jewish origin, but this cannot be certain.
Nothing is known of the life of Zosimus before his elevation to the Papal See. His consecration as Bishop of Rome took place on 18 March 417. The festival was attended by Patroclus, Bishop of Arles, who had been raised to that See in place of Bishop Heros of Arles, who had been forcibly and unjustly removed by the imperial general Constantine. Patroclus gained the confidence of the new pope at once; as early as 22 March he received a papal letter which conferred upon him the rights of a metropolitan over all the bishops of the Gallic provinces of Viennensis and Narbonensis I and II. In addition, he was made a kind of papal vicar for the whole of Gaul; no Gallic ecclesiastic being permitted to journey to Rome without bringing with him a certificate of identity from Patroclus.

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Radhika Ramana Dasa
Dr. Ravi M. Gupta, also known as Radhika Ramana Dasa is a notable Vaishnava scholar. Presently, he is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia and a member of the faculty at Bhaktivedanta College. He received his doctorate from Oxford University on the topic of Jiva Goswami's Vedanta, and has a Post-Doctoral Fellowship from Linacre College. He grew up in Boise Idaho where his academic accomplishments were documented in the Idaho Statesman. On April 17, 2008, he met with Pope Benedict XVI and presented a gift to him on behalf of the Hindu American community. He is a disciple of Hanumatpreshaka Swami.
He was brought up by his parents Ananta-Rupa Dasa and Aruddha Dasi in Boise, Idaho. He has been home schooled together with his brother Gopal with a curriculum based on the Bhagavata Purana, and included English, comprehension skills, critical thinking, debate, and communication. He also took Sanskrit, maths and science as separate subjects.

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Rafael Arnáiz Barón
Rafael Arnáiz Barón, (9 April 1911, Burgos, Spain - 26 April 1938, Dueñas, Palencia, Spain) is a Spanish saint of the Roman Catholic Church.. He was a Trappist conventual oblate at the time of his death and he is considered one of the greatest mystics of the 20th century.
Arnáiz, known in the monastery as Brother María Rafael, was born on 9 April 1911, in the city of Burgos, in north-central Spain. He was the first of four sons born to a well-to-do, deeply Catholic family. As a boy he went to several schools run by the Jesuit Fathers. By his adolescence it was clear that Arnáiz had human, intellectual, artistic and spiritual gifts. These qualities were well-balanced in him, producing an open, positive, joyful attitude to the world of persons and things, characterized by exuberant good humor, respect and humility.
After Arnáiz graduated from high school in 1930, he sought a deeper commitment to Christ began in 1930. As a graduation present, he spent his summer vacation with his Uncle Leopoldo and Aunt María, the Duke and Duchess of Maqueda, at their residence near Ávila. It marked the beginning of a deep and lasting friendship among them. At their encouragement, Arnáiz made his first contact that September with the Trappist Abbey of San Isidro de Dueñas. He was attracted to the abbey's silent beauty and by the soaring melodies of their Gregorian chant, such as the Salve Regina sung at Compline. Three years later, on 15 April 1934, having finished architectural studies, he entered the community as a postulant, then became a novice, convinced that this was his true religious calling.

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Raffaello Martinelli
Raffaello Martinelli (born June 21, 1948) is an Italian prelate of the Roman Catholic Church.
He was born in Villa d'Almè, and was ordained a priest for the Diocese of Bergamo on April 8, 1972. He served as bureau chief at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
On July 2, 2009, he was appointed Bishop of Frascati by Pope Benedict XVI. He received his episcopal consecration on the following September 12 from Benedict XVI, with Cardinals Tarcisio Bertone and William Levada serving as co-consecrators, at St. Peter's Basilica.

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Raimondo Spiazzi
Raimondo Spiazzi OP (18 January 1918 - 14 October 2004) was an Italian Catholic theologian, advisor to Pius XII, and Mariologist with over 2,500 publications.
Spiazzi was born in Moneglia, province of Genoa.
He met Cardinal Secretary of State Eugenio Pacelli in 1937, who left a major impression on him and facilitated his entry in the seminary. March 25, 1944, he was ordained to the priesthood. During the war years he taught religion in a secondary school in Turin. After the war, he studied at the Pontifical International Athenaeum Angelicum in Rome and graduated in 1947 with the title “The Christian Perfection of Man.” He taught in Rome at the Angelicum until 1972. Spiazzi, a tireless scholar authored 2.500 publications of which are 150 publications in book format. l'Edizione Marietti dell'Opera Omnia di San Tommaso d'Aquino, l'Enciclopedia Moderna del Cristinesimo, l'Enciclopedia Mariana "Theotòcos". Many of his later publications are in the area of Mariology.
In 1959, Spiazzi published an article, which costs him banning from Rome and the wrath of Pope John XXIII. Aware of discussions on the continued mandatory priestly celibacy, most prominently by the Cardinal Archbishop Emmanuel Célestin Suhard of Paris, Spiazzi argued in Monitor Ecclesiasticus, that historical evidence for mandatory priestly celibacy was extremely shaky. He pointed out, that even at he Ecumenical Council of Trent, the fathers did not consider clerical celibacy a matter of divine positive law, “nor could they since there were validly ordained married priests in communion with Rome.

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Recep Tayyip Erdoğan
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (IPA: [ɾeˈd͡ʒep tajˈjip ˈæɾdoan]; born 26 February 1954) has been Prime Minister of Turkey since 2003 and is chairman of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party), which holds a majority of the seats in the Grand National Assembly of Turkey. Erdoğan served as Mayor of Istanbul from 1994 to 1998. He graduated in 1981 from Marmara University's Faculty of Economics and Commercial Sciences. Erdoğan was also a semi-professional footballer from 1969 to 1982.
Erdoğan was elected Mayor of Istanbul in the local elections of 27 March 1994. He was banned from office and sentenced to a prison term for reciting a poem during a public address in the province of Siirt on 12 December 1997. The poem was allegedly quoted from a book published by a state enterprise and one that had been recommended to teachers by the Ministry of Education. After six months in prison, Erdoğan established the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) on August 14, 2001. From its first year, the AK Party became the largest publicly-supported political movement in Turkey. In the general election of 2002 the AK Party won nearly two-thirds of the seats in parliament, forming the first single-party government for 9 years.

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Renato Martino
Renato Raffaele Martino (born 23 November 1932) is an Italian Cardinal Deacon and President Emeritus of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace. He is notable for representing the Holy See in the United Nations.
Born in Salerno, Martino was ordained as a priest in 1957. He holds a doctorate in Canon law and is fluent in Italian, English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese.
After finishing his studies, Martino entered the Vatican's diplomatic service in 1962, serving in Nicaragua, the Philippines, Lebanon, Canada, and Brazil.
In 1980, Martino was named apostolic pro-nuncio to Thailand and Singapore and apostolic delegate to Laos and Malaysia and was named Archbishop of the titular see of Segerme. In 1983, he was named apostolic delegate to Brunei Darussalam, while retaining his other posts.
In 1986, he was appointed Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations. He was on duty during the United States invasion of Panama, when President Noriega had taken refuge at the Vatican embassy.

