Derived from the Italian word papa, "father," the term pope was originally used in the early years of Christianity as an honourific for any bishop. Over the years, however, the term came to apply exclusively to the head of the church in Rome as that church began increasingly to assert her influence and domination over others, esp., in the western European hemisphere. To date (2021) there have been 266 popes, of whom 42 have been martyred. Italians head the list with 209, France with 16, and only 1 from South America, the current pope, Pope Francis, from Argentina (on a continent with the largest population of Roman Catholics anywhere1.
Among evangelicals, popes do not have much standing room, certainly muted applause (the present Pope, Francis, deserves applause, I think). Our attitudes towards them are, no doubt, coloured by our Reformation heritage, deemed to be the Antichrist by many of our most beloved reformed and puritan heroes. This view is, of course, a view through a broken mirror, though the papacy has given more than enough reasons for it. As the Church in Rome gained in influence the popes reached for power, and few stories in human history elsewhere can compete with them in greed, sham, ostentation, and impiety, especially when we are dealing with the popes who stood in the background of the Reformation. Is it surprising that the bastard son of Pope Alexander VI (of the infamous Borgia family)—made a cardinal while he was just a child, and then kept in power, it is said, by the bodies of his enemies dumped into the River Tiber everynight—should become the model for Machchiaveli's The Prince? Despite the attempts at reforms, the papacy has developed a structure itself, with its umteen invisible layers of power and influence, makes such reforms near impossible.
On the Catholic claim to Peter as the first pope of Rome, see Peter
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Further Reading & Resources:
Robert Draper, "Will the Pope Change the Vatican? Or Will the Vatican Change the Pope?" National Geographic August 2015, provides a heart-warming peek into the current pope, Francis.
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