A Brief, Meditative Church History

A Brief, Meditative Church History

Jesus Christ: the Kingdom and the Church

The Missionary Activity of the Apostles

Witnesses Amidst Persecution

The Great Persecution

Constantine: The Great Deliverance

After the Fall of Rome

The So-Called Dark Ages: 430-1027

The Middle Ages: 1000-1378

The Crusades: 1095-1272

The Inquisition: 1231-1800s

The Renaissance in the Church: 1300s-1650

The Age of Enlightenment: 1648-1848

The Modern Age: 1846-2025

List of the Church Councils

List of our 267 Popes

Jesus Christ: the Kingdom and the Church

Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was incarnate of the Virgin Mary through the power of the Holy Spirit. He lived a quiet, hidden life for thirty years. He toiled with His hands as a tekton, a worker in hard materials. Can you imagine a harder material than the human heart? He toils with us still today.

He spent three years spreading the Good News of the Kingdom: God is love and mercy for all of His children, and He invites us all to conversion and repentance. He healed the sick, the lame, the blind, the deaf, and the lepers, restoring them to the communion of the larger community. He restores us to communion with God through the blessed sacrament of Reconciliation.

He exorcised demons from many people. He showed His power over nature in several miracles: walking on water; rebuking the storm; feeding the multitude; and changing the water into wine. His power can move our nature as well, if we invite Him in and cooperate with His graces.

He brought several people back to life: the son of the widow of Nain; the daughter of Jairus, the synagogue official; and His friend Lazarus. Not to mention rising from the dead Himself! He brings us back to life, too, when we are dead in our sin.

He suffered and died for us, opening the Gates of Heaven which had been closed by Original Sin. Thanks to His sacrifice, we have the possibility – the opportunity – to spend eternity with God after our earthly life is ended. His death gives us life. What a wonderful God!

Before He ascended into Heaven, He chose His apostle Simon Peter as the first pope of His Church. Peter was not perfect, but he was chosen. God does not choose the perfect to lead the imperfect, but He chooses the imperfect and perfects them – with their cooperation. God is a gentleman and will not force anyone to change. He offers love and awaits our response. Choose wisely!

The Missionary Activity of the Apostles

The Eleven, and then the Twelve once Matthias was elected in Judas’ place, fanned out and spread the Good News, as Jesus tasked them to do (Matt 28:19). Matthias suffered martyrdom in Colchis, where he was beheaded.

James, the “brother” of the Lord, named “James the Just,” was the first bishop of Jerusalem. He was martyred by being thrown down from the parapet of the Temple and beaten to death with a fuller’s club.[1] James the brother of John was beheaded by King Herod Agrippa (Acts 12:2). We have not yet had to love Jesus to the point of shedding blood. Would we, if we were called to martyrdom?

Thomas spread the word to Edessa and was speared to death in India. Philip, ordained as a deacon, spread the word to the Ethiopian eunuch, who brought the Faith back to that land. Matthew preached in Ethiopia and was martyred there by the sword. Philip was martyred in Hierapolis. Bartholomew was flayed alive in Armenia.

Simon the Zealot died a martyr’s death in Persia; he was sawn in half. Jude Thaddeus also went to Persia and was beaten to death by clubs. Andrew spread the Good News in Greece and was crucified there.

John went to Ephesus with the Virgin Mary, and he was later exiled to the Island of Patmos, where he received the Revelations. He died a natural death back in Ephesus.

Peter baptized the household of Cornelius in Caesarea and later founded the church in Rome. He was crucified there upside down.

Barnabas and Paul preached to the people in Antioch, where the word Christian was first used. Paul established many churches, of course: in Colossae, Corinth, Ephesus, Galatia, Philippi, and Thessalonica. These are regions in Asia Minor, Greece, and Macedonia. Paul founded churches in many cities in these regions. Paul was beheaded in Rome.

Witnesses Amidst Persecution

Nero (54-68 AD) blamed his fire on the early Christians and persecuted them cruelly. He fed them to the wild beasts and used their bodies as living torches. Vespasian (69-79 AD) oppressed the Jews and his successor, Domitian (81-96 AD), tormented the early Catholics. He “put to death without trial great numbers of men at Rome.”[2] He banished many, including the apostle John (to Patmos) and the wife or niece of a Roman consul who confessed Christ. Domitian’s successor Nerva (96-98 AD) annulled the persecution of Christians and returned those who had been banished. John thus died of natural causes in Ephesus. Trajan (98-117 AD) maltreated the Catholics sporadically, reacting to local riots. He ruled that they were not to be hunted, but were to be put to death if they were found out or professed Christ publicly.

Emperors through the ages victimized the Catholics, feeding them to the wild beasts, setting them in combat against gladiators, imprisoning and torturing them. St. Ignatius of Antioch was thrown to the lions under Emperor Trajan about 110 AD. Ignatius declared himself to be the “wheat of God to be ground by the teeth of the beasts.” How focused he was on the prize of eternity with God!

Saint Polycarp of Smyrna was martyred in 156 under Emperor Antoninus Pius (138-161 AD), who urged him to “curse Christ” in view of his advanced age. Polycarp replied, “For 86 years I have been His servant, and He has never done me wrong. How can I blaspheme my King who saved me?” They attempted to burn him at the stake, but the flames fanned out from his body. They then dispatched him with the sword. Polycarp’s disciples were denied access to his body to bury him, “lest they abandon the One crucified and start worshiping this man.”[3] His dead body was burned; the disciples gathered up his bones for burial.

Saint Justin Martyr, an eminently educated man, converted to Christianity by a chance encounter with a Christian on the seashore. He spent his life teaching, preaching, and refuting heresies in his many tracts. He was flogged and beheaded in 165 under Emperor Marcus Aurelius (161-180 AD). 

Bishop Dionysus of Corinth issued a decree (171 AD) that those who had lapsed under torment should be welcomed back into the Church. This was a matter of some dispute. You could “lapse” by purchasing a fraudulent “bill” (libelli) which stated that you had sacrificed to the gods (these people were known as the libellatici), or you could “lapse” by denying Christ (these people were called lapsi). There arose debate among the faithful as to whether or not the lapsi could be readmitted to the Church, as they were manifest public apostates. Would you readmit them to Communion?

A terrible persecution arose in Gaul, in Vienne and Lyons, in 177. Christians were at first excluded from public life: homes, baths, and marketplaces. They were then tortured on the rack, in stocks “to the fifth hole”[4], by stoning, whipped, imprisoned, fed to the wild beasts, forced to combat gladiators, roasted on an iron chair, burned with red-hot plates, and by strangulation. Some were beheaded. Their bodies were denied burial, set out for six days to be insulted and mocked. They were then burned to ash and swept into the Rhone River to erase all trace of them from the earth.

Some Catholics were known as “confessors.” These people were imprisoned and tortured with burns and wounds in an attempt to get them to deny Christ. Instead they confessed Him. They were released, only to be imprisoned and tortured again.

Saints Perpetua and Felicity were martyred in 203 AD under Emperor Septimius Severus (193-211 AD), dying bravely and in a spiritual ecstasy even though Felicity had just given birth in prison and Perpetua had a nursing child she left behind. These brave, God-fearing women are great examples to us of leaving the world and its allurements behind for the sake of the Kingdom.

A particularly cruel persecution arose in Alexandria, Egypt, between 202-210 AD. Some Christians were suffocated to death in the catacombs where they met. Catholics were beaten or stoned to death in public massacres and mob riots. People were murdered with boiling tar or burned alive. Some were “drawn” – dragged over the rough stone streets; others were destroyed by quicklime. So many Christians died then that this is called the Martyrdom Era.

Catholics suffered in the Great Persecution in the late Third and early Fourth Century under Diocletian and Maximian (284-304 AD). Especially after the severe torture under Domitian and Maximian, people lapsed in their faith in different ways. You had the lapsi and the libellatici, but you could also lapse by burning incense to the gods (called thurificati) or by bringing a sacrifice to the gods (called sacrificati). It is obvious that some people buckled under the weight of the persecution more than others did.

In 256, Pionius was tortured, nailed, and burned, he who was bold in his faith and who encouraged others so earnestly to remain steadfast in their faith. Many of the bishops exhorted their flocks to cling to Christ and to suffer whatever maltreatment came to them. These bishops also wrote many letters refuting the errors of the heretics who arose during these persecutions. One of these bishops was Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons in 177, the time and place of that terrible torture. The Tradition of the Faith was kept alive by these brave, bold successors of the Apostles.

Bishops and other educated Christians wrote against the heresies of their days: Gnosticism (dualistic: matter is bad, only the spirit is good. Some portrayed God as eightfold!); Marcionism (which rejected the Old Testament and the “angry” God of the OT); and Montanism of the ecstatic glossolalia (falling into a trance and babbling nonsense). Although the Montanists were excommunicated, their heresy persisted until the Sixth Century, when they locked themselves into churches and set them ablaze.

The Great Persecution

On February 24, 303, an edict was published which announced the Great Persecution of the Christians. This empire-wide torment endured ten long years under four emperors: Diocletian (East,284-305); Maximian (West,286-305); Galerius (East,305-311); and Maxentius (West,306-312).

This Great Persecution began in the army, where men were stripped of their rank and evicted from the army if they refused to deny Christ. It soon spread to the clergy, where so many bishops, priests, deacons, and exorcists were imprisoned that there was no room left for criminals! Churches were demolished and Scriptures were burned as Easter approached.

The laity were the next to suffer, and suffer they did: hoisted up naked and lashed with whips; then salt and vinegar poured into their open wounds; then exposed to a lit brazier, little by little, to extend their torture. One entire Catholic town in Phrygia was surrounded by the army and set alight, burning alive all of the townspeople. Catholics were strangled, beheaded, butchered by the sword or the axe, mutilated by constant torture; flogged and then cast to man-eating beasts which had been goaded with hot irons to attack them. They were scraped, racked, burned at the stake, drowned, and crucified, sometimes head downwards so that they died more slowly of hunger than by asphyxiation.