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Richard J. Evans
Richard John Evans (born 29 September 1947) is a British academic and historian, prominently known for his history of Germany.
Evans was born in London, of Welsh parentage, and is now Regius Professor of Modern History (Cambridge) at the University of Cambridge and President of Wolfson College. Evans applied for the distinguished Cambridge position, whereas his predecessors were chosen — marking a procedural change at Cambridge. Evans has also taught at the University of Stirling, University of East Anglia and Birkbeck College, London. Having been a Visiting Professor in History at Gresham College during 2008/09, he is now the Gresham Professor of Rhetoric.
He was educated at Forest School, Jesus College, Oxford (MA), and St Antony's College, Oxford (DPhil) and the University of East Anglia (LittD). In a 2004 interview, Evans stated that frequent visits to Wales during his childhood inspired both an interest in history and a sense of "otherness".
As an undergraduate, Evans was much influenced by the History Workshop school, which was in its founding phase at Oxford while he was studying there, and by the English Marxist historians. He was also influenced by E.H. Carr's What Is History?

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Robert Bellarmine
Robert Bellarmine (full name in Italian: Roberto Francesco Romolo Bellarmino) (4 October 1542 – 17 September 1621) was an Italian Jesuit and a Cardinal of the Catholic Church. He was one of the most important figures in the Counter-Reformation. He was canonized in 1930 and is a Doctor of the Church.
Bellarmine was born at Montepulciano to a noble if impoverished family, the son of Vincenzo Bellarmino and his wife Cinzia Cervini, who was sister of Pope Marcellus II. He never grew taller than five feet three inches. As a boy he knew Virgil by heart and composed a number of poems in Italian and Latin. One of his hymns, on Mary Magdalene, is included in the Breviary. He entered the Roman novitiate in 1560, remaining in Rome three years. He then went to a Jesuit house at Mondovì, in Piedmont, where he learned Greek. While at Mondovì, he came to the attention of Francesco Adorno, the local Jesuit Provincial Superior, who sent him to the University of Padua.
Bellarmine's systematic study of theology began at Padua in 1567 and 1568, where his teachers were Thomists. In 1569 he was sent to finish it at the University of Leuven in Flanders. There he was ordained, and obtained a reputation both as a professor and a preacher, drawing to his pulpit both Catholics and Protestants. He was the first Jesuit to teach at the university, where the subject of his course was the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas.

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Roger Etchegaray
Roger Marie Élie Etchegaray (French pronunciation: [ʁɔʒe ɛtʃɛɡaʁaj]; born in Espelette/Ezpeleta, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, 25 September 1922) is a Basque Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church.
Etchegaray served as Archbishop of Marseille (1970-1985) before entering the Roman Curia, where he served as President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace (1984-1998) and President of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum (1984-1995). He was elevated to the cardinalate in 1979.
Cardinal Etchegaray came to the attention of an international audience on Christmas Eve 2009 when he was seriously injured in an unsuccessful attack on Pope Benedict XVI as they processed into Mass at St Peter's Basilica. Etchegaray had to be hospitalised with broken bones.
Etchegaray was born in the Northern Basque Country to Jean-Batiste and Aurélie Etchegaray. The eldest of three children, he has two younger siblings, Jean and Maïté; their father worked as an agricultural mechanic.
He attended the minor seminary in Ustaritz and the major seminary in Bayonne before studying at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, from where he obtained a Licentiate of Sacred Theology and a Doctorate of Canon Law. He was ordained to the priesthood by Bishop Jean Saint-Pierre on 13 July 1947.

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Rosa Eluvathingal
The Blessed Euphrasia of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, C.M.C., was an Indian Carmelite Religious Sister of the Syro-Malabar Church, one of the Eastern Catholic Churches which are in communion with the Holy See of Rome.
She was born Rosa Eluvathingal on 7 October 1877, in the village of Kattoor, near the city of Thrissur in Kerala, India. Her parents were Cherpukaran Antony and Kunjethy Eluvathingal, who were wealthy landowners. She was baptized on 25 October 1877 in the Mother of Carmel Church in Edathuruthy Her mother was a devout Catholic, who taught her to pray the rosary and to participate in the Mass.
From the stories that her mother told her, especially about St. Rose of Lima, after whom she had been named, Rose grew up with a strong desire to practice a virtuous life, to suffer for Jesus and to be holy, and to do all this in a quiet, hidden manner. This all took deeper root when, at the age of nine, Rose experienced an apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which led her to make a commitment never to marry, and to commit her entire life to God.

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Rosa Venerini
Saint Rose Venerini, M.P.V., (February 9, 1656 – May 7, 1728) was a pioneer in the education of women and girls in 17th-century Italy and the foundress of the Religious Teachers Venerini (Italian: Maestre Pie Venerini), a Roman Catholic religious institute of women, often simply called the Venerini Sisters. She was canonized by Pope Benedict XVI on October 15, 2006.
Venerini was born in Viterbo, Italy, in 1656. Her father, Goffredo, originally from Castelleone di Suasa, Ancona, after having completed his medical studies at Rome, moved to Viterbo where he practiced at the major hospital of the city. He became noted for his work. From his marriage to Marzia Zampichetti, of an ancient family of the city, four children were born: Domenico, Maria Maddalena, Rosa and Orazio.
According to her first biographer, Father Girolamo Andreucci, S.J., Venerini made a vow to consecrate her life to God at the age of seven. At age twenty, Rosa had questions about her own future and chose to accept an offer of marriage; her fiancé, however, died shortly after this.

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Roscellinus
Roscellinus, also called Roscelin of Compiègne or in Latin Roscellinus Compendiensis and Rucelinus (c. 1050–c. 1125), was a French philosopher and theologian, often regarded as the founder of nominalism (cfr. Scholasticism).
Roscellinus was born in Compiègne, France. Little is known of his life, and knowledge of his doctrines is mainly derived from Anselm and Abelard.
He studied at Soissons and Reims, was afterwards attached to the cathedral of Chartres and became canon of Compiègne. As a monk of Compiègne, he was teaching as early as 1087. He had contact with Lanfranc, Anselm and St. Ivo of Chartres.
It seems most probable that Roscellinus was not strictly the first to promulgate nominalistic doctrines; but in his exposition they received more definite expression, and being applied to the dogma of the Trinity, attracted universal attention.
Roscellinus maintained that it is merely a habit of speech which prevents our speaking of the three persons as three substances or three Gods. If it were otherwise, and the three persons were really one substance or thing (una res), we should be forced to admit that the Father and the Holy Spirit became incarnate along with the Son. Roscellinus seems to have put forward this doctrine in perfect good faith, and to have claimed for it at first the authority of Lanfranc and Anselm.

