46 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.