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| - There is no official list of popes, but the Annuario Pontificio, published every year by the Vatican, contains a list that is generally considered to be the most authoritative. It is provided here. The Annuario Pontificio lists Benedict XVI, the current pope as of this writing, as the 265th pope of Rome. In 2001 a rigorous study was made by the Catholic Church into the history of the papacy. Based on that research, in 2008 there have been 265 Popes and 267 pontificates. The difference can be accounted for by the fact that Benedict IX reigned three different times between 1032 and 1048. __TOC__
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| abstract
| - There is no official list of popes, but the Annuario Pontificio, published every year by the Vatican, contains a list that is generally considered to be the most authoritative. It is provided here. The Annuario Pontificio lists Benedict XVI, the current pope as of this writing, as the 265th pope of Rome. In 2001 a rigorous study was made by the Catholic Church into the history of the papacy. Based on that research, in 2008 there have been 265 Popes and 267 pontificates. The difference can be accounted for by the fact that Benedict IX reigned three different times between 1032 and 1048. The history of the Papacy's temporal role can be divided into three major time periods: the early church, the Middle Ages, and the modern era. During the Early Church, the Pope had no temporal power and served only as the bishop of the Christian church in Rome. Even in that spiritual role, it was contested whether the patriarchs of the other churches were subordinate to the bishop of Rome. The second major time period runs roughly from the 4th Century until the Kingdom of Italy seized Church lands in 1870. The Middle Ages saw the papacy reach its height of power, consolidating and unifying the churches of Western Europe, and expanding its territories, known as the Papal States. However, it also witnessed the Great Schism, which permanently divided the Church, East and West, Byzantine and Catholic, and then again, the Protestant Reformation, which directly challenged the authority of the papacy. At the end of this time period, the Papal states were taken away from the Vatican. The Modern Era begins with the decline of the Pope's temporal power in the 19th century to the present day. During this period, the Papacy has focused on its role as the spiritual head of the Catholic Church. __TOC__ Catholics recognize the Pope as a successor to Saint Peter, whom, according to the Bible, Jesus named as the "shepherd" and "rock" of the Church. Although Peter never bore the title of "Pope", which came into use much later, Catholics recognize him as the first Pope, while official declarations of the Church speak of the Popes as holding within the college of the Bishops a position analogous to that held by Peter within the college of the Apostles, of which the college of the Bishops, a distinct entity, is the successor. The study of the New Testament offers "no proof that Peter was regarded as the first bishop of Rome", but it does "offer some foundation for both papacy and infallibility" as well as "some divine foundation for the Petrine function". Some historians argue that the notion that Peter was the first bishop of Rome and founded the Christian church there can be traced back no earlier than the third century. However the writings of the Church Father Irenaeus who wrote around 180 AD clearly indicate a belief that Peter "founded and organised" the Church at Rome. Since the Reformation, the question of the origins of the papacy has been vital to all Christian churches. Some Protestant theologians stated that Peter was never in Rome, a view taken most prominently by Ferdinand Christian Baur and the Tübingen School. According to Baur, the Roman life and death of Peter was a politically motivated invention. Others, like Dressel in 1872, stated that Peter was in fact buried in Alexandria, Egypt or in Antioch. Today, those views are not expressed anymore. The traditional Catholic view is now generally accepted, that Peter actually lived and died in Rome. As Lutheran Adolf Harnack stated, "Tendentious-Protestant and tendentious-critical prejudice questioned the martyrdom of Peter in Rome. Both errors led to the truth."
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