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Saint Alphonsa
Saint Alphonsa Muttathupadathu, F.C.C., or Saint Alphonsa of the Immaculate Conception (Malayalam: അൽഫോൻസാ മുട്ടത്തുപാടം) (19 August 1910 – 28 July 1946) was a Syro-Malabar Catholic Franciscan Religious Sister who is now honored as a saint. She is the first person of Indian origin to be canonized as a saint by the Catholic Church and the first canonized saint of the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church, an Eastern Catholic Church of the Saint Thomas Christian community.
She was born Anna Muttathupadathu, the fourth child of Cherian Ouseph and Mary Muttathupadathu, in Kudamalloor, near Kottayam, on 19 August 1910. She was baptized on the following 26 August. Alphonsamma, as she was locally known, was born in Arpookara, a village in the princely state of Travancore, which was under the British Raj at the time. Today the place is called Kottayam District, within the state of Kerala, India. This lies within the Archdiocese of Changanassery.
Her parents nicknamed her Annakkutty (little Anna) She had a poor, difficult childhood and experienced loss and suffering early on in life. Anna's mother died when she was young, so her maternal aunt raised her. Hagiographies describe her early life as one of suffering at the hands of her stern foster mother and the teasing of schoolchildren. Anna was educated by her great-uncle, Father Joseph Muttathupadathu. When Anna was three years old, she contracted eczema and suffered for over a year.

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Saint André Bessette
Saint André Bessette, C.S.C., (French: Frère André; 9 August 1845 – 6 January 1937), born Alfred Bessette and since his canonization sometimes known as Saint André of Montreal, was a lay Brother of the Congregation of Holy Cross and a significant figure of the Roman Catholic Church among French-Canadians, credited with thousands of reported miraculous healings. He was declared venerable in 1978 and was beatified in 1982.Pope Benedict XVI approved sainthood for Blessed André on February 19, 2010, with the formal canonization taking place on October 17, 2010.

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Saint Augustine
Augustine of Hippo (

/ɒˈɡʌstɨn/ or /ˈɔːɡəstɪn/;Latin: Aurelius Augustinus Hipponensis; November 13, 354 – August 28, 430), also known as Augustine, St. Augustine, St. Austin,St. Augoustinos, Blessed Augustine, or St. Augustine the Blessed, was Bishop of Hippo Regius (present-day Annaba, Algeria). He was a Latin philosopher and theologian from Roman Africa. His writings were very influential in the development of Western Christianity.
According to his contemporary, Jerome, Augustine "established anew the ancient Faith." In his early years he was heavily influenced by Manichaeism and afterward by the Neo-Platonism of Plotinus. After his conversion to Christianity and baptism in AD 387, Augustine developed his own approach to philosophy and theology, accommodating a variety of methods and different perspectives. He believed that the grace of Christ was indispensable to human freedom, and he framed the concepts of original sin and just war.
When the Western Roman Empire was starting to disintegrate, Augustine developed the concept of the Catholic Church as a spiritual City of God (in a book of the same name), distinct from the material Earthly City. His thoughts profoundly influenced the medieval worldview. Augustine's City of God was closely identified with the Church, the community that worshipped God.

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Saint Boniface
Saint Boniface (Latin: Bonifacius) (c. 680 – 5 June 754), the Apostle of the Germans, born Winfrid, Wynfrith, or Wynfryth in the kingdom of Wessex, probably at Crediton (now in Devon, England), was a missionary who propagated Christianity in the Frankish Empire during the 8th century. He is the patron saint of Germany and the first archbishop of Mainz. He was killed in Frisia in 755, along with 52 others. His remains were returned to Fulda, where they rest in a sarcophagus which became a site of pilgrimage. Facts about Boniface's life and death as well as his work became widely known, since there is a wealth of material available—a number of vitae, especially the near-contemporary Vita Bonifatii auctore Willibaldi, and legal documents, possibly some sermons, and above all his correspondence.
Norman F. Cantor notes the three roles Boniface played that made him "one of the truly outstanding creators of the first Europe, as the apostle of Germany, the reformer of the Frankish church, and the chief fomentor of the alliance between the papacy and the Carolingian family." Through his efforts to reorganize and regulate the church of the Franks, he helped shape Western Christianity, and many of the dioceses he proposed remain until today. After his martyrdom, he was quickly hailed as a saint in Fulda and other areas in Germany and in England. His cult is still notably strong today. Boniface is celebrated (and criticized) as a missionary; he is regarded as a unifier of Europe, and he is seen (mainly by Catholics) as a German national figure.

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Saint Dominic
Saint Dominic (Spanish: Santo Domingo), also known as Dominic of Osma and Dominic of Caleruega (occasionally Calaruega), often called Dominic de Guzmán and Domingo Félix de Guzmán (1170 – August 6, 1221) was the founder of the Friars Preachers, popularly called the Dominicans or Order of Preachers (OP), a Roman Catholic religious order. Dominic is the patron saint of astronomers.
Dominic was born in Caleruega, halfway between Osma and Aranda de Duero in Old Castile, Spain. He was named after Saint Dominic of Silos, who is said to be the patron saint of hopeful mothers, astronomers. The Benedictine abbey of Santo Domingo de Silos lies a few miles north of Caleruega.
In the earliest narrative source, by Jordan of Saxony, Dominic's parents are not named. The story is told that before his birth his mother dreamed that a dog leapt from her womb carrying a torch in its mouth, and "seemed to set the earth on fire". This story is likely to have emerged when his order became known, after his name, as the Dominican order, in Latin is Dominicanus and by a play of words was interpreted as Domini canis: "Dog of the Lord." Jordan adds that Dominic was brought up by his parents and a maternal uncle who was an archbishop. The failure to name them is not surprising, since Jordan's work is a history of the early years of the Order rather than a biography of Dominic. A later source, still of the 13th century, gives the names of Dominic's mother and father as Juana and Felix. Nearly a century after Dominic's birth, a local author asserts that Dominic's father was "vir venerabilis et dives in populo suo" ("an honoured and wealthy man in his village"). The earliest statement that Dominic's father belonged to the family de Guzmán, and that his mother belonged to the Aça or Aza family, occurs in the travel narrative of Pero Tafur, written in 1439 or soon after.

