96 Fun Facts About Popes

Which king broke with Rome after Pope Clement VII would not annul his first marriage?

Henry VIII: the pope was possibly swayed by Emperor Charles V, whose aunt, Catherine of Aragon, was the wife Henry wanted to set aside.

Which reformer did Pope Leo X excommunicate in 1521?

Martin Luther: he had refused to take back his teachings, and the Reformation that followed split the Western Church.

The word 'pope' derives from the Ancient Greek word for what?

Father: the title was once given to many bishops, especially in the East, before the West reserved it for the bishop of Rome.

Which 1929 Italy-Holy See agreement established Vatican City as an independent state?

The Lateran Treaty: an attached financial deal also compensated the Holy See for the Papal States that Italy had taken.

After Italy seized Rome in 1870, the pope protested by proclaiming himself what?

A prisoner: for almost 60 years popes refused to leave the Vatican rather than accept the Italian kingdom's authority.

Where has every papal election taken place since 1878?

The Sistine Chapel: several 19th-century conclaves met in the Quirinal Palace instead, until Italy seized it along with Rome in 1870.

Pope Francis belonged to which religious order?

The Jesuits: a pope had suppressed the order in 1773, and it was only restored in 1814.

What colour smoke from the conclave chimney announces that a pope has been elected?

White: burning the ballots makes the smoke, and damp straw was once added to turn failed votes black, a job chemicals do today.

The 1268-71 deadlock that led to the locked-in conclave rules took place in which Italian town?

Viterbo: its exasperated authorities locked the cardinals in to force a decision.

What Latin term names the period between a pope's death or resignation and his successor's election?

Sede vacante: the cardinals may handle only ordinary business meanwhile, and anything reserved to a pope must wait for the next one.

Castel Gandolfo, home to a papal palace, is one proposed site of which ancient city?

Alba Longa: in legend, Aeneas's son Ascanius founded it, and Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome, came from its royal line.

Which of these is one of the pope's official titles?

Servant of the servants of God: Gregory the Great used it widely, by one account as a lesson in humility to a patriarch who styled himself 'ecumenical'.

Which church council proclaimed papal infallibility in 1870?

The First Vatican Council: two months after the vote, Italian troops took Rome and the council was suspended, never to meet again.

Whose nearly 32-year reign is the longest verified of any pope, after Saint Peter?

Pius IX: elected as a liberal, he turned firmly conservative after revolutionaries forced him to flee Rome in 1848.

Urban VII, pope for just 12 days in 1590, is remembered for the world's first known ban on what?

Public smoking: he threatened to excommunicate anyone using tobacco in or near a church, but malaria killed him before his coronation.

From 1309 to 1376, seven successive popes resided not in Rome but in which city?

Avignon: the popes bought the city outright in 1348, and it stayed papal territory until the French Revolution.

Which French king's forces seized Pope Boniface VIII at Anagni in 1303?

Philip IV: the humiliated pope died a month later, and Philip went on to press Clement V into sacrificing the Knights Templar.

In 1409, which Italian city's church council tried to end the Western Schism but added a third pope?

Pisa: its council declared both rival popes deposed and elected Alexander V, but neither rival stepped down.

Which church gathering of 1414-18 finally ended the Western Schism?

The Council of Constance: it also tried the reformer Jan Hus and had him burned at the stake in 1415.

At the Cadaver Synod of 897, Pope Stephen VI put the exhumed corpse of which predecessor on trial?

Formosus: the synod cut off his blessing fingers and his body ended up in the Tiber, but within months Stephen VI was strangled.

The legend of Pope Joan says she was unmasked as a woman when she did what?

Gave birth: the tale was believed for centuries, until Catholic and Protestant scholars alike concluded the popess never existed.

The hermit Pietro da Morrone became Celestine V in 1294 and did what after five months?

Abdicated: his successor Boniface VIII then kept him in custody so rivals couldn't use him, until he died in 1296.