Some were torn to shreds by broken potsherds or tied to two trees, to be torn apart when the trees’ bent branches returned to their original position. This torture could go on for days until their broken bodies finally succumbed to death. Some were suspended by one hand from a column or pillar; others were lashed to pillars, with feet not touching the ground, whipped and scourged until the governor tired of seeing their torture. Christians had their eyes gouged out, molten lead poured down their bodies, or were roasted on hot gridirons. Some were suspended over slow fires head-downward so that they suffocated from the smoke. Others were placed in the stocks and tortured while they lay there helplessly. They truly took Jesus’ words to heart: “He who denies me before men, I will deny before my Father.” (Matt 10:33) As they refused to sacrifice, they heeded the First Commandment: “You shall have no other gods before Me.” Think of how much they loved God, more than they loved their own life. They truly followed in Jesus’ footsteps; they were true disciples of the Lord.

Constantine: The Great Deliverance

Shortly after the end of the Great Persecution, in 312, the Augustus of the West, Constantine, defeated the Caesar of the West, Maxentius, at the Milvian Bridge. Constantine had seen a vision of a Cross of light in the sky and had a dream that night: Jesus came to him and said, “In hoc signo vinces,” or “In this sign, conquer.” Constantine had this chi rho painted on the shields of his soldiers : the first two Greek letters of Christ’s Name. Maxentius had cut off the Milvian Bridge to prevent Constantine’s army from entering Rome, and he had built a bridge of boats to meet Constantine’s army in the Tiber. The ferocity of Constantine’s attack so alarmed Maxentius’ army that they fled; the combined weight of them sank the bridge of boats and thousands drowned, including Maxentius.

The four emperors were now three: Constantine as Augustus in the West, Licinius as Augustus in the East, and Maximin as Caesar in the East. (An Augustus is the Emperor in his half of the Roman Empire and the Caesar is his hand-picked successor who rules a portion of the empire). Maximin, shocked at Constantine’s triumph, temporarily adopted Constantine’s edict of toleration of the Christians. He permitted them to worship, but not to construct houses of worship. He then began another cruel torment of the Catholics; Constantine confronted him victoriously and stopped the persecution. The four emperors were now two, a diarchy: Constantine in the West and Licinius in the East, the two Augusti. These two were allies and agreed on the edict of toleration of the Catholics, even returning property which had been seized and given to pagans. Constantine donated generously to the Church and to the clergy. Licinius, after eleven years, started worshipping in the Sol Invictus cult and began again oppressing the Christians. Constantine beset him and bested him, banishing him to Thessalonica, executing him a year later as a rebel. Constantine was now sole ruler of the united Roman Empire until his death in 337.

In the year 313, there were four great patriarchal “sees” – a “see” is the seat of a bishop: Rome, Antioch, Jerusalem, and Alexandria. When the imperial capital moved to Constantinople in 330, however, that “see” grew in importance. The Greek-speakers were cleft from the Latin-speakers; in 395, the empire officially divided into East and West. The Church was affected by this divide; it came to a head in 381 at the Council of Constantinople, which declared that Constantinople was “the new Rome.” The bishops of Constantinople were second in importance only to the Pope in Rome. Great saints came from the East, such as St. Gregory Nazianzus (329-390) and St. John Chrysostom (birth year is unknown; he died in 407).

This division between East and West grew into the Acacian Schism of 484-519. The patriarch of Constantinople, Acacius, drew up an edict called the “Henotikon” which attempted to reconcile the Church with the heresy of Monophysitism, which taught that Jesus had only one Nature. Acacius was excommunicated, as were those who held to the heresy. The schism outlived Acacius, who died in 489, and continued until Byzantine Emperor Justin I (518-527) reconciled with Pope Hormisdas in the year 519.

At the Synod of Rome, 382, the canon of the Bible was drawn up: 73 canonical books were recognized. The criteria the bishops used were: (1) the book can be traced back to the Apostolic Age; (2) the book was widely used by the early Church; and (3) the book did not contain anything heretical or contrary to Church teaching. This canon of 73 books was reaffirmed at the Synod of Hippo in 393; the Councils of Carthage in the 3rd, 4th, and 5th centuries; and at the Council of Trent between  1545 and 1563. The Catholic Church thus decided the canon of Scripture; the Protestants have deleted certain books of the Old Testament which were part of the Septuagint, the Greek Bible, but not part of the Hebrew Scriptures. Jesus quoted from the Septuagint, so the Catholic Church drew from that translation of the Scriptures.

After the Fall of Rome

St. Augustine composed the City of God after the barbarians sacked Rome in 410; he died in 430. In 431, the Council of Ephesus condemned the heresy of Nestorianism, which taught that Jesus existed as two distinct persons, one human and one Divine. St. Patrick was sent on mission to Ireland in 431 and labored there until 493. By the time he died, almost all of Ireland had converted.[5]

Pope Leo the Great reigned as pope from 440-461. He wrote a letter to St. Flavian of Constantinople, known as the “Tome of Leo.” In it, he refuted the heresy of Monophysitism. He presided over the Council of Chalcedon in 451, where the truth of Jesus’ two natures in one Person was affirmed. As the Tome of Leo was read out, the gathered bishops exclaimed, “Peter has spoken through Leo!” In 452, Pope Leo rode out to meet Attila the Hun in person and brokered a peace. Attila withdrew his forces from Italy and died within a year.[6]

In 476, the last Western Roman emperor was deposed during the reign of Pope St. Simplicius (468-483). After the Fall of the Roman Empire, he took upon himself many of the secular duties that would normally be done by the emperor, such as the collecting taxes, maintenance of the aqueducts and roads, and defense against barbarians.[7] Popes found themselves embroiled in diplomatic negotiations as secular power was increasingly ceded to the Pope.

Roman language and law were nurtured by the Church, which retained the Latin language as a sign of unity throughout the universal Church. Roman law’s structure, vocabulary, and procedures influenced canon law, the laws by which the Church is governed.

The So-Called Dark Ages

St. Benedict of Nursia lived from 480-547. He is known for his “Rule of St. Benedict,” guidelines for monastic life. He coined the phrase “Ora et Labora,” meaning “pray and work.” Thanks to the monks in the monasteries and their scriptoria, Scripture and many works of antiquity were preserved.

In 496, Clovis, King of the Franks, converted to Catholicism and he forcibly converted the clans he conquered. People had the choice of the Cross or the Sword, and understandably, many chose the Cross. The Kingdom of the Franks – France – is known as the “Church’s Eldest Daughter,” being the first barbarian kingdom to convert.

In 529, the Second Council of Orange condemned Pelagianism, a belief against Original Sin and the need of grace for salvation. Its adherents believed that man was born in a state of natural goodness and did not need God’s grace to choose between good and evil.

In 549, the Fifth Council of Orleans permitted the King to choose the bishops of the land. In 589, Spanish nobles converted to Catholicism together, making Spain a Catholic country.

Pope Gregory the Great reigned from 590-604. He is known for Gregorian Chant and for his mission to England – he sent St. Augustine of Canterbury there. He was deeply involved in the spiritual formation of bishops, and his book, Liber Pastoralis Curae, continued to shaped the character of bishops long after his death.

In 632, Mohammed died. One hundred years later, Islamic armies had devoured half of Christendom. They were halted in France by Charles Martel, “The Hammer,” in 732. St. John of Damascus called Islam “the heresy of the Ishmaelites.”[8] The Church was slow to realize the threat Islam posed the Catholicism; it was thought of as just another heresy, one which would come and go.

The Lateran Council in the year 649 condemned the heresy of Monothelitism, which taught that Jesus had only one Will, the Divine Will. This takes away from His sacrifice in the Mount of Olives, when He declared, “Thy Will, not Mine, be done.” St. Maximus the Confessor and Pope Martin I battled together against this heresy.

In the year 723, the pope sent St. Boniface into Germany to found churches and to preach; he was martyred there in 754. In 726, the Byzantine emperor Leo III sent imperial troops around the empire to destroy or whitewash icons; this is known as “iconoclasm.” A general persecution of monasteries followed, as the monks were the creators and purveyors of icons. Monks who were vocal in their opposition to the imperial iconoclasm were martyred. Iconoclasm lasted until 775, when the Empress Irene came to power. She was an iconophile, a lover of icons. She summoned the Second Council of Nicaea in 787, where the Church’s teaching on the veneration of images was affirmed.

In 754, Pepin of the Franks rode to the defense of the pope from the Lombards and gave their lands to the pope, known as the “Donation of Pepin” or the Papal States. The pope was now ruler of a secular kingdom as well as the universal ruler of the Church. Pope Stephen crowned Pepin as King of the Franks – the first time a pope had coronated a king. Pepin ordered that his realm adopt the Roman liturgy as the only liturgy to be celebrated in France, as several local variations had been celebrated throughout the Frankish Kingdom. The Roman Rite prevailed across Europe wherever the Franks’ power extended.

Charlemagne reigned in the Kingdom of the Franks from 768-814. On Christmas Day in the year 800, he was crowned the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire because he protected the pope. He brought education to all of the people, laity and clergy, in the Frankish Kingdom, poor as well as rich, thanks to the influence of St. Alcuin. From 754 to 987, literature, art, architecture, and education flourished, a true Catholic Golden Age.

In the middle of the Ninth Century, pagan Vikings attacked northern France. Paris was attacked in 845 and 885. The kings of France were unable to expel the invaders, so they offered them a deal: be baptized and fight for the French king, and they would have  lands in northern France. These people became known as the Normans (“Northmen”) because they were in the north of France; the capital was Normandy. The Normans embraced Catholicism with great zeal, leading the Crusades (beginning in 1095). They built in the Gothic style of architecture.

The Photian Schism happened during the years 863-867. The “filioque” was the subject of dissent. This is the phrase of the Creed which says that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father “and the Son.” The Eastern Church believed that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father only. This filioque is still the subject of dissension today.

King Alfred the Great of England reigned from 871-899. He was a “Christian theocratic” king.[9] He modeled his kingship after Charlemagne, attempting to be a good and pious ruler, sincerely interested in the physical and spiritual wellbeing and education of his subjects. He presided over synods of bishops, actually baptized the King of the Danes after defeating him in battle, and believed that the good of the people depended upon the piety of the king. He founded churches and monasteries, ceding land to the bishops upon their acclamation of him as temporal lord. He never forgot that he himself was subject to our Heavenly Lord, so he did not abuse his power.