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Saint Peter
Saint Peter or Simon Peter was an early Christian leader and one of the twelve apostles of Jesus who is featured prominently in the New Testament Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles and who is venerated as a saint. The son of John or of Jonah, he was from the village of Bethsaida in the province of Galilee or Gaulanitis. His brother Andrew was also an apostle. Peter is venerated in multiple churches and is regarded as the first Pope by the Catholic Church. After working to establish the church of Antioch, presiding for seven years as the leader of the city's Christian community, he preached to scattered communities of believers, Jews, Hebrew Christians and the gentiles, in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia Minor and Bithynia.^{[citation needed]} He then went to Rome, where in the second year of Claudius, it is claimed, he overthrew Simon Magus and held the Sacerdotal Chair for 25 years.^{[citation needed]} He is said to have been put to death at the hand of Emperor Nero.
Peter wrote two General epistles. The Gospel of Mark is also ascribed to him (as Mark was his disciple and interpreter). On the other hand, several books bearing his name—the Acts of Peter, Gospel of Peter, Preaching of Peter, Revelation of Peter, and Judgement of Peter—are rejected by the Catholic Church as Apocryphal.

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Saint Stephen
Saint Stephen (Koine Greek: Στέφανος, Stephanos; sometimes spelled "Stephan"), the protomartyr of Christianity, is venerated as a saint in the Roman Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran,Oriental Orthodox and Eastern Orthodox Churches.
Stephen's name is derived from the Greek language Stephanos, meaning "crown". Traditionally, Stephen is invested with a crown of martyrdom; he is often depicted in art with three stones and the martyrs' palm. In Eastern Christian iconography, he is shown as a young, beardless man with a tonsure, wearing a deacon's vestments, and often holding a miniature church building or a censer. Rembrandt depicted his martyrdom in his work The Stoning of Saint Stephen.
History approximates Stephen's story around A.D. 34-35, shortly after Jesus' crucifixion^{[citation needed]}. According to Chapter 6 of The Acts of the Apostles, Stephen was among seven men of the early church at Jerusalem appointed to serve as deacon. However, he is depicted as also successfully preaching to his fellow Jews and bringing many to accept Jesus as the Messiah. After a dispute with the members of a synagogue of "Roman Freedmen," he is denounced for blasphemy against God and Moses (Acts 6:11) and speaking against the Temple and the Law. Stephen is tried before the Sanhedrin. His defense is presented as accusing the Jews of persecuting the prophets who had spoken out against the sins of the nation:

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Stanislaw Soltys
Saint Stanislaus of Kazimierz, C.R.L., (Polish: Stanisław Kazimierczyk) (27 September 1433 – 3 May 1489) was a Polish Roman Catholic canon regular, theologian and preacher.
He was born 27 September 1433, the son of a pious couple, Maciej (Matthew) and Jadwiga (Hedwig) Sołtys, who gave him the name Louis at his baptism. They lived in the ancient quarter of Krakow called Kazimierz (Latin: Casimira), then located on an island, and which was heavily populated by the Jews of the city. He received his early education from the Canons Regular of the Lateran at their nearby school, which was attached to their monastery and to the Parish Church of Corpus Christi that they administered. Louis went on to receive doctorates in Theology and Philosophy from the Jagiellonian University in the same city.
After completing his university studies in 1456, Louis returned to the island and entered the community of canons who had given him his early education, becoming a novice of the Order. He then took the religious name Stanislaus. His choice was likely due to the island's heritage as the place of execution and shrine of the popular Saint Stanislaus the Martyr, a former Bishop of Krakow, to whom he had a strong devotion his entire life.

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Stanisław Dziwisz
Stanisław Dziwisz (born 27 April 1939) is a Polish prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He has been Archbishop of Kraków since 2005, and was created a cardinal in 2006. He was a longtime and influential aide to Pope John Paul II (he was one of the few people mentioned in the Pope's will, where he was thanked for his almost 40 years of service to the Pontiff), a friend of the current Pope, Benedict XVI, and an ardent supporter of the late Pope's eventual beatification.
Dziwisz was born in the village of Raba Wyżna to Stanisław Dziwisz, a railroad worker, and his wife, Zofia Bielarczyk . The fifth of seven children, he has four brothers and two sisters. During World War II, the family hid a Jewish man in their house. When the younger Stanisław was only nine, his father died after being struck by a train while crossing the railroad tracks. He attended the classical Secondary School (Liceum) in Nowy Targ, passing the exam of maturity in 1957.
Dziwisz then entered the Major Seminary of Kraków, where he completed his studies in philosophy and theology. On 23 June 1963, he was ordained to the priesthood for the Archdiocese of Kraków by its auxiliary bishop, Bishop Karol Wojtyła. His first assignment was as a curate at a parish in Maków Podhalański, where he served for two years. He then continued his studies at the Faculty of Theology of Kraków, specialising in liturgy and earning a Licentiate of Sacred Theology in 1967. In October 1966, he was appointed by Archbishop Wojtyła, who had since been elevated to Archbishop of Kraków, to serve as his personal secretary; Dziwisz would remain in this position until Wojtyła's death in 2005.

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Susanna Maiolo
Susanna Maiolo (born 1984) is a woman with Italian and Swiss citizenship who rushed towards Pope Benedict XVI twice, most recently at Christmas Eve Midnight Mass, 24 December 2009, inside St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican. She knocked the Pope and French cardinal Roger Etchegaray to the ground, and broke the cardinal's leg and hip. Maiolo's previous attack in December 2008 was intercepted successfully by the Pope's bodyguards.
Maiolo was born in Frauenfeld, Switzerland. Authorities said that Maiolo is mentally unwell and she was held for a week's evaluation at a psychiatric hostel in Subiaco near Rome. It was reported that she did not want to injure the Pope, and the Pope has forgiven her.
Susanna Maiolo told the Subiaco clinic staff that she did not want to injure the Pope but wanted to ask him to help the poorest people in the world. The Pope's personal secretary, Monsignor Georg Gaenswein, visited her at the clinic on 1 January 2010. He expressed the Pope's concern for her and said the Pope believed in her good intentions and had pardoned her. The Vatican public prosecutor Nicola Picardi and spokesman Federico Lombardi said that she would probably be released.