Alexander VI, whose reign made his family name a byword for nepotism, was born into which family?

The Borgias: he openly used his office to back the military career of his son, Cesare Borgia.

Which 'Warrior Pope' commissioned Michelangelo's Moses for his own tomb?

Julius II: he rode at the head of his own army, personally leading campaigns to win back papal cities.

Which pope launched the First Crusade with his preaching at the Council of Clermont in 1095?

Urban II: he had been elected at Terracina, south of Rome, because a rival antipope held the city.

The calendar used by most of the world today is named after which pope, who introduced it in 1582?

Gregory XIII: to correct a ten-day drift against the seasons, his reform simply dropped ten days from the calendar in 1582.

As of 2025, Nicholas Breakspear, elected Adrian IV in 1154, is the only pope from which country?

England: when he met Frederick Barbarossa in 1155, the future emperor at first refused to hold the pope's stirrup, a customary act of homage.

Who did Mercurius become in 533 when he began the custom of popes taking a new name?

John II: Mercurius felt a pope shouldn't bear the name of the pagan god Mercury, so he chose a more fitting one.

Which invader withdrew from Italy in 452 after meeting Pope Leo the Great?

Attila: the pope met him near Mantua with two imperial envoys, though historians debate how much Leo's own authority counted.

What nickname did John Paul I earn in his 33 days as pope?

Smiling Pope: as Patriarch of Venice he had written whimsical letters to historical and literary figures, collected as Illustrissimi.

Adrian VI, elected in 1522, was the last non-Italian pope for centuries; which present-day country was he from?

Netherlands: born in Utrecht, he kept his own name as pope and set out to reform a court that thrived on corruption.

Which pope, the last to be crowned, laid his papal tiara on the altar as a gift for the poor?

Paul VI: the tiara was sold rather than kept, and it now sits in the National Shrine in Washington, DC.

Benedict XVI, born Joseph Ratzinger, came from which German region?

Bavaria: he chose his papal name to echo Benedict XV, who steered the Church through the turmoil of World War I.

When Benedict XVI resigned in 2013, he became the first pope to do so since which predecessor?

Gregory XII: he gave up the papacy to help end the Western Schism, and all the cardinals he had created were allowed to keep their rank.

Francis, elected in 2013, was the first pope born outside Europe in centuries; which country was he from?

Argentina: he took the name Francis after a fellow cardinal hugged him during the vote and told him not to forget the poor.

Leo XIV, elected on 8 May 2025, was born Robert Francis Prevost in which US city?

Chicago: the Cubs were first reported to be his team, until his brother set the record straight: it's the South Side's Sox.

Before becoming Pope Leo XIV, Prevost was a missionary and bishop of Chiclayo in which country?

Peru: Francis later brought him back to Rome to lead the Dicastery for Bishops, the post he held when he was elected.

Leo XIV chose his name partly to echo Leo XIII and as a response to what modern challenge?

Artificial intelligence: he told the cardinals it poses new challenges for human dignity, justice and labour, as industrialisation did in Leo XIII's day.

As of 2025, which country has the world's largest Catholic population?

Brazil: yet the Catholic share of Brazilians fell from about three-quarters in 2000 to about two-thirds in 2010.

The word 'see', as in Holy See, comes from the Latin for what?

Seat: a bishop's seat, or cathedra, also gave its name to the cathedral, the church that houses it.

The earliest recorded use of the title 'pope' referred to a patriarch of which city, not Rome?

Alexandria: its church split after 451, and both the Coptic and Greek Orthodox lines of patriarchs kept the title of pope.

The papal title 'pontiff' comes from the Latin pontifex, usually explained as meaning what?

Bridge builder: the title first belonged to pagan Rome's high priests, and only much later passed to the pope.

What is the chamber called where a newly elected pope first changes into his papal cassock?

The Room of Tears: it's named for the tears many new popes have shed there, and cassocks in three sizes wait inside.

