Two Mailennia and Counting

 

   One of my New Year's resolutions is to memorize the names and dates of all the popes. Starting with St. Peter (30-33/64-68 A.D.) down to Francis I, there have been 266 of them. And that's not counting the disputed and anti-popes of which there are not a few. It would be shirking my duty not to memorize these chaps too.

   The point of getting the list down is to have a mental pegboard to hang European history on. Also, I relish all the fascinating tidbits in there. Take the Roman priest Mercurius who became pope on this day in 533. He took the name Pope John II. What's interesting about him is that he's the first pope to take a name another than his own. He felt Mercurius would put people in mind of the god Mercury.  Up till Mercurius, popes had simply used their own names. St. Peter of course I'd expect. Should the second pope, St. Linus, have named himself Pope Peter II? If that tradition had taken hold, Pope Francis would be Pope Peter CCLXVI.

   To put things in perspective, John II was the 56th pope. His innovation of taking a different name did not catch on for five more popes until Pope John III came along 26 years later. Back in the first days of the papacy, you automatically became a saint just by being  pope. The first 35 popes are all saints, until we reach Pope Liberius (352-366). Liberius had not gotten along with the Roman emperor of the day, which probably spoiled his chances for sainthood.

   Of the following 19 popes up to John II, 17 were named saints. After John, the likelihood of being named a saint became more chancy. Of the next 83 popes until the turn of the millennium in 1001, only 21 became saints.  Of the entire gamut of 266 popes, 83 have been canonized. 

   According to the Catholic Church, everyone who makes it to Heaven is a saint, but those who have lived lives of heroic Christian virtue are recognized by the Church as worthy of imitation. You would think that would include every pope, but in the second millennium the pope/saint combination got rarer. Things are picking up though. On April 27, 2014, two popes were named saints: John Paul II (264) and John XXIII (261).

   The process of naming a pope a saint has sped up lately. Since 1588 when the Vatican started a special office to look into a person's suitability for sainthood, the average wait time between death and canonization had been 181 years. That's for everyone, not just popes. For John Paul, it was just nine years. There used to be a 50 year waiting period from the time of death till a person could even be considered for sainthood. John Paul shortened that to five years and Francis waived the waiting period entirely for John Paul.

   Several previous popes stretching back to Prius IX (d. 1878, #257) are now in the process of canonization. People are always saying the Church needs to return to its roots. In the matter of making popes saints, the Church is wasting no time. Now readers, do you remember who the second pope was? It's a frequently asked question at trivia contests in bars and pubs.

What would St. Peter say? Or Linus?