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Szymon of Lipnica
St.Simon (Szymon) of Lipnica (c. 1437 – 18 July 1482) was born to a pious family in Lipnica Murowana, in the south of Poland. He moved to Krakow, to attend the famous Jagiellonian Academy, in 1454. After hearing a sermon by Saint John Capistran, he joined the Franciscans. He was known as a powerful preacher. He died tending the sick during a plague epidemic. He was beatified by Pope Innocent XI in 24 February 1685 and canonized by Pope Benedict XVI in 3 June 2007

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Tarcisio Bertone
Tarcisio Pietro Evasio Bertone, S.D.B. (born 2 December 1934) is an Italian prelate and diplomat. A cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church, he currently serves as Cardinal Secretary of State and Camerlengo, having previously served as Archbishop of Vercelli from 1991 to 1995, as Secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, when Cardinal Ratzinger, the future Pope Benedict XVI, was Prefect, and Archbishop of Genoa from 2002 to 2006. Bertone was elevated to the cardinalate in 2003. On 10 May 2008, he was named Cardinal-Bishop of Frascati. Besides his native Italian, Bertone speaks fluent French, Spanish, German and Portuguese. He has some knowledge of English, although he is not fluent, and he can read Polish (and he has a Polish secretary), Latin, Greek and Hebrew.
Bertone was born in Romano Canavese, Piedmont, the fifth of eight children. Bertone has stated that his mother was a determined anti-Fascist militant of the Italian People's Party, and later a Christian Democrat.

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Teresa of Ávila
Saint Teresa of Ávila, also called Saint Teresa of Jesus, baptized as Teresa Sánchez de Cepeda y Ahumada, (March 28, 1515 – October 4, 1582) was a prominent Spanish mystic, Roman Catholic saint, Carmelite nun, and writer of the Counter Reformation, and theologian of contemplative life through mental prayer. She was a reformer of the Carmelite Order and is considered to be, along with John of the Cross, a founder of the Discalced Carmelites.
In 1622, forty years after her death, she was canonized by Pope Gregory XV, and in 1970 named a Doctor of the Church by Pope Paul VI. Her books, which include her autobiography, The Life of Teresa of Jesus, and her seminal work, El Castillo Interior (The Interior Castle), are an integral part of the Spanish Renaissance literature as well as Christian mysticism and Christian meditation practices as she entails in her other important work Camino de Perfección (The Way of Perfection).
Teresa de Cepeda y Ahumada was born in 1515 in Gotarrendura, in the province of Ávila, Spain. Her paternal grandfather, Juan de Toledo, was a marrano (Jewish convert to Christianity) and was condemned by the Spanish Inquisition for allegedly returning to the Jewish faith. Her father, Alonso Sánchez de Cepeda, bought a knighthood and successfully assimilated into Christian society. Teresa's mother, Beatriz, was especially keen to raise her daughter as a pious Christian. Teresa was fascinated by accounts of the lives of the saints, and ran away from home at age seven with her brother Rodrigo to find martyrdom among the Moors. Her uncle stopped them as he was returning to the city, having spotted the two outside the city walls.

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Tertullian
Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus, anglicised as Tertullian (c. 160 – c. 225 AD), was a prolific early Berber Christian author from Carthage in the Roman province of Africa. He is the first Christian author to produce an extensive corpus of Latin Christian literature. He also was a notable early Christian apologist and a polemicist against heresy. Tertullian has been called "the father of Latin Christianity" and "the founder of Western theology." Though conservative, he did originate and advance new theology to the early Church. He is perhaps most famous for being the oldest extant Latin writer to use the term Trinity (Latin trinitas), and giving the oldest extant formal exposition of a Trinitarian theology. Other Latin formulations that first appear in his work are "three Persons, one Substance" as the Latin "tres Personae, una Substantia" (itself from the Koine Greek "treis Hypostases, Homoousios"). He wrote his trinitarian formula after becoming a Montanist; his ideas were at first rejected as heresy by the church at large, but later accepted as Christian orthodoxy.

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Theodore Guerin
Saint Mother Théodore Guérin (1798–1856), designated by the Vatican as Saint Theodora, is the foundress of the Sisters of Providence of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, Indiana, a congregation of Catholic nuns. After a standard process of approval within the church often referred to as a "cause for sainthood," she was beatified by Pope John Paul II in October 1998 and finally canonized a saint of the Roman Catholic church on October 15, 2006, by Pope Benedict XVI.
Guerin is particularly known for her advancement of education in Indiana and elsewhere, founding numerous schools including Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College in Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, Indiana.
She was born Anne-Thérèse Guérin on October 2, 1798, in the village of Étables-sur-Mer in Brittany, France. Her parents were Laurent Guérin, an officer in the French Navy under Napoleon Bonaparte, and Isabelle Guérin, née Lefèvre. Anne-Thérèse was born near the end of the French Revolution, which had torn France apart and caused a crisis within French Catholicism. Schools and churches were closed, and many Catholic priests had chosen exile over the guillotine.

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Thomas Cajetan
Thomas Cajetan (pronounced Ca-'je-tan), also known as Gaetanus, commonly Tommaso de Vio (20 February 1469 - 9 August 1534), was an Italian cardinal. He is perhaps best known among Protestants for his opposition to the teachings of Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation while he was the Pope's Legate in Wittenberg,^{[citation needed]} and perhaps best known among Catholics for his extensive commentary on the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas.
He is not to be confused with his contemporary, Saint Cajetan, the founder of the Theatines.
De Vio was born in Gaeta, then part of the Kingdom of Naples, as Jacopo Vio. The name Tommaso was taken as a monastic name, while the surname Cajetan derives from his native city. At the age of fifteen he entered the Dominican order, and, devoting himself to studies in philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas (he is the founder of Neothomism), became, before the age of thirty, a doctor of theology at Padua, where he was subsequently professor of metaphysics.
A public disputation at Ferrara (1494) with Pico della Mirandola gave him a great reputation as a theologian. He was made general procurator in 1507 and general of his order a year later in 1508. For his zeal in defending the papal rights against the 1511 Council of Pisa, in a series of works which were condemned by the Sorbonne and publicly burnt by order of King Louis XII, he obtained the bishopric of Gaeta, and in 1517 Pope Leo X made him a cardinal and archbishop of Palermo.

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Thomas More
Sir Thomas More (

/ˈmɔr/; 7 February 1478 – 6 July 1535), known by Catholics as Saint Thomas More since 1935, was an English lawyer, social philosopher, author, statesman, and noted Renaissance humanist. He was an important councillor to Henry VIII of England and was Lord Chancellor from October 1529 to 16 May 1532. He is commemorated by the Church of England as a "Reformation martyr". He was an opponent of the Protestant Reformation and in particular of Martin Luther and William Tyndale.
More coined the word "utopia" – a name he gave to the ideal and imaginary island nation, the political system of which he described in Utopia published in 1516. He opposed the King's separation from the Catholic Church and refused to accept the King as Supreme Head of the Church of England, a title which had been given by parliament through the Act of Supremacy of 1534. He was imprisoned in 1534 for his refusal to take the oath required by the First Succession Act, because the act disparaged papal power and Henry’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon. In 1535, he was tried for treason, convicted on perjured testimony and beheaded.