Which pope discontinued the sedia gestatoria, the portable throne carried by twelve footmen?

John Paul II: his predecessor John Paul I had wanted to scrap the throne too, but officials persuaded him that crowds needed to see him.

Pope Pius V's Holy League won a famous naval battle at Lepanto in 1571 against which power?

The Ottoman Empire: Pius V is said to have sensed the victory at a window in Rome, before any news of it had arrived.

Pope Francis chose to be buried not in St Peter's but in which Roman basilica?

Santa Maria Maggiore: he stopped to pray before its icon of Mary at the start and end of every trip abroad, and chose a niche beside its chapel.

Karol Wojtyła, elected in 1978 as the first non-Italian pope in 455 years, came from which country?

Poland's Archbishop of Kraków was 58 when the cardinals chose him, and he went on to become the third longest-serving pope in history.

Since 1506, the pope's bodyguards in striped Renaissance-style uniforms have been recruited from which country?

Switzerland supplies every recruit to the Swiss Guard, often called the world's smallest army; guards still carry halberds on ceremonial duty.

What kind of exotic pet, named Hanno, did King Manuel I give Pope Leo X as a coronation gift?

An elephant, Hanno reached Rome in 1514 and quickly became the pope's favourite animal; when it died in 1516, Leo X composed the epitaph himself.

Which unlikely job did the young Jorge Bergoglio hold before entering the priesthood and later becoming Pope Francis?

Bouncer was one of his early jobs, along with janitor; he also qualified as a chemical technician and spent several years in a food laboratory.

According to a popular legend, which drink did Pope Clement VIII taste and approve after advisers called it Satan's?

Coffee, the story goes, won him over at the first sip, and he is said to have blessed it rather than leave so good a drink to non-Christians.

Pope Pius VII travelled to Paris in 1804 only to watch which ruler place the crown on his own head?

Napoleon crowned himself at Notre-Dame and then crowned his kneeling wife Josephine, while the pope was left to recite the blessing.

Which astronomer, condemned by the Roman Inquisition in 1633, did a pope finally admit in 1992 had been wronged?

Galileo Galilei lived out his days under house arrest for teaching that the Earth moves round the Sun; the Church conceded its error 359 years later.

Opened under Pope Pius XI in the 1930s, the world's shortest national network of what lies inside Vatican City?

Railways in Vatican City amount to a single station and 300 metres of track, and no pope actually rode the line until 1962.

Pope Leo III placed an imperial crown on which Frankish king's head on Christmas Day in the year 800?

Charlemagne, his biographer Einhard wrote, had no idea the crown was coming and would have stayed out of the church that day had he known.

In December 2012, Benedict XVI began posting under the handle @Pontifex on which social media platform?

Twitter carried the account's first message on 12 December 2012, a short greeting and blessing; the posts were archived on the day he retired.

Jorge Bergoglio chose the papal name Francis in 2013 to honour the saint of which Italian hill town?

Assisi's Saint Francis was his model; the new pope told journalists he took the name because he was especially concerned for the well-being of the poor.

Which pair of objects on the Vatican City flag recalls Christ's promise to Saint Peter in Matthew's Gospel?

Crossed keys of gold and silver gave the flag its two colours, and they sit beneath a papal tiara in the emblem of the Holy See.

Modifying a bull of Pope Alexander VI, the Treaty of Tordesillas split new lands between Castile and which kingdom?

Portugal gained everything east of a line 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde islands, a far better deal than the pope's line of the year before.

Which Tudor queen did Pope Pius V excommunicate in 1570 with the bull Regnans in Excelsis?

Elizabeth I was declared a heretic and her subjects were released from their allegiance, a year after Catholic nobles failed to depose her in the Rising of the North.

Popes Leo X and Clement VII were cousins from which wealthy Italian banking dynasty of the Renaissance?