Other kings in the “Dark Ages” had the same power over land and the choosing of bishops; generally, they chose good, educated, holy men to be bishops, but not always. King Otto of the Franks took this power one step further and declared that he had the right to choose the pope! Pope John XII grudgingly agreed to this as a condition for the military assistance he needed. This was to prove an historical mistake. The antipope Anastasius was installed against the will of the clergy and the people at the papal conclave of 885; eventually the duly-elected pope, Pope Benedict III, was released from prison and ascended to the papal throne.

Another antipope, Stephen VI, dug up the corpse of the previous pope and put it on trial! This was known as the Cadaver Synod of 897. This was a period of the “Dark Ages” of the papacy. Pope Sergius III took a fifteen-year old mistress; their son became Pope John XI in 931; Pope John XII conferred lands upon his mistress and had several people murdered; and Pope Benedict IX gained the papacy through bribery and then resigned it to marry his mistress. Papal infallibility does not indicate a pope’s private life; it extends narrowly to his teaching the universal Church on faith and morals. A pope is not protected from error in his private judgments, unfortunately. These fallen popes do not detract from papal infallibility, although they are scandalous.

In 910, the Abbey of Cluny was founded by Duke William the Pious (of Aquitaine). The good works and graces flowing from Cluny would help to lift the miasma of the “Dark Ages of the Papacy.” He founded many monasteries around Aquitaine and freed them from the meddling of the laity. He said that they would be subject only to the pope, and even he could only govern them with their consent. The monastery at Cluny, especially, clung to the Rule of Benedict with precision and passion and thus flourished. These reformed monasteries in turn reformed other monasteries, until the Rule of Benedict was firmly established throughout the West. Rich liturgies, polyphony, contemplation, and silence became the norm in monasteries. Clerics were expected to be celibate, a discipline from earliest times in the Church. Clerics were called to be continent within marriage; that is, faithful to their wives. If unmarried, they were called to strict celibacy.

While the sacraments of Baptism, Eucharist, Matrimony, and Holy Orders has remain virtually unchanged since the Apostolic Age, the sacrament of Confession changed in the mid-900s from public to private confession. This is because more children were being baptized and were more likely to have occasions of sin for which they would need the sacrament. From the time of the Apostles, penitents would confess their sins publicly, and the public could weigh in on the apparent contrition of the penitent (“Yes, I have seen my neighbor fasting and praying,” or “No, he still goes to the pagan altars.”). The penitent would be assigned to an order of penitents dependent upon the gravity of the sin confessed.

The harshest order was the flentes, who had to sit outside the church and beg for the prayers of the churchgoers, typically for a year. Next up were the audientes, who were permitted to be just inside the church, standing up, to hear the Word of God, but they had to leave before the Liturgy of the Eucharist. Then there were the substrati, who were permitted to sit and kneel in church to hear the Word of God, but had to leave before the Liturgy of the Eucharist. Least of all the sinners was the order of consistentes, those who could be in the congregation, kneeling and sitting, and who could remain for the Liturgy of the Eucharist but could not receive Communion. A penitent would work his way up the orders until their penance was complete; then they would receive absolution. Not everyone began as a flente, but everyone had to work their way through each of the higher orders until they had satisfied the penance. One who began as a consistente could satisfy their penance in as little as a matter of months.

As the Middle Ages progressed, private confession began to replace public confession, as the Church realized that a person could go for years without receiving Holy Communion. The Irish missionaries spearheaded this change to private confession in the year 650.

Indulgences go back as far as the 200s. An indulgenced act could shave time off your years of doing penance in those four orders of penitents. I can easily imagine wanting to get “time off” my penance for doing an indulgenced act. Today, indulgences are seen as a way to grow in holiness and thus ameliorate your punishment in Purgatory, where our undue attachments are removed from us and we are taught how to love God alone above all things.

While the Church has always taught of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, in the Ninth and Eleventh Centuries, debate arose about the precise nature of this Real Presence: was it spiritual or carnal (physical)? The word “transubstantiation” was not yet in the Church’s vocabulary (it would appear in the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215), but the heresy of a merely spiritual Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist was soundly denounced in 1050, 1054, 1055, 1059, 1075, 1076, 1078, 1080, and 1095. Since the time of the Apostles, the Church has taught that Jesus is really, truly, and substantially Present in the Eucharist; these early controversies merely debated the manner of that Real Presence. The Church of the Eleventh Century was able to define the sacramentum tantum (sacramental sign) and the sacramentum et res (mystical reality) of the Eucharist.

The Middle Ages: 1000-1378

“Christendom” blossomed in what we call the Middle Ages, or the Medieval times. Christendom meant Christians in the temporal sphere, or the geographic area which was Christian, spiritually ruled by the pope. Medieval society was hierarchical and religious; it was rooted in agricultural work. The head of society was the king who was answerable to God and to His representatives, i.e., the pope, the bishop, and other clergy. The king was the overlord of many lords and had to manage them carefully or they would cease to serve him.

The king was pledged to protect his vassals from the invasions from Islamic, Magyar, and Viking warriors. He therefore often ceded land to powerful warriors and made them lords who would counterattack the invaders. Your word, your oath, was sacrosanct. Once a lord promised to protect his vassals, he was bound in honor to do so. Sometimes a nobleman owned the land upon which a monastery or church had been built; he was bound to defend and maintain that land. Society was stratified into “those who prayed; those who fought; and those who worked.”[10] It was possible for one who was born into the lowest strata of society to rise to a high position in the Church. Your faithfulness and ability mattered more than your parentage.

The Church and her sacraments permeated society. Although the serfs worked hard, society followed the Church calendar, so Sundays, Holy Days of Obligation, and saints’ feast days were free from work. Medieval life centered around the parish. The veneration of saints and relics was very popular. Magnificent cathedrals were constructed, with stained glass windows which served as wordless Bibles for the illiterate. Construction of the cathedrals was a social affair, as the peasants themselves dragged the stones to the site and brought food and supplies to the builders. As the Church’s wealth grew over time, greedy secular rulers plotted to confiscate Church property.

The Great Schism of 1054 separated East from West definitively. The Eastern Orthodox Church was distinct now from the Western Roman Church. This breach of communion was mainly due to the idea of papal power and infallibility and the filioque clause in the Creed. There were some other theological differences as well.

Pope Nicholas II (1058-1061) instituted the current method of electing a pope in 1059, that is, election by the College of Cardinals. This was a change from the meddling in the papal election by the laity and especially by the Holy Roman emperor.

Two saintly men undertook the reform of the Church and the clergy: St. Peter Damian (1007-1072) and Pope Leo IX (1002-1054).  St. Peter Damian urged the clergy to refrain from simony and to remain celibate. Pope Leo IX issued excommunications to clerics living publicly in violation of their vow of celibacy.

Pope Leo IX was taken prisoner by the Normans and held for nine months in 1053. In 1066, the Normans invaded England. William the Conqueror sought the approval of the pope before invading England, and he got it. He entered England with a papal banner and a ring containing a relic of St. Peter. He was crowned king on Christmas Day, 1066. Many Normans came and built castles in England to hold the land against other invaders. William changed the official language of the royal court to French, which remained that way for several centuries.

Pope St. Gregory VII (1020-1085) was actually just a deacon when he was elected pope. He had to first be ordained a priest, and then a month later, he was consecrated as the pope. He concentrated on rooting out simony and confirming the clergy in their celibacy. He also opposed the lay investiture of bishops. He firmly believed that only a bishop could ordain another bishop. This fight led to an attack on his person at Christmas Eve Mass and to his exile from Rome and subsequent death.

In the Eleventh Century, schools attached to cathedrals became the center of formal education. Males and females were encouraged to attend. There was no tuition, although wealthy families were expected to contribute something to the cathedral school. In the mid-Twelfth Century, universities were established at Paris and Bologna; they were responsible to the pope. Famous scholars such as St. Thomas Aquinas earned their doctorates from the University of Paris.

When Pope Clement IV died in 1268, the cardinals took almost three years to elect a successor. That’s right! There were three years without a pope. Pope Gregory X was elected in 1271. He instituted the “conclave,” meaning “with a key,” indicating that the cardinals would be locked in place until they elected a pope. They would meet within ten days of the pope’s death and would be restricted to one meal a day if there was no pope elected within three days. If they failed to elect a pope within five days after that, they were to be fed only bread and water. He reigned as pope until 1276, which was the year of four popes: Gregory X, Innocent V, Adrian V, and John XXI.

In March, 1309, Pope Clement V moved the papal throne to Avignon, France. For seventy years, the papal residence would be in France, absent from Rome. St. Catherine of Siena convinced Pope Gregory XI to return the papacy to Rome in 1377.

Pope Urban VI had such a terrible temper that his election as pope was declared null and void after just five months. They elected “Pope” Clement VII in what is now known as an anti-conclave (in 1378). Pope Urban VI excommunicated Clement VII, who fled to Avignon. The Great Western Schism had begun (1378-1417) as secular rulers backed either the pope or the anti-pope, and in the early Fifteenth Century, there were three claimants to the papal throne (but only one validly elected pope).

The Black Death swept across Europe in the Fourteenth Century, killing as much as 70 percent of the population in some places and an average of 50 percent of Europe’s total population. This naturally caused massive changes in society; most people’s thoughts turned to the end of the world, for it was, in essence, an end to their world. People sought solace in the Mass, in prayer, and in the sacraments. Clergy, who ministered to the people, lost 90 percent of their number in France, 40 percent over all of Europe.

Some saints during the Middle Ages: Pope St. Leo IX (1002-1054); St. Peter Damian (1007-1072), “Monitor of the Popes” and Doctor of the Church; St. Bruno of Cologne (1030-1101), founder of the Carthusian order; St. Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109); St. Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153); St. Thomas Becket (1118-1170); King St. Louis IX (1214-1270); St. Anthony of Padua (1195-1231); St. Francis of Assisi (1181-1226); St. Dominic (1170-1221); St. Raymond of Penafort (1175-1275); St. Bonaventure (1221-1274), Doctor of the Church; St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), “Angelic Doctor” of the Church; St. Bridget of Sweden (1303-1373) and her daughter St. Catherine of Sweden (1331-1381); St. Catherine of Siena (1347-1380), Doctor of the Church.

The Crusades

In the late 900s, an Islamic persecution of Christians and Jews was promulgated in the Holy Land, including the destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the burial place of Jesus. This church had been erected by Constantine. Its destruction shocked the world. It was rebuilt in 1049 and pilgrimages to the Holy Land continued despite the persecution.