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Thomas à Kempis
Thomas à Kempis (Thomas van Kempen or Thomas Hemerken or Haemerken, litt. "small hammer"); (c. 1380 – † Zwolle, 25 July 1471) was a late Medieval Catholic monk and the probable author of The Imitation of Christ, which is one of the best known Christian books on devotion. His name means, "Thomas of Kempen", his home town and in German he is known as Thomas von Kempen. He also is known by various spellings of his family name: Thomas Haemerkken; Thomas Hammerlein; Thomas Hemerken, and Thomas Hämerken.
He was born at the Lower Rhine region in Kempen, Germany, County of Cleves ca.1380. His paternal name was Hemerken, Kleverlandish for little hammer. His father John was a blacksmith and his mother, Gertrude was a school-mistress.
In 1392 he followed his brother, Jan, to Deventer, Netherlands in order to attend the city school. While attending school in Deventer, Thomas encountered the Brethren of the Common Life, followers of Gerard Groote's Modern Devotion. He attended school in Deventer from 1392 to 1399.

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Thérèse of Lisieux
Saint Thérèse of Lisieux (2 January 1873 – 30 September 1897), or Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face, born Marie-Françoise-Thérèse Martin, was a French Carmelite nun. She is also known as "The Little Flower of Jesus".
She felt an early call to religious life, and overcoming various obstacles, in 1888 at the early age of 15, became a nun and joined two of her older sisters in the cloistered Carmelite community of Lisieux, Normandy. After nine years as a Carmelite religious, having fulfilled various offices such as sacristan and assistant to the novice mistress, and having spent the last eighteen months in Carmel in a night of faith, she died of tuberculosis at the age of 24. The impact of The Story of a Soul, a collection of her autobiographical manuscripts, printed and distributed a year after her death to an initially very limited audience, was great, and she rapidly became one of the most popular saints of the twentieth century. Pope Pius XI made her the "star of his pontificate". She was beatified in 1923, and canonized in 1925. Thérèse was declared co-patron of the missions with Francis Xavier in 1927, and named co-patron of France with Joan of Arc in 1944. On 19 October 1997 Pope John Paul II declared her the thirty-third Doctor of the Church, the youngest person, and only the third woman, to be so honored. Devotion to Thérèse has developed around the world.

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Tommaso Caputo
Tommaso Caputo (born 17 Oct 1950) is an Italian Catholic Bishop and Diplomat, the Titular Archbishop of Otriculum.
He was ordained a priest in Naples on 10 April 1974.
He was ordained as a Bishop by Pope Benedict XVI (principal consecrator) and Cardinals Tarcisio Bertone and Marian Jaworski on 29 September 2007.
He was appointed as Archbishop of Otriculum and as Apostolic Nuncio to Malta and Libya in 2007.

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Vincent Twomey
Denis Vincent Twomey SVD PhD (1941-) is an Irish Roman Catholic priest and Professor Emeritus of Moral Theology.
Twomey grew up in Cork, where he attended Christian Brothers College. He entered the Divine Word Missionaries in 1963. After philosophical studies at Donamon, County Roscommon, and theological studies at St Patrick's College, Maynooth, he was ordained priest on 6 January 1970. After ordination, he spent a semester in Münster, Westphalia, studying under the theologian Karl Rahner, before he transferred to the University of Regensburg to do his doctoral studies under the supervision of the then Professor Joseph Ratzinger. On completing the doctorate in 1979, he was sent to teach in the Regional Seminary of Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands for three years as Professor of Dogmatic Theology. After this, he was appointed professor at the Divine Word Missionary Theology Faculty at Mödling, near Vienna, Austria. In 1983, he was appointed lecturer in Moral Theology at Maynooth, and was subsequently made Professor. He was also Visiting Professor on the Theology Faculty of the University of Fribourg, Switzerland, in the Summer semester of 1983.

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Vincenzo Di Mauro
Vincenzo Di Mauro (born 1 Dec 1951) is an Italian Catholic Bishop, the Archbishop-Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Vigevano, and prior to that was an official of the Roman Curia. He was appointed Bishop of Vigevano, which is part of the Province of Milan, by Pope Benedict XVI on Monday, 22 November 2010, and given the "ad personam" (personal) title of Archbishop. He was appointed as secretary of the Prefecture for the Economic Affairs of the Holy See and as the Titular Bishop of Arpi in 2007. He was ordained as a Bishop by Pope Benedict XVI (principal consecrator) and [[Cardinal (Catholicism)|Cardinals Tarcisio Bertone and Marian Jaworski on 29 September 2007. He was born in Monza and was ordained a priest in Milan on 12 June 1976.
He graduated in Modern Literature and Journalism at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart. He served as vicar of the parish of Santa Maria Regina Pacis a Milano, from 1976 to 1981. He served as vicar of the parish of Sant’Ambrogio from 1981 to 1983. He was Assistant Diocesan Catholic Action for children and Assistant Masters Catholics (AIMC) from 1984 to 1987.

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Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin (Russian: Влади́мир Влади́мирович Пу́тин; IPA: [vɫɐˈdʲimʲɪr vɫɐˈdʲimʲɪrəvʲɪtɕ ˈputʲɪn] (

listen); born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician who has been the President of Russia since 7 May 2012. Putin previously served as President from 2000 to 2008 and as Prime Minister of Russia from 1999 to 2000, and again from 2008 to 2012. Putin also serves as chairman of United Russia and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Union of Russia and Belarus. He became acting President on 31 December 1999, when president Boris Yeltsin resigned in a surprising move. Putin won the 2000 presidential election; in 2004 he was re-elected for a second term lasting until 7 May 2008.
Because of constitutionally mandated term limits, Putin was ineligible to run for a third consecutive presidential term. After his successor Dmitry Medvedev won the 2008 presidential election, Putin was nominated by Medvedev to be Russia's Prime Minister; Putin took office on 8 May 2008 and a period of so-called "tandemocracy" followed. In September 2011, Putin and Medvedev agreed he should seek a third, non-consecutive term in the 2012 presidential election, which he won in the first round on 4 March 2012.

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Walter Kasper
Walter Kasper (born 5 March 1933 in Heidenheim an der Brenz) is a German cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He is President Emeritus of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, having served as its President from 2001 to 2010. Kasper can speak German, English and Italian.
Born in Heidenheim an der Brenz, Germany, Kasper was ordained a priest on 6 April 1957 by Bishop Carl Leiprecht of Rottenburg. From 1957 to 1958 he was a parochial vicar in a Stuttgart. He returned to his studies and earned a doctorate in dogmatic theology from the University of Tübingen. He was a faculty member at Tübingen from 1958 to 1961 and worked for three years as an assistant to the conservative Leo Scheffczyk and the liberal Hans Küng, who was banned from teaching by Vatican authorities owing to his critical views on contraception and papal infallibility. He later taught dogmatic theology at the Westphalian University of Münster (1964–1970), rising to become dean of the theological faculty in 1969 and then the same in Tübingen in 1970. In 1983, Kasper taught as a visiting professor at The Catholic University of America. He was editor of the Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche.