The Medici pair were first cousins: Leo X was a son of Lorenzo the Magnificent, and Clement VII the son of Lorenzo's murdered brother Giuliano.

The sale of what, promoted under Pope Leo X to pay for St Peter's Basilica, helped trigger the Reformation?

Indulgences were granted to those who donated towards the new basilica, a practice soon challenged by a German friar in his 95 Theses.

Since 2002, Vatican City has issued its own coins, sought after by collectors, in which currency?

The euro is official there although the Vatican sits outside the eurozone; its first coin sets went only to collectors and fetched over a thousand euros.

Which Italian leader signed the 1929 pacts with the Holy See that created Vatican City as a sovereign state?

Benito Mussolini, acting for King Victor Emmanuel III, settled the 'Roman question' that had set the papacy against the Italian state for nearly sixty years.

Which crusading military order did Pope Clement V disband in 1312 under pressure from the king of France?

The Knights Templar were dissolved at the Council of Vienne, and most of their assets were handed to their rivals, the Hospitallers.

The mutual excommunications of 1054 between Rome and Constantinople split the papacy from which Christian communion?

Eastern Orthodox and Catholic leaders did not cancel the anathemas of 1054 until 1965, and even that goodwill gesture left the two churches separate.

Which painter and his workshop frescoed the papal apartments known as the Stanze, home to The School of Athens?

Raphael died in 1520 with the suite unfinished, so three of his assistants had to complete the last of the rooms without him.

Which actor earned an Oscar nomination for playing Benedict XVI in the 2019 film The Two Popes?

Anthony Hopkins played opposite Jonathan Pryce as the future Pope Francis; both men and the screenwriter were nominated at the Academy Awards.

Which actor played Lenny Belardo, the fictional American pontiff Pius XIII, in the television series The Young Pope?

Jude Law starred opposite Diane Keaton, who played Sister Mary, the nun who had raised his character in an orphanage.

What title did Benedict XVI choose to be known by after stepping down in 2013 until his death in 2022?

Pope emeritus was the title he held for almost ten years, spent in retirement at a renovated monastery in the Vatican Gardens.

Benedict XVI revived the traditional papal outdoor shoes, wrongly rumoured to be Prada, in which colour?

Red leather shoes had fallen out of use under his predecessor; the Vatican said his pair came from his personal shoemaker, not a fashion house.

What name is given to a papal letter setting out the Church's view on a topic, such as Rerum novarum in 1891?

Encyclical comes from the Greek for 'circular', because such letters were originally sent round all the churches of a region.

What name is given to a rival claimant to the papacy, such as Hippolytus of Rome in the third century?

Antipope is the label for such rivals; Hippolytus, usually counted the earliest, was later reconciled with Rome and is honoured as a saint.

Which pope, fondly called the Good Pope, surprised those expecting a caretaker by calling a great council in 1959?

John XXIII was 76 at his election and presumed a stop-gap, yet within three months he announced the council, which ran from 1962 to 1965 and outlived him.

What is the Latin name of the papal address and blessing given at Christmas, at Easter and after a pope's election?

Urbi et Orbi means 'to the city and to the world', the city being Rome, and it is the most solemn form of blessing in the Catholic Church.

Which composer did Benedict XVI name as his favourite, singling out the Clarinet Concerto and Clarinet Quintet?

Mozart's music, he said, was no mere entertainment but contained the whole tragedy of human existence, and it had moved him deeply since his youth.

Which Baroque sculptor and architect designed the vast colonnades that embrace St Peter's Square in Rome?

Bernini made the colonnades four columns deep, so that they would embrace visitors in what he called the maternal arms of Mother Church.

What is the small skullcap worn by popes and bishops called, a name owed to its likeness to half a pumpkin?

Zucchetto caps are traditionally lined with thin chamois leather, which insulates the head and helps the little dome keep its shape.

Which Marian dogma did a pope define in 1950, the only infallible statement since infallibility was ruled on in 1870?