This was far from the first persecution by Islam; that began in the 600s after the death of Mohammed and the spread of Islam. Everywhere it conquered, Islam pressured Christians and Jews to convert or pay a heavy tax and wear a special marker in public; they were second-class citizens afforded a small number of rights.

News spread throughout Christendom of a priest being stoned to death by Muslims during Mass, a massacre of pilgrims on Good Friday, the forcible removal of the faithful from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and the closure of the main pilgrimage road into the Holy Land.

The Islamic Turks invaded the Byzantine Empire and vanquished the land, taking the emperor as a prisoner in 1071. They marched across the Eastern empire, being victorious everywhere they went. The new Eastern emperor turned to the West for military assistance, sending ambassadors to the Pope Urban II in 1095.

The Crusades were thus a just response to the aggression of the Islamic warriors who were ruinously conquering Christendom in the Eastern empire. Soon the Turks would occupy Spain and spearhead into France. All of Christendom was at risk. The volunteers in the Crusades were armed penitents marching into the Holy Land, North Africa, and Spain at the request of the pope with the promise of a plenary indulgence as a reward for their sacrifices. The Crusades are spread over 700 years and became integral to Christian life. Some Crusades were fought against pagan tribes in the Baltics and one against a heretical Emperor, Frederick II, and the Albigensians, a Gnostic heretical group which heralded suicide as the answer to their belief that the body was bad and only the spirit was good. Six ecumenical councils planned for and encouraged the Crusades.

The cost of crusading was significant, estimated to be six to seven times the income of a knight. The men who took up arms sold or mortgaged their homes and landholdings. The decision to take up arms and march in a Crusade, therefore, was a penitential one. It involved blood, sweat, and money. One did not undertake a Crusade lightly. It was understood that one might not return from a Crusade. These men truly left all they had in the world to fight for Christendom. This does not make them all saints, but it does make them true disciples of Christ, leaving all behind to take up the Cross and follow Him.

The First Crusade was called by Pope Urban II in 1095 and set off in 1096 to the Holy Land. While the pope urged toleration and protection of the Jews, some warriors harassed the Jews for their wealth to fund the Crusade. This was especially true in the Rhineland, where Jews were massacred. The local bishops often interfered and protected the Jews, so the German warriors picked on only those towns without a resident bishop.

The Eastern emperor was shocked at the number of warriors who arrived in his capital city of Constantinople. He had requested assistance from the pope, and oh, boy, did he get it! He was afraid of the large contingent, afraid that they might turn against him or keep control of the lands they freed. He made the nobles take an oath of fidelity to him, which they did.

60,000 warriors began the campaign to restore Jerusalem to Christian and Jewish hands; by the time the Crusade neared the Holy City, three years later, only 12,000 remained. Many had fallen to famine and sword. Nevertheless, the Crusaders prevailed and liberated Jerusalem from Muslim hands. Many of the knights went immediately to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to offer prayers of thanksgiving and praise; some, however, pillaged the town, killing the remaining Muslim inhabitants.

Some Crusaders returned home after the successful liberation of Jerusalem, but some remained behind as a defensive force. One man had even brought his wife along on the Crusade because they intended to stay. They created a kingdom known as the Crusader States, a nearly 600-mile long territory including Edessa, Antioch, Jerusalem, and Tripoli. An incredible amount of manpower was needed to defend these borders, which the Crusading movement, being episodic, never enjoyed. Up rose the warrior monk, religious men who trained for battle to defend the Crusader States. Two of the main orders were the Knights Templar and the Knights Hospitaller. The Crusader States ended in the Thirteenth Century.

From 1147-1149, the Second Crusade was launched to protect Edessa from Muslim incursions. 6,000 men, women, and children were massacred in Edessa, whereby Pope Eugenius III called for the Second Crusade. St. Bernard of Clairvaux championed the call for the Crusade and many responded to his call. This Crusade was an unmitigated disaster, however, with thousands of Crusaders killed in battle and Edessa not being liberated.

In June, 1187, Saladin attacked Jerusalem. He captured the king of Jerusalem, Guy, and a relic of the True Cross. In October, 1187, Jerusalem was back under Muslim control. Every Christian cross and image was ordered removed, and almost every Catholic church was turned into a mosque. The Holy Land had been in Catholic hands for only 88 years.

The Third Crusade (1189-1192) was called by Pope Gregory VIII. Many responded, including King Richard the Lionhearted of England, King Philip of France, and the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick of Germany (known as “Barbarossa” or “Red Beard”). King Richard the Lionhearted brokered a three-year truce with Saladin, wherein Jerusalem remained under Muslim control but Christians were afforded free access to the Holy City.

Pope Innocent III was only 37 years old when he became pope in 1198 and he reigned for many years. He was the first pope to use the title “Vicar of Christ” to highlight papal authority: “higher than man but lower than God.”[11]  He called the Fourth Crusade. Meant to free Jerusalem from the hands of the Muslims, it was unfortunately another fiasco involving the siege of Christian Constantinople in a deal gone wrong with an upstart Byzantine prince who would be emperor.

Undaunted, Pope Innocent called for a Fifth Crusade, but he died two years before it got underway. Naturally the objective was the freedom of the Holy Land, this time attempting it from Egypt. Due to an early Crusade victory over the Muslims, a thirty-year treaty was rejected. St. Francis of Assisi and twelve companions arrived to convert the Egyptians; they were sadly unsuccessful in their efforts at evangelization. Peace terms were eventually agreed to: an eight-year truce. In 1229, Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II arrived at a diplomatic truce: Christian control of Jerusalem (except for the Temple), Bethlehem, and Nazareth, for ten years. Frederick waged power struggles against several popes, inciting Pope Gregory IX to wage a Crusade against him after Frederick invaded the Papal States.

Saintly King Louis IX of France, he who had acquired the Crown of Thorns from the Venetians and built Sainte Chapelle to house it, embarked upon two Crusades: 1248-1254 and 1269-1272. His brothers, their wives, and even his own queen accompanied him on Crusade. Unfortunately, King Louis was captured on the first Crusade and ransomed out for a kingly sum. He remained there for four years, dreaming of liberating the Holy Land, until his mother died and he returned to France. In 1260, another fierce persecution of Christians broke out in the Holy Land, and Louis embarked upon his second Crusade. He and his son died of illness in 1270. This second Crusade was also a failure. Only the First Crusade of 1096 was successful, and this was seen as miraculous.

The Inquisition

In the early Eleventh Century, the heresy of Albigensianism raised its awful specter in France. This was a Gnostic heresy which believed that the material world and the spiritual world were in a perpetual struggle; that the spirit was good and the material was bad; and that one could be free of the material world only through death. This led to the belief that suicide was the highest form of worship. They believed that heterosexual relations were the most sinful thing since it could result in the birth of a spiritual good trapped in a bad body, so they approved of homosexuality and bestiality. They denied the Incarnation, believing that Jesus was a phantom from God. The Albigensians believed that the Catholic Church had corrupted the original teachings of Jesus, so they were dead set against the Catholic Church.

In the Thirteenth Century in southern France, Albigensianism was especially strong. This was due to ignorant and corrupt clergy who were in no position to fight against the heresy. In Languedoc in southern France, Catholics and heretics were friends and family, neighbors and fellow travelers together. This was not the usual medieval view of heresy. The normal medieval view was that heresy was a very real threat to Christendom and to the Catholic Church and must be eradicated.

In 1209, Pope Innocent III called a Crusade against the Albigensians. This was essentially a twenty-year civil war which ended with the heresy still lingering in certain places. This gave rise to the Inquisition. “Inquisitorial procedure involved the direct action of competent authority who initiated criminal investigations comprising the collection of evidence and witness testimony, which required two eyewitnesses or the confession of the accused.”[12]

In 1184, Pope Lucius III asked trained theologians to investigate a list of heresies he provided. Usually, secular authorities investigated heresies, but the State could punish heretics violently. Secular rulers saw heresy as treason to God and the punishment was property confiscation and death. The Church stepped in to ameliorate the punishment of heretics.

In 1231, Pope Gregory IX formally began the Inquisition as a matter of charity to save the soul of the heretic and to save Christendom from heresy. Many of the Inquisitors were Dominicans, well versed in theology and canon law. They desired the conversion and repentance of the heretics for their good and the good of the Church and society. Inquisitors could only investigate baptized Catholics, since heresy is a postbaptismal sin (the formal repudiation of some Catholic doctrine).

The Inquisitors traveled from place to place, wherever heresy was reported. They preached (being Dominicans) about salvation and offered the Sacrament of Confession often. A period of grace followed, during which heretics were encouraged to be reconciled with the Church. After the fifteen to forty days of grace were fulfilled, accusations against heretics would be heard at trial. A written record was kept as witnesses for and against the accused were called. The accused could provide a list of their enemies, whose testimony would then be discounted. The Inquisitors endeavored to convince the heretic of the error of his ways in a catechetical effort toward reconciliation with the Church.

Torture was approved in 1252, but its use was rare as it was deemed ineffective. Secular courts resorted torture routinely, but it was a measure of last resort in the Inquisition. It was used to elicit confessions from the heretics and could be applied only once and only for a maximum of thirty minutes; secular authorities did the torturing. Exempted from torture were children, the elderly, pregnant women, knights, the nobility, and in some cases, the clergy. In 1311, the use of torture could only be authorized by the bishop. Heretics who obstinately refused to confess and be reconciled with the Church were turned over to the secular authorities for punishment: confiscation of property and death. The Inquisitors tortured no one and killed no one; their focus was confession and reconciliation. Only 1.8 percent of the heretics brought before the Spanish Inquisition (1540-1700) were remanded to the State for execution.

Heretics who repented and confessed were given penances such as prayer and fasting, or the wearing of a yellow cross as a marker of their repentance, and the wealthy were asked to give alms or donate to the building or restoration of a church. Some were asked to go on a pilgrimage or even on Crusade. By the middle of the Fourteenth Century, Albigensianism ceased to exist. The Inquisition had succeeded where the Crusade had failed.

The Renaissance in the Church: 1350-1650

The Renaissance saw a blossoming of seeds planted in the Middle Ages; many innovations in the arts, architecture, science, and education began in the Middle Ages and were fulfilled in the Renaissance. Charlemagne (742-814) spurred on a Carolingian Renaissance by establishing schools for everyone in his kingdom. Taught by monks, the children learned the trivium (grammar, logic, and rhetoric) and the quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music). His Benedictine monasteries preserved the classic works of antiquity which would be so prized in the Renaissance. These monks actually piloted a new font, Carolingian miniscule, which was rounded and legible, and included capital letters, punctuation marks, and spaces between the words.

There was a zeal for reform in the Church: personal repentance, reform of the monasteries, and reform of the papacy. The call was “ad fontes!” “To the sources!” Despite the glittering achievements of the Middle Ages, the Medieval period was seen as the “Dark Ages.” The new humanists yearned to go back to the early Church and ignore the millennium between 400 and 1400. There was a restlessness for renewal from the personal to the papal. This was in the midst of the Hundred Years’ War between England and France (1337-1453) and the Protestant Reformation, so times were confusing and dangerous.

Gerard Groote (1340-1384) started a movement called the Brothers and Sisters of the Common Life which emphasized inner renewal. Thomas a Kempis was one of the adherents of this group; he wrote Imitation of Christ.

St. Catherine of Genoa (1447-1510) wrote Treatise on Purgatory and Dialogue with a Soul, among other works, and her followers began the Oratory of Divine Love. She influenced St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622). In her view, religion consisted of three elements: (1) experiential; (2) intellectual; and (3) institutional. All three elements must be present for a person to live a healthy spiritual life.

The priest John Wycliffe (1330-1384) spun off into many heresies, denying the papacy, transubstantiation, veneration of relics and images, pilgrimages, intercession of the saints, monasticism, and clerical celibacy. He also believed that the Church should not own any property.

Jan Hus (1372-1415) also preached against Church ownership of property and against papal authority. The Hussite War instigated two decades of violence in Eastern Europe.

The Church healed the Great Western Schism at the Council of Constance in 1417. The Pope cemented his secular power in the Papal States as “States” were forming in Europe. These States were defined by territorial boundaries and secured by trade and through war. This was the age of the construction of St. Peter’s Basilica and the Sistine Chapel; the age of such men as Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Titian, Caravaggio, Galileo, Copernicus, and Francis Bacon (a fierce opponent of the Catholic Church).

Johannes Gutenberg (1400-1468) started printing with mechanical moveable type about 1439. The Catholic appetite for missals, prayer books, hymnals, psalters, breviaries, lives of the saints, and liturgical books drove the printing press. The reformers made use of the printing press, too. Their reform ideas could be reproduced at scale and for a reasonable price. Traders in caravans moved loads of books all across Christendom. John Foxe (1516-1587), an historian, opined that “either the pope must abolish printing…or printing, doubtless, will abolish him.”[13] Since we are on our 267th pope, I suppose that Mr. Foxe was wrong.

The culture was shifting from an oral to a literate culture. In an oral culture, religion was so much more than a proof text. It was an amalgam of pilgrimages, shrines, works of charity, veneration of the saints and relics, and the comfortable routine of the Mass where literate and illiterate, rich and poor, worshipped together. Faith was an active thing, worked out with the body – as all of the sacraments involve our senses yet communicate a hidden, invisible reality, grace. Faith was more than thought or speech or text; faith was external ritual flowing from internal prayer; faith was spoken and heard, listened to attentively together, not read and intellectualized individually. The reformers valued the written word more than the Incarnation, the Eucharist, and Apostolic Tradition. They did not anticipate the danger that comes with isolated reading, which can easily lead to heresy. Reading the Bible in connection with the Church’s understanding of Scripture and in addition to active participation in Mass and the sacraments is salutary.

Laying the foundation for the Protestant reformers was Girolamo Savonarola (1452-1498). He complained of clerical abuses and prompted laws against public lewdness. “Bands of young men roamed the city terrorizing public sinners.”[14] The pope forbade Savonarola to continue preaching, but he refused obedience to the pope. St. Catherine of Siena obeyed the pope and respected his office even as she incessantly called him home to Rome; she is a foil for Savonarola.

Widespread prosecution of suspected witches occurred from 1450-1700 in Europe and the New World. Enlightenment thinkers such as Thomas Hobbes (1599-1679) and Jean Bodin (1520-1596) advocated for the burning of witches; Bodin himself was a judge in many witch trials, sending 3,000 Frenchmen to death as witches. Martin Luther endorsed the prosecution and burning of witches. Pope Urban VIII (1623-1644) urged “prudence in pursuit”[15] of witches and sorcerers. Witch hunts predominantly occurred in Protestant areas of Europe and the New World. Witch trials made up fewer than 4 percent of the cases before the Spanish Inquisition. In fact, during the height of the witch craze (1540-1640), the Inquisition remanded only twelve people to the secular authorities for punishment, whereas historians estimate that 50,000 people were killed as witches from 1450-1700, primarily prosecuted by secular, anti-Catholic authorities.

The Ottoman Turks conquered the Byzantine Empire in 1453. Greek scholars migrated to the West, bringing with them their art and literature. Their interest in poetry, history, and moral philosophy gave birth to the humanist movement. Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536) dreamed of a Golden Age with three elements: true Christian piety; learning of the “best sort;” and a true and lasting peace of Christendom. He was to be quite disappointed as the Protestant Reformation tore Christendom apart.

In 1487, Pope Innocent VIII issued a papal bull calling for the censorship of dangerous books; he tasked bishops with the oversight of printers and booksellers. In 1515, Pope Leo X issued papal bull which required that bishops examine all books printed in their Sees. As a prudent parent, the Catholic Church protected the faithful from heresies and harmful ideas.

Martin Luther (1483-1546) uttered a rash oath during a thunderstorm, promising to become a monk if he survived. We see examples of the foolishness of rash oaths in the Bible, as when Jephthah vowed to sacrifice the first person who came out of his home to greet him when he returned victorious from a battle. Alas, it was his daughter who became the sacrifice, as Jephthah determined to honor his reckless vow (Judges 11:30-31).

Martin Luther became an Augustinian friar; they were known for their study of the Scriptures. In 1510, Luther travelled to Rome, where he harshly judged the “big city” and its inhabitants; here he lost his faith in the Holy Spirit working through the Catholic Church. He struggled with Romans 1:17 - “he who is righteous by faith shall live;” he experienced an epiphany which resulted in his belief in sola fide: faith alone saves. By 1537, sola scriptura  was added: one could interpret Scripture on one’s own; Church interpretation of Scripture was unnecessary. The Church replies that Jesus did not write a book; He founded a Church, an hierarchical Church with Peter, the first pope, at its head.

On October 31, 1517, Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the church in Wittenberg, Germany. He debated the primacy of the papacy and whether it had been established by Christ; he debated the value of indulgences and the spiritual theology behind them. He called for the cessation of pilgrimages, shrines, the veneration of saints and relics, feast days, and Masses for the dead. He denied five of the seven sacraments, maintaining only Baptism and the Eucharist. Luther claimed that a layman, armed with Scripture, was above the pope and the councils of the Church. This was heresy, and the papal bull Exsurge Domine called Luther to recant his teachings and return to the Church.

Ignoring the sense of continuity and Tradition of the Church, the reformers preached that the Church had only been the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church until about the year 400. They believed that the Catholic Church had corrupted the Church and had never really understood the Bible as they, of the Sixteenth Century, could understand the Scriptures. After all, they now had the Greeks who had migrated who could read the Bible in one of its original languages, overlooking the fact that St. Jerome (340-420) had translated the Bible into Latin from the original languages. The reformers were so eager to go back “to the sources” that they snubbed an early source, St. Jerome!

Some reformers were iconoclasts, those who destroy images. Some argued for violent rebellion against the Church and the “godless” – generally the privileged class. This boiled over into the German Peasants’ Rebellion of 1524-25, the largest mass uprising in the history of Europe (until the French Revolution). The peasants attacked castles and monasteries as houses of the “godless.” Luther encouraged the slaying of the rebels, and 130,000 peasants were murdered.[16]

In Switzerland, the priest Ulrich Zwingli (1484-1531) began a reform movement. He believed in unmediated access to God, so he discarded the veneration of saints and relics, pilgrimages, and feast days. He championed sola scriptura. He called for an end to the Mass and encouraged violent iconoclasm. He preached that the Eucharist was merely a symbol of Jesus; he was affronted at the idea that our souls would eat the flesh of Jesus. He strictly separated spirit from matter in a Gnostic manner. He advocated for the State to run the Church.

From Zwingli emerged the Anabaptist movement, which believed that Zwingli had not gone far enough in repudiating the Catholic Church. Thus began the Radical Reformation with leaders such as the Frenchman Jean Calvin (1509-1564), who believed in predestination. From within the ranks of the Radical Reformers, other reformers emerged with their own interpretation of Scripture and their own ideas of how to live in accordance with God’s Will. The fractures continue today until we now have tens of thousands of Protestant denominations.

In 1530 Nicholas Copernicus (1473-1543) posited his theory of heliocentrism, which was sincerely received by Pope Clement VII. While Copernicus stressed that this was a theory, Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) zealously advocated for it as fact, drawing criticism from fellow scientists. He traveled to Rome in 1611 and was well-received by the Church. He returned to Rome in 1615 and offered his information to the Inquisition, which barred him from presenting heliocentrism as fact. Galileo met with Pope Urban in 1624, again, received warmly. In 1629, Galileo disobeyed the Inquisition and published heliocentrism as fact in his book Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems. He presented Pope Urban as a simpleton mouthing useless platitudes. Despite this, during his stint before the Inquisition, he stayed in a five-room suite in the Tuscan embassy with a servant. He never languished in an Inquisitorial jail and was never tortured. He agreed to publicly recant his book which had offended the pope. He lived the remainder of his life in scientific pursuits under house arrest; his daughter, a Carmelite nun, performed his penance of reciting the seven penitential psalms weekly.

King Henry VIII of England broke away from the Catholic Church in 1534, declaring himself to be the head of the Church of England. Between 1536 and 1541, Henry disbanded monasteries, convents, and friaries, robbing them of their wealth and land. Now the poor had nowhere to turn for medical aid, food, clothing, and shelter. Henry used his ill-gotten gains to fund the war against France. Henry’s son Edward VI (who reigned from 1547 to 1553) hated all things Catholic and persecuted the pious people, tearing down images and forbidding Mass, sacraments, and sacramentals. Henry’s anti-Catholic daughter Elizabeth would do worse. Many were martyred, tortured, imprisoned, and persecuted under Queen Elizabeth I (who reigned from 1558 to 1603).

King Ferdinand II and Queen Isabella instituted Spain’s Golden Age in the 1500s, reforming the clergy through discipline and education. The establishment of the University of Alcala in 1508 furthered this cause greatly. Some of the men who trained at this university would later play a part in the Council of Trent (1545-1563). This council addressed the Church doctrines which were hotly debated by the Protestants, such as sola fide and sola scriptura. Trent reaffirmed the canon of Scripture and the idea that people ought to read Scripture in dialogue with the Church, not alone. Bishops had to be present in their Sees, and seminaries for priests ought to be established. The veneration of saints and relics and the theology of indulgences were all addressed. The reconciliation of God’s grace as a free gift and the engine of human free will was clarified.

At the Peace of Augsburg (1557), it was determined that the faith of the secular ruler would define the faith of the country (Catholic or Protestant). Protestant States coerced people to practice religion. In England, fines, jail sentences, and torture were imposed on those who did not attend Anglican services at least once a month. The Prince of Germany mandated attendance at Lutheran services; you couldn’t live in Norway or Denmark without being Lutheran. Soldiers patrolled the streets of Sweden on Sunday to enforce attendance at the Lutheran service. Protestants desecrated Catholic churches, shrines, and pilgrimage sites; Catholics often fought back. This was a violent time in history which led to the secularization of coming centuries and the myth that religion lent itself to violence and coercion.

The Society of Jesus (the Jesuits), founded by St. Ignatius of Loyola, emphasized personal piety through the Spiritual Exercises as the best way to reform the Church. They were devoted to the Lord and to the pope. They built free schools and taught the transcendentals: truth, beauty, and goodness, and that grace builds on nature. In other words, God gives you grace and you cooperate with it to the best of your ability. The schools were popular among Catholics and non-Catholics alike for the top-notch education there.

In 1578, Roman laborers accidentally discovered the catacombs underneath the modern-day streets. This caused great excitement and was a bulwark for the Catholic claim of direct identity with the early Church. Missionary work was spreading to all four corners of the Earth, showing that Catholicism was a global religion, responsive to Jesus’ command to “make disciples of all nations.” (Matt 28:19) Pope Gregory XV instituted the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith to coordinate missionary activities.

Baroque culture (1580-1750) emerged from the Catholic Reformation, highlighting color, movement, and exuberant detail to painting and architecture. The beauty of the art expressed the beauty of the human soul: not inherently sinful or fallen, as the Protestants claimed, but inclined to sin. The Baroque art theologically married body and soul together, as God intended. You could experience God through your senses, through the sacraments, and through art and architecture; “the senses worked to magnify the spirit.”[17]

Some saints from the Renaissance era: St. Joan of Arc (1412-1431); St. Catherine of Genoa (1447-1510); St. Angela Merici (1474-1540), who founded the Ursuline Order; St. Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556), who founded the Jesuits; St. Teresa of Avila (1515-1582) and St. John of the Cross (1542-1591) who worked at reforming the Carmelite Order; St. Philip Neri (1515-1595) who worked at reforming the church from clerical abuses; St. Peter Canisius (1521-1597), Doctor of the Church; St. Thomas More (1478-1535) who died a martyr when he refused to accede to King Henry VIII’s demands, as did St. John Fisher (1469-1535); Pope St. Pius V (1504-1572), who eagerly implemented the clarified doctrines of the Council of Trent; St. Francis Xavier (1506-1552), a missionary to India and Japan; St. Robert Bellarmine (1542-1621), defender of the Faith; St. Margaret Clitherow (1556-1586), who was pressed to death as a martyr; St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622) who wrote Introduction to the Devout Life; St. Charles Borromeo (1538-1584), a reformer with a love for the poor - he participated in the Council of Trent as Cardinal of Milan.

 St. Thomas More, martyred by King   Henry VIII

King Henry VIII

The Age of Enlightenment: 1648-1848

The Age of Enlightenment prized new knowledge far above accepted wisdom; therefore, the Church, with its 1,600-year history of art, education, science, and philosophy, was seen as outdated. People grew suspicious and hostile to the Church, as she represented the “ancien regime” – the old ways – in their clamor for the new methods and scientific advances. It’s amazing that the Church, which had been the beating heart of Christendom, became the whipping boy of Europe.

Many Catholics contributed to new ideas in science and mathematics: Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), a mathematician, physicist, and inventor; Maria G. Agnesi (1718-1799), who wrote on differential and integral calculus; Laura Bassi (1711-1778), a physicist; Fr. Vaclav Prokop Divis (1698-1765), a physicist who invented the first electrified musical instrument; Eusebio Kino (1645-1711), a Jesuit missionary who mapped California and proved that it was not an island; and Gregor Mendel (1822-1884), an Augustinian friar and botanist who is considered the father of genetics. “One cannot talk about mathematics in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries without seeing a Jesuit at every corner.”[18]

The Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648) bitterly divided Europe into Protestant and Catholic camps. This bloodletting led the Enlightenment thinkers to prize reason above sentiment, above religion, and above patriotism. It was called the Great War until World War I took that mantle. French writer Voltaire (1694-1778) railed against the Church and against anything traditional. His work influenced the French Revolution (1789-1800). The Reign of Terror began in 1793; in 1794, sixteen Carmelite sisters were martyred at the guillotine. The crazed Frenchmen sought to tear down the establishment, especially the Church and the monarchy, and they spared no one in their Reign of Terror. More than 17,000 perished at the guillotine in ten months of Terror. While “liberty, equality, and fraternity” was the rallying cry of the French Revolution, this classical liberalism didn’t extend to those deemed “enemies.”

Pope Innocent XI condemned the heresy of Quietism in 1687, which taught that spiritual perfection is achieved when the soul remains silent and inactive so that God can act within it. While “For God alone my soul waits in silence,” (Psalm 62), this heresy took that idea too far. Holiness is pursued in the silence of the soul, but it manifests in action, in good works and worship.

Enlightenment figures include Rene Descartes (1596-1650); John Locke (1632-1704); Sir Isaac Newton (1643-1727); Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750); George Frideric Handel (1685-1759); Voltaire (1694-1778); Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790); Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778); Immanuel Kant (1724-1804); Franz Joseph Hayden (1732-1809); Thomas Paine (1737-1809); Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821); Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827); Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1786-1791).

Enlightenment philosophers sought to divorce knowledge from our participation in God’s wisdom. Men like David Hume (1711-1776) argued that all knowledge is derived from experiences and rejected “innate” ideas. He eventually questioned the certainty of knowledge and the possibility of knowing anything, to the point of a nervous breakdown as he questioned his own existence.

The Enlightenment sought “pure” knowledge aside from anything which could not be measured mathematically or scientifically. Anything intuitive, faith-based, emotive, spiritual, or historical was shunted aside. While technological advances came from the Enlightenment mode of thinking, it forced faith to the fringes; faith became a private matter and was no longer bound up with the State. God was seen as a distant clockmaker who was not involved in personal lives. Knowledge’s purpose was mastery of the world, not marveling at the Master’s work. The Radical strain of Enlightenment taught that nothing could be known with certainty.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) was an American Enlightenment thinker, influenced by John Locke (1632-1704), who agreed with Hume that knowledge was experiential and who believed that men are born as a “tabula rasa,” a blank slate, upon which Life writes. The idea of State divorced from Church influenced our form of government. The social contract of John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau theorizes that individuals in the society consent to be governed and have certain rights (such as life, liberty, and property). The government’s main job is to safeguard life, liberty, and property. Individuals in society have the right to overthrow the regime if it fails to safeguard those natural rights.

Some saints during the Enlightenment: St. Vincent de Paul (1581-1660); St. Marie of the Incarnation (1599-1672), who founded an Ursuline monastery in Quebec, the first institution of higher learning for women in North America; St. Margaret Mary Alacoque (1647-1690), who promoted devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus; St. Alphonsus Liguori (1696-1787), founder of the Redemptorists and Doctor of the Church; St. Junipero Serra (1713-1784); St. John Henry Newman (1801-1890), Cardinal and philosopher.

The Modern Era: 1846-2025

The “Restoration” of 1815-1830 supposedly reversed the anti-Catholic sentiment in France, but the aftershocks of the French Revolution were still resounding throughout Europe. In 1848, Count Rossi was assassinated in Rome; he was a Vatican official. Pope Pius IX sought refuge in Gaeta, Italy, to avoid a similar fate.

In 1848, the year that St. John Bosco (1815-1888) founded the Salesians, Karl Marx published The Communist Manifesto. Pope Pius IX, the longest-reigning pope, published the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception in 1854. Four years later, Mary appeared to Bernadette Soubirous in Lourdes, France, identifying herself as The Immaculate Conception. In 1856, the Augustinian friar Gregor Mendel began his experiments which led to the fundamental laws of heredity. The bloody United States Civil War raged from 1861-1865, and President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated on April 14, 1865.

Pope Pius IX opened the First Vatican Council in 1869, which concentrated on the primacy and infallibility of the pope; the dogma of papal infallibility was declared in Pastor Aeternus in 1870. Pope Pius IX died in 1878 and Pope Leo XIII came to the papal throne. He wrote the papal encyclical Rerum Novarum, “New Things,” in 1891 to address the conditions of the working poor and elucidating the social justice teachings of the Catholic Church. He was also known as the “rosary pope” because of his devotion to the rosary.

The Little Flower, St. Therese of Lisieux, died in 1897, and St. Maria Goretti was murdered in 1902. The next year, Pope Leo XIII died and Pope Pius X ascended the papal throne. He died the same year as the outbreak of World War I, 1914, which ended with the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. In 1917, Mary appeared to the three shepherd children in Fatima, Portugal; this same year, the Code of Canon Law was published.

The heresy of “modernism” emerged in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Pope St. Pius X called it “the synthesis of all heresies” in his 1907 encyclical Pascendi Dominici Gregis.  According to this heresy, religion is subjective and there is no objective Truth; God does not reveal Himself; the Christian faith is not credible; the Bible is inauthentic; and faith is an attitude of spirit and is not doctrinal.

In 1920, Karol Wojtyla was born; he would become Pope St. John Paul II. He would see the destruction of World War II and the dangers of Russian Communism in his home country of Poland. The Cristeros Rebellion in Mexico spilled Catholic blood from 1926-1929. In 1928, Josemaria Escriva founded Opus Dei. The Vatican City State was established in 1929, the same year as the disastrous Stock Market Crash in October; the Great Depression resulted and lasted for about a decade.

The Anglicans declared in the Lambeth Conference of 1930 that contraception was acceptable as long as there was a “clearly felt” need to avoid parenthood and a “clearly felt” need to avoid abstinence. Pope Pius XI responded with Casti Connubii on Catholic marriage and sexuality.

Stalin imposed a great famine, the Holodomor, on Ukraine from 1932-1933; millions of Ukrainians perished from hunger. Adolph Hitler and the Nazi Party came into power in 1933. The Spanish civil war began in 1936; the anti-Catholic Popular Front killed thousands of priests and hundreds of nuns. Twelve percent of the Spanish clergy were murdered in this war; some were actually thrown to wild animals, in the style of ancient Rome. Almost half of the churches in Spain were destroyed. World War II would officially begin in 1939 (to 1945) with the invasion of Poland. At the war’s end, Poland would seamlessly slip from the totalitarianism of the National Socialists to that of the Communists.

Pope Pius XI wrote the papal encyclical Mit Brennender Sorge (With Burning Concern) in German; on Palm Sunday, 1937, it was read in every Catholic parish in Germany, which infuriated Hitler. The pope complained about the breach of the concordat the Vatican had with the Third Reich and also about the nature of the regime itself. He clearly laid out the failings of the theology behind Nazism. He quoted from Isaiah, a Jewish source, to prove that a nation cannot be God; God is much “more” than any nation could ever hope to be. He also wrote the anti-Communist encyclical Divini Redemptoris: “Communism is intrinsically wrong.” (para. 58) Communism had as one of its main precepts the elimination of the Catholic Church and all of Christianity.

Maximilian Kolbe was martyred in Auschwitz in 1941; St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein) died there in 1942. The Church, under the leadership of Pope Pius XII, saved over 860,000 Jews – about 37 percent of the Jews who survived the war. Pope Pius approved of the Nuremberg Trials and actively assisted them in prosecuting the Nazis. In 1948, the State of Israel was founded.

Mao Zedong led the Chinese Communist Revolution from 1945-1949. In 1950, the dogma of the Assumption of Mary was published by Pope Pius XII in Munificentissimus Deus. In 1962, Pope John XXIII opened the Second Vatican Council. Pope Paul VI, elected in 1963, completed the Second Vatican Council (in 1965), being the last pope to wear the papal triple tiara. He published Humanae Vitae in 1968, to the great consternation of many, clerics and lay people alike, because he reiterated the timeless teaching of the Catholic Church on human sexuality. The Church is not an agent of change; she is the guardian of continuity.

Documents from Vatican II include Lumen Gentium, a Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, the laity, and the universal call to holiness; Dei Verbum, another Dogmatic Constitution, on the Word of God and Divine Revelation; Gaudium et Spes, a Pastoral Constitution on the Church and the world; and Sacrosanctum Concilium, a Constitution which declared that Latin ought to have pride of place in the liturgy. The hopes for ecumenism were rising high at that time, and the Council sought to place the Church in communication with the modern world.

The American Catholic Colleges declared that Catholic education was free of the Catholic Church in 1967 in the Land O’Lakes Statement. Although universities and colleges kept the word Catholic in their name, they taught independent of Catholic doctrines and sometimes in opposition to Catholic teaching. In 1973, the Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade revolutionized the abortion industry and began the divide between pro-life and pro-choice Americans. Pope Paul VI wrote his Declaration on Procured Abortion document in 1974, and Pope St. John Paul II wrote against abortion and for life in Evangelium Vitae in 1995. The Catholic Church has perennially and consistently stood in strong, stark opposition to abortion.

Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre founded the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) in 1970 in resistance to the errors in the implementation of Vatican II. He dedicated the SSPX to the preservation of traditional Catholic practices. He ordained priests without papal approval, which is rude, but not schismatic. When he ordained bishops without papal approval in 1988, it was seen as a break with the Church – a schism. They are considered to be in an “irregular” canonical status with the Church. Pope Francis granted SSPX priests the faculties to hear confessions and perform marriages. They continue to operate independently in their irregular canonical status. In that same year, 1988, the Fraternal Society of St. Peter (FSSP) was founded by SSPX priests who balked at schism. The FSSP are fully within the Church; they are not in an irregular status.

1978 was “the year of the three popes”: Pope Paul VI died; Pope John Paul I was elected and died thirty-three days later; and Pope St. John Paul II ascended to the papal throne. Pope St. John Paul II visited communist Poland in 1979, giving a huge spiritual boost to the oppressed Poles. The assassination attempt on his life on the Feast Day of Our Lady of Fatima, 1981, would fail. He hosted his first World Youth Day in 1984 and witnessed the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. His catechism, headed up by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, was published in 1992.

Between 1979 and 1984, Pope St. John Paul II gave a series of lectures on human sexuality which came to be known as the Theology of the Body. During his papacy, he traveled to 129 countries, a record. In 1993, he published the papal encyclical Veritatis Splendor (Splendor of the Truth), which reaffirmed the reality of moral absolutes, thus trouncing consequentialism and subjectivism. In 1995, he published the papal encyclical Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life), which reiterated the Church’s pro-life position. He published the encyclical Fides et Ratio (Faith and Reason) in 1998 wherein he declared that “Faith and Reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of Truth; and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the Truth.” (Para. 1)

St. Mother Teresa of Calcutta died in 1997, just days after Princess Diana died in a car crash in France. Pope St. John Paul II opened the Jubilee Year in 2000 as the Church entered her third millennium. In 2002, the Boston Globe investigated clergy sexual abuse and the institutional cover-up by church leaders. While some priests failed to keep their vow of celibacy and abused children and youth, it amounted to one-tenth of one percent of all priests in the United States.[19] Tens of thousands of children are abused in public schools every year; in 2010, there were 63,527 cases of child abuse nationwide; eight of those were committed by priests, or .0126% of those cases.

Pope St. John Paul II died in the same year as the Fatima visionary Carmelite Sister Lucia, in 2005. Pope Benedict XVI came to the papal throne. He wrote the apostolic letter Summorum Pontificum in 2007, where he approved of the use of the 1962 liturgy, proposing that either form of the Mass was acceptable: the Traditional Latin Mass (Tridentine Mass) as the “extraordinary form” and the Novus Ordo Mass (Mass of Paul VI) as the “ordinary form.” He also wrote Deus caritas est (God is Love) in 2005; Spe Salvi (Saved in Hope) in 2007; and Caritas in veritate (Charity in Truth) in 2009. He resigned the papacy in 2013, and Pope Francis was elected. He wrote the papal encyclicals Lumen fidei (The Light of Faith) in 2013; Laudate Deum (Praising God) in 2023; and the apostolic exhortations Evangelii Gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel) in 2013; Amoris Laetitia (The Joy of Love) in 2016; and Christus Vivit (Christ is Alive) in 2019.  Controversially, he also signed the Abu Dhabi  agreement in 2019 with the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, in which he emphasized the importance of interreligious dialogue and peaceful co-existence; he stated in this document that God willed a diversity of religions, which is contrary to established Catholic doctrine that the Catholic Church was founded by Jesus Christ and is therefore the only religion directly willed by God. He died in 2025, and Pope Leo XIV reigns now as pope.

Some saints in the modern era: St. John Bosco (1815-1888); Pope St. Pius X (1835-1914); Bernadette Soubirous (1844-1879); St. Josephine Bakhita (1869-1947); St. Therese of Lisieux (1873-1897); Pope St. John XXIII (1881-1963); Padre Pio (1887-1968); St. Maria Goretti (1890-1902); St. Lucia dos Santos (1907-2005); St. Jacinta Marto (1910-1920); St. Francisco Marto (1908-1919); St. Josemaria Escriva (1902-1975); St. Mother Teresa of Calcutta (1910-1997); Pope St. John Paul II (1920-2005).

List of the Church Councils:          Questions Answered:

Council at Jerusalem (Acts 15) –                 Gentile Christians

First Council of Nicaea (325) –                    Jesus is Divine, Second Person of Trinity

1st Council of Constantinople (381) –         Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed

Council of Ephesus (431) -                          Holy Spirit, hypostatic union

Council of Chalcedon (451)                         Nature and Person in Christ

2nd Council of Constantinople (553) –         Nestorian heresy

3rd Council of Constantinople (680-681) – Monophysitism, Monothelitism

2nd Council of Nicaea (787) -                      Unity of Operations in Christ

4th Council of Constantinople (869)           Iconoclasm, adoptionism

1st Lateran Council (1123) -                        Crusades

2nd Lateran Council (1139) -                       Clerical and lay power

3rd Lateran Council (1179) -                        End of church schism, heresies

4th Lateran Council (1215) -                        Internal church reforms, crusade

1st Council of Lyons (1245) -                       Crusades

2nd Council of Lyons (1274) -                      Election of popes in a conclave

Council of Vienne (1311-1313) -                 Franciscans and mendicant orders

Council of Constance (1414-1418) -           End Western Schism

Council of Basel/Ferrara/Florence (1431-1439) -  Witchcraft

5th Lateran Council (1512-1517) -              Peace among Christian rulers

Council of Trent (1545-1563) -                   Luther and Protestants

1st Vatican Council (1869-1870) -               Primacy and infallibility of Pope

2nd Vatican Council (1962-1965) -              Update Church’s practices

1.       St. Peter (32-67)

St. Linus (67-76)
St. Anacletus (Cletus) (76-88)
St. Clement I (88-97)
St. Evaristus (97-105)
St. Alexander I (105-115)
St. Sixtus I (115-125) Also called Xystus I
St. Telesphorus (125-136)
St. Hyginus (136-140)
St. Pius I (140-155)
St. Anicetus (155-166)
St. Soter (166-175)
St. Eleutherius (175-189)
St. Victor I (189-199)
St. Zephyrinus (199-217)
St. Callistus I (217-22) Callistus and the following three popes were opposed by St. Hippolytus, antipope (217-236)
St. Urban I (222-30)
St. Pontian (230-35)
St. Anterus (235-36)
St. Fabian (236-50)
St. Cornelius (251-53) Opposed by Novatian, antipope (251)
St. Lucius I (253-54)
St. Stephen I (254-257)
St. Sixtus II (257-258)
St. Dionysius (260-268)
St. Felix I (269-274)
St. Eutychian (275-283)
St. Caius (283-296) Also called Gaius
St. Marcellinus (296-304)
St. Marcellus I (308-309)
St. Eusebius (309 or 310)
St. Miltiades (311-14)
St. Sylvester I (314-35)
St. Marcus (336)
St. Julius I (337-52)
Liberius (352-66) Opposed by Felix II, antipope (355-365)
St. Damasus I (366-84) Opposed by Ursicinus, antipope (366-367)
St. Siricius (384-99)
St. Anastasius I (399-401)
St. Innocent I (401-17)
St. Zosimus (417-18)
St. Boniface I (418-22) Opposed by Eulalius, antipope (418-419)
St. Celestine I (422-32)
St. Sixtus III (432-40)
St. Leo I (the Great) (440-61)
St. Hilarius (461-68)
St. Simplicius (468-83)
St. Felix III (II) (483-92)
St. Gelasius I (492-96)
Anastasius II (496-98)
St. Symmachus (498-514) Opposed by Laurentius, antipope (498-501)
St. Hormisdas (514-23)
St. John I (523-26)
St. Felix IV (III) (526-30)
Boniface II (530-32) Opposed by Dioscorus, antipope (530)
John II (533-35)
St. Agapetus I (535-36) Also called Agapitus I
St. Silverius (536-37)
Vigilius (537-55)
Pelagius I (556-61)
John III (561-74)
Benedict I (575-79)
Pelagius II (579-90)
St. Gregory I (the Great) (590-604)
Sabinian (604-606)
Boniface III (607)
St. Boniface IV (608-15)
St. Deusdedit (Adeodatus I) (615-18)
Boniface V (619-25)
Honorius I (625-38)
Severinus (640)
John IV (640-42)
Theodore I (642-49)
St. Martin I (649-55)
St. Eugene I (655-57)
St. Vitalian (657-72)
Adeodatus (II) (672-76)
Donus (676-78)
St. Agatho (678-81)
St. Leo II (682-83)
St. Benedict II (684-85)
John V (685-86)
Conon (686-87)
St. Sergius I (687-701) Opposed by Theodore and Paschal, antipopes (687)
John VI (701-05)
John VII (705-07)
Sisinnius (708)
Constantine (708-15)
St. Gregory II (715-31)
St. Gregory III (731-41)
St. Zachary (741-52) Stephen II followed Zachary, but because he died before being consecrated, modern lists omit him
Stephen II (III) (752-57)
St. Paul I (757-67)
Stephen III (IV) (767-72) Opposed by Constantine II (767) and Philip (768), antipopes (767)
Adrian I (772-95)
St. Leo III (795-816)
Stephen IV (V) (816-17)
St. Paschal I (817-24)
Eugene II (824-27)
Valentine (827)
Gregory IV (827-44)
Sergius II (844-47) Opposed by John, antipope
St. Leo IV (847-55)
Benedict III (855-58) Opposed by Anastasius, antipope (855)
St. Nicholas I (the Great) (858-67)
Adrian II (867-72)
John VIII (872-82)
Marinus I (882-84)
St. Adrian III (884-85)
Stephen V (VI) (885-91)
Formosus (891-96)
Boniface VI (896)
Stephen VI (VII) (896-97)
Romanus (897)
Theodore II (897)
John IX (898-900)
Benedict IV (900-03)
Leo V (903) Opposed by Christopher, antipope (903-904)
Sergius III (904-11)
Anastasius III (911-13)
Lando (913-14)
John X (914-28)
Leo VI (928)
Stephen VIII (929-31)
John XI (931-35)
Leo VII (936-39)
Stephen IX (939-42)
Marinus II (942-46)
Agapetus II (946-55)
John XII (955-63)
Leo VIII (963-64)
Benedict V (964)
John XIII (965-72)
Benedict VI (973-74)
Benedict VII (974-83) Benedict and John XIV were opposed by Boniface VII, antipope (974; 984-985)
John XIV (983-84)
John XV (985-96)
Gregory V (996-99) Opposed by John XVI, antipope (997-998)
Sylvester II (999-1003)
John XVII (1003)
John XVIII (1003-09)
Sergius IV (1009-12)
Benedict VIII (1012-24) Opposed by Gregory, antipope (1012)
John XIX (1024-32)
Benedict IX (1032-45) He appears on this list three separate times, because he was twice deposed and restored
Sylvester III (1045) Considered by some to be an antipope
Benedict IX (1045)
Gregory VI (1045-46)
Clement II (1046-47)
Benedict IX (1047-48)
Damasus II (1048)
St. Leo IX (1049-54)
Victor II (1055-57)
Stephen X (1057-58)
Nicholas II (1058-61) Opposed by Benedict X, antipope (1058)
Alexander II (1061-73) Opposed by Honorius II, antipope (1061-1072)
St. Gregory VII (1073-85) Gregory and the following three popes were opposed by Guibert ("Clement III"), antipope (1080-1100)
Blessed Victor III (1086-87)
Blessed Urban II (1088-99)
Paschal II (1099-1118) Opposed by Theodoric (1100), Aleric (1102) and Maginulf ("Sylvester IV", 1105-1111), antipopes (1100)
Gelasius II (1118-19) Opposed by Burdin ("Gregory III"), antipope (1118)
Callistus II (1119-24)
Honorius II (1124-30) Opposed by Celestine II, antipope (1124)
Innocent II (1130-43) Opposed by Anacletus II (1130-1138) and Gregory Conti ("Victor IV") (1138), antipopes (1138)
Celestine II (1143-44)
Lucius II (1144-45)
Blessed Eugene III (1145-53)
Anastasius IV (1153-54)
Adrian IV (1154-59)
Alexander III (1159-81) Opposed by Octavius ("Victor IV") (1159-1164), Pascal III (1165-1168), Callistus III (1168-1177) and Innocent III (1178-1180), antipopes
Lucius III (1181-85)
Urban III (1185-87)
Gregory VIII (1187)
Clement III (1187-91)
Celestine III (1191-98)
Innocent III (1198-1216)
Honorius III (1216-27)
Gregory IX (1227-41)
Celestine IV (1241)
Innocent IV (1243-54)
Alexander IV (1254-61)
Urban IV (1261-64)
Clement IV (1265-68)
Blessed Gregory X (1271-76)
Blessed Innocent V (1276)
Adrian V (1276)
John XXI (1276-77)
Nicholas III (1277-80)
Martin IV (1281-85)
Honorius IV (1285-87)
Nicholas IV (1288-92)
St. Celestine V (1294)
Boniface VIII (1294-1303)
Blessed Benedict XI (1303-04)
Clement V (1305-14)
John XXII (1316-34) Opposed by Nicholas V, antipope (1328-1330)
Benedict XII (1334-42)
Clement VI (1342-52)
Innocent VI (1352-62)
Blessed Urban V (1362-70)
Gregory XI (1370-78)
Urban VI (1378-89) Opposed by Robert of Geneva ("Clement VII"), antipope (1378-1394)
Boniface IX (1389-1404) Opposed by Robert of Geneva ("Clement VII") (1378-1394), Pedro de Luna ("Benedict XIII") (1394-1417) and Baldassare Cossa ("John XXIII") (1400-1415), antipopes
Innocent VII (1404-06) Opposed by Pedro de Luna ("Benedict XIII") (1394-1417) and Baldassare Cossa ("John XXIII") (1400-1415), antipopes
Gregory XII (1406-15) Opposed by Pedro de Luna ("Benedict XIII") (1394-1417), Baldassare Cossa ("John XXIII") (1400-1415), and Pietro Philarghi ("Alexander V") (1409-1410), antipopes
Martin V (1417-31)
Eugene IV (1431-47) Opposed by Amadeus of Savoy ("Felix V"), antipope (1439-1449)
Nicholas V (1447-55)
Callistus III (1455-58)
Pius II (1458-64)
Paul II (1464-71)
Sixtus IV (1471-84)
Innocent VIII (1484-92)
Alexander VI (1492-1503)
Pius III (1503)
Julius II (1503-13)
Leo X (1513-21)
Adrian VI (1522-23)
Clement VII (1523-34)
Paul III (1534-49)
Julius III (1550-55)
Marcellus II (1555)
Paul IV (1555-59)
Pius IV (1559-65)
St. Pius V (1566-72)
Gregory XIII (1572-85)
Sixtus V (1585-90)
Urban VII (1590)
Gregory XIV (1590-91)
Innocent IX (1591)
Clement VIII (1592-1605)
Leo XI (1605)
Paul V (1605-21)
Gregory XV (1621-23)
Urban VIII (1623-44)
Innocent X (1644-55)
Alexander VII (1655-67)
Clement IX (1667-69)
Clement X (1670-76)
Blessed Innocent XI (1676-89)
Alexander VIII (1689-91)
Innocent XII (1691-1700)
Clement XI (1700-21)
Innocent XIII (1721-24)
Benedict XIII (1724-30)
Clement XII (1730-40)
Benedict XIV (1740-58)
Clement XIII (1758-69)
Clement XIV (1769-74)
Pius VI (1775-99)
Pius VII (1800-23)
Leo XII (1823-29)
Pius VIII (1829-30)
Gregory XVI (1831-46)
Blessed Pius IX (1846-78)
Leo XIII (1878-1903)
St. Pius X (1903-14)
Benedict XV (1914-22) 
Pius XI (1922-39)
Pius XII (1939-58)
St. John XXIII (1958-63)
St. Paul VI (1963-78)
John Paul I (1978)
St. John Paul II (1978-2005)
Benedict XVI (2005-2013)
Francis (2013—2025)
Leo XIV (2025-)

Bibliography
Aquila, Dominic A. 2022. The Church and the Age of Enlightenment. Notre Dame, IN: Ave Maria Press.

Campbell, Phillip. 2021. The Church and the Dark Ages. Notre Dame, IN: Ave Maria Press.

Maier, Paul