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William Levada
William Joseph Levada (born June 15, 1936) is an American Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. Since 2005, he has served as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, making him the highest ranking American in the Roman Curia. He was previously the Archbishop of Portland (Oregon) from 1986 to 1995 and Archbishop of San Francisco from 1995 to 2005. Levada was elevated to the cardinalate in 2006.
William Joseph Levada was born in Long Beach, California, to Joseph and Lorraine (née Nunez) Levada, both natives of Concord, California. His older sister, Dolores, died on May 21, 2007.
His great-grandparents came from Portugal and Ireland, and immigrated to the San Francisco Bay Area in the 1860s. He grew up in Long Beach and Houston, Texas, attended St. Anthony High School Long Beach and then St. John's Seminary in Camarillo, part of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles.
From 1958 to 1961, Levada studied at the North American College and did his theological studies at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. He was ordained to the priesthood on December 20, 1961, by Archbishop Martin John O'Connor, rector of the Pontifical North American College and president of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, in St. Peter's Basilica.

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William of Ockham
William of Ockham (

/ˈɒkəm/; also Occam, Hockham, or several other spellings; c. 1288 – c. 1348) was an English Franciscan friar and scholastic philosopher, who is believed to have been born in Ockham, a small village in Surrey. He is considered to be one of the major figures of medieval thought and was at the centre of the major intellectual and political controversies of the fourteenth century. Although he is commonly known for Ockham's razor, the methodological principle that bears his name, William of Ockham also produced significant works on logic, physics, and theology. In the Church of England, his day of commemoration is 10 April.
William of Ockham joined the Franciscan order at an early age. It is believed that he studied theology at the University of Oxford from 1309 to 1321, but never completed his master's degree (the usual undergraduate degree in those times). Because of this, he acquired the byname Venerabilis Inceptor, or "Worthy Beginner" (an inceptor was a student formally admitted to the ranks of teachers by the university authorities). He was also known as the Doctor Invincibilis or "Unconquerable Teacher."

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Yves Congar
Yves Marie Joseph Congar (8 April 1904, Sedan, Ardennes - 22 June 1995, Paris) was a French Dominican cardinal and Catholic theologian.
Born in Sedan, in northeast France, in 1904, Congar's home was occupied by the Germans for much of World War I. During this time he kept extensive, illustrated diaries recording the occupation, which provide a unique historical insight into the war from a child's point of view.
In his early twenties, Congar spent three years in a Carmelite monastery where he encountered Thomistic philosophy through the works of the renowned lay philosopher Jacques Maritain and the Dominican theologian Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange.
In 1925 he joined the Dominican Order at Amiens. Following his theological studies at the Saulchoir, the Dominican studium, which at the time was located in Kain-la-Tombe, Belgium, and offered strong training in historical theology, Congar was ordained a priest in 1930. During World War II he was drafted into the French army as a chaplain, and was held from 1940 to 1945 as a prisoner of war by the Germans in Colditz.

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Zygmunt Gorazdowski
Zygmunt Gorazdowski is a Roman Catholic saint.
Father Gorazdowski was a priest of the Lviv archdiocese, Monsignor and Camerlingo, and the Founder of the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph, CSSJ.

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Zygmunt Zimowski
Zygmunt Zimowski (born 7 April 1949) is a Polish prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He is the current president of the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Health Care Workers since his appointment by Pope Benedict XVI on 18 April 2009. He previously served as bishop of Radom from 2002 until his appointment in the Roman Curia.
Zimowski was born in Kupienin, Poland, located in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Tarnów, Poland. He was ordained a priest on 27 May 1973, and incardinated in Tarnów. He received a Licentiate in Dogmatic Theology from the Catholic University of Lublin. He continued his studies and subsequently received his Doctorate in Dogmatic Theology from the Faculty of Theology at the Leopold-Franzens University of Innsbruck. On 1 February 1983 he entered the service of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, where he remained until elevated to the episcopate. He was appointed Chaplain of His Holiness on 14 April 1988 and Prelate of Honour on 10 July 1999.
He was Postulator of some processes of beatification and canonization. He taught ecclesiology at the Catholic University of Lublin and at the Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski University in Warsaw and is the author of 120 publications, 40 pastoral letters and some books and several articles.

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Benedict XVI
Pope Benedict XVI in St. Peter's Square, Rome. 2010.
Papacy began	19 April 2005
Predecessor	John Paul II
Orders
Ordination	29 June 1951 by Michael von Faulhaber
Consecration	28 May 1977 by Josef Stangl
Created Cardinal	27 June 1977
Personal details
Birth name	Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger
Born	(1927-04-16) 16 April 1927 (age 85) Marktl, Bavaria, Germany
Nationality	German (along with Vatican citizenship)
Denomination	Roman Catholic
Parents	Joseph Ratzinger, Sr., Maria Ratzinger
Previous post	Archbishop of Munich and Freising, Germany (1977–1982) Cardinal-Priest of Santa Maria Consolatrice al Tiburtino (1977–1993) President of the International Theological Commission (1981–2005) Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (1981–2005) President of the Pontifical Biblical Commission (1981–2005) Cardinal-Bishop of Velletri-Segni (1993–2005) Dean of the College of Cardinals (2002–2005) Cardinal-Bishop of Ostia (2002–2005)
Motto	cooperatores veritatis (cooperators of the truth)^[1]
Signature	${{{signature_alt}}}$
Coat of arms	${{{coat_of_arms_alt}}}$
Other Popes named Benedict

Papal styles of Pope Benedict XVI

Reference style	His Holiness
Spoken style	Your Holiness
Religious style	Holy Father

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Catholic Church titles
Preceded by Julius Döpfner	Archbishop of Munich and Freising 1977–1982	Succeeded by Friedrich Wetter
Preceded by Franjo Šeper	Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith 1981–2005	Succeeded by William Levada
Preceded by Bernardin Gantin	Dean of the College of Cardinals 2002–2005	Succeeded by Angelo Sodano
Preceded by John Paul II	Pope 19 April 2005 – present	Incumbent

Persondata
Name	Benedict XVI, Pope
Alternative names	Ratzinger, Joseph Alois; Benedictus PP. XVI; Benedetto XVI; Benedikt XVI
Short description	265th and reigning Pope
Date of birth	16 April 1927
Place of birth	Marktl am Inn, Bavaria, Germany
Date of death
Place of death