The Assumption holds that Mary was taken body and soul into heavenly glory at the end of her earthly life; it built on the 1854 dogma of her Immaculate Conception.

Which normally sealed entrance to St Peter's Basilica does the pope ceremonially open to begin a jubilee year?

The Holy Door is sealed with mortar and cement from the inside between jubilees, and pilgrims walk through it while the holy year lasts.

Leo XIII, the first pope to have his voice recorded, was also the first to appear in which other new medium?

A motion picture shot by the inventor William Dickson in 1898 shows the elderly pope blessing the camera while it films him.

Which radio pioneer personally set up the Vatican's own broadcasting station for Pope Pius XI in 1931?

Guglielmo Marconi, a Nobel laureate for his work on wireless telegraphy, built Vatican Radio just two years after the city became a state.

The Vatican Observatory runs a research telescope on Mount Graham in which American state?

Arizona hosts the Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope, which the pope's astronomers operate in partnership with the state's university.

Which northern Italian city hosted the council that Pope Paul III opened in 1545 to answer the Reformation?

Trent's council met on and off for eighteen years, with sessions under three different popes; an earlier plan to gather in Mantua had come to nothing.

Outside which Italian castle did Emperor Henry IV wait three days in 1077 for Pope Gregory VII's absolution?

Canossa belonged to Matilda of Tuscany, the pope's host; contemporary accounts have the excommunicated emperor on his knees at its gate while a blizzard raged.

The formal papal decree known as a bull takes its name from the bulla, which is what kind of object?

A lead seal hung from each decree to prove it genuine, stamped with the heads of Saints Peter and Paul on one side and the pope's name on the other.

Which powerful medieval pope approved the first Franciscan friars in 1209 and used interdicts to make princes obey?

Innocent III had doubts about the ragged brothers until, the story goes, he dreamed of their leader holding up a collapsing basilica.

Which Italian mystic, later named a patron saint of Italy, pressed Pope Gregory XI to return the papal court to Rome?

Catherine of Siena, a cloth dyer's daughter, kept up a long correspondence with the pope, also urging him to reform the clergy, before his move in 1376.

Which Roman emperor was falsely said, in a forged decree exposed by Lorenzo Valla, to have handed the pope the West?

Constantine's supposed gift was doubted as early as 1001, but it took Valla's close reading of its Latin, around 1440, to prove the fraud.

What title is held by the pope's ambassador to a state, who in Catholic countries often outranks other envoys?

Nuncio comes from the Latin for a messenger; under the 1961 Vienna Convention he is an ambassador like those of any other country.

Before the doors are locked at a conclave, an official calls out 'Extra omnes'; what does the order mean?

Everyone out is the sense of the Latin, literally 'outside, all of you', and it sends away all but the cardinal electors and a few officials.

According to tradition, who followed Saint Peter as the second bishop of Rome, a man named in Second Timothy?

Linus appears in the letter's closing greetings from Rome, and the early Church writer Irenaeus identified the pope with that same man.

Which pope of the year 1000, born Gerbert of Aurillac, was a scholar who brought the abacus back to western Europe?

Sylvester II had studied Moorish and Greco-Roman mathematics and astronomy, and he also revived the armillary sphere and the water organ.

Pope Francis's 2015 letter Laudato si', which criticises consumerism, is chiefly a call to action on which issue?

The environment is its theme: the letter laments ecological damage and global warming and calls on all people for swift and unified global action.

Which scholar did Pope Damasus I support in producing the Latin Bible translation known as the Vulgate?

Jerome began in Rome by revising the old Latin Gospels from Greek manuscripts, but was forced out of the city soon after his patron died in 384.

In which Roman landmark did Pope Clement VII take refuge when mutinous imperial troops sacked the city in 1527?

Castel Sant'Angelo was reached along the Passetto di Borgo, an elevated passage from the Vatican, and the pope stayed shut inside until a ransom was paid.