	Book: Pope Benedict XVI
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Consecrator of
Episcopal lineage
Consecrated by:	Josef Stangl
Bishop	Date of consecration
Alberto Bovone	12 May 1984
Zygmunt Zimowski	25 May 2002
Josef Clemens	6 January 2004
Bruno Forte	8 September 2004
Mieczysław Mokrzycki	29 September 2007
Francesco Giovanni Brugnaro	29 September 2007
Gianfranco Ravasi	29 September 2007
Tommaso Caputo	29 September 2007
Sergio Pagano	29 September 2007
Vincenzo Di Mauro	29 September 2007
Gabriele Giordano Caccia	12 September 2009
Franco Coppola	12 September 2009
Pietro Parolin	12 September 2009
Raffaello Martinelli	12 September 2009
Giorgio Corbellini	12 September 2009

Fidel Castro

Castro in 2003
First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba
In office October 3, 1965 – April 19, 2011
Deputy	Raúl Castro
Preceded by	Position established
Succeeded by	Raúl Castro
15th President of Cuba
In office December 2, 1976 – February 24, 2008*
Prime Minister	Himself
Vice President	Raúl Castro
Preceded by	Osvaldo Dorticós Torrado
Succeeded by	Raúl Castro
16th Prime Minister of Cuba
In office February 16, 1959 – February 24, 2008
President	Manuel Urrutia Lleó Osvaldo Dorticós Torrado Himself
Preceded by	José Miró Cardona
Succeeded by	Raúl Castro
7th and 23rd Secretary-General of the Non-Aligned Movement
In office September 16, 2006 – February 24, 2008
Preceded by	Abdullah Ahmad Badawi
Succeeded by	Raúl Castro
In office September 10, 1979 – March 6, 1983
Preceded by	Junius Richard Jayawardene
Succeeded by	Neelam Sanjiva Reddy
Personal details
Born	Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz (1926-08-13) August 13, 1926 (age 85) Birán, Cuba
Political party	Communist Party of Cuba
Spouse(s)	Mirta Diaz-Balart (1948–1955) Dalia Soto del Valle (1980–present)
Relations	(siblings) Raúl Castro Enma Castro Agustina Castro Ramon Castro Ruz Angelita Castro
Children	Fidel Ángel Castro Diaz-Balart Alina Fernández-Revuelta Alexis Castro-Soto Alejandro Castro-Soto Antonio Castro-Soto Angel Castro-Soto Alex Castro-Soto Jorge Angel Castro Francisca Pupo
Alma mater	University of Havana
Profession	Lawyer
Religion	Deist^[1]
Signature
*Acting presidential powers were transferred to Raúl Castro from July 31, 2006.


Grau and Prío, two Cuban presidents whose administrations were marked by corruption, political repression and obedience to U.S. interests. Castro protested against both of them whilst a student.

		Castro in Washington, D.C., arriving at the MATS Terminal (left) and visiting the Lincoln Memorial (right).
Castro in Washington, D.C., arriving at the MATS Terminal (left) and visiting the Lincoln Memorial (right).

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Party political offices
New office	First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba Incapacitated in 2006 1961–2011	Succeeded by Raúl Castro
Political offices
Preceded by José Miró Cardona	Prime Minister of Cuba 1959–1976	Position abolished
Preceded by Osvaldo Dorticós Torrado as President of Cuba	President of the Council of State of Cuba Incapacitated in 2006 1976–2008	Succeeded by Raúl Castro
Preceded by Himself as Prime Minister	President of the Council of Ministers of Cuba Incapacitated in 2006 1976–2008	Succeeded by Raúl Castro
Military offices
New office	Commander-in-Chief of the Revolutionary Armed Forces Incapacitated in 2006 1959–2008	Succeeded by Raúl Castro
Diplomatic posts
Preceded by Junius Richard Jayewardene	Secretary-General of the Non-Aligned Movement 1979–1983	Succeeded by Abdullah Ahmad Badawi
Preceded by Neelam Sanjiva Reddy	Secretary-General of the Non-Aligned Movement Incapacitated in 2006 2005–2008	Succeeded by Raúl Castro

Persondata
Name	Castro, Fidel
Alternative names	Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz
Short description	President of Cuba
Date of birth	August 13, 1926
Place of birth	Birán, Holguín Province, Cuba
Date of death
Place of death

The Most Reverend Fulton John Sheen
Bishop Emeritus of Rochester
File:BpSheen.png
See	Newport, South Wales (Titular)
Appointed	21 October 1966
Reign ended	6 October 1969
Predecessor	James Edward Kearney
Successor	Joseph Lloyd Hogan
Other posts	Titular Archbishop of Neoportus
Orders
Ordination	20 September 1919
Consecration	11 June 1951 by Adeodato Giovanni Piazza
Personal details
Birth name	Peter John Sheen
Born	(1895-05-08)8 May 1895^[1] El Paso, Illinois^[1]
Died	9 December 1979(1979-12-09) (aged 84) New York, New York
Buried	St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York
Nationality	American
Denomination	Roman Catholic
Previous post	Auxiliary Bishop of New York (1951 - 1966) Titular Bishop of Caesariana (1951 - 1966)
Alma mater	Saint Paul Seminary School of Divinity
Motto	da per matrem me venire
Coat of arms	${{{coat_of_arms_alt}}}$
Sainthood
Title as Saint	Servant of God

Styles of Fulton J. Sheen

Reference style	The Most Reverend
Spoken style	Your Excellency
Religious style	Your Excellency
Posthumous style	Servant of God

Persondata
Name	Sheen, Fulton J.
Alternative names
Short description	Catholic bishop
Date of birth	May 8, 1895
Place of birth	El Paso, Illinois
Date of death	December 9, 1979
Place of death	New York, New York

Benedict XVI, Pope Filmography

Famous quotes by Pope Benedict XVI:

"Today we bury his remains in the earth as a seed of immortality. Our hearts are full of sadness, yet at the same time (full) of joyful hope and profound gratitude."

"I too hope in this short reign to be a man of peace."

"A Catholic would be guilty of formal cooperation in evil, and so unworthy to present himself for holy Communion, if he were to deliberately vote for a candidate precisely because of the candidate's"

"Having a clear faith, based on the creed of the church, is often labeled today as a fundamentalism. ... Whereas relativism, which is letting oneself be tossed and 'swept along by every wind of teaching,' looks like the only attitude acceptable to today's standards."

"God is not solitude, but perfect communion. For this reason the human person, the image of God, realizes himself or herself in love, which is a sincere gift of self."

"We can be sure our beloved pope is standing today at the window of the father's house, that he sees us and blesses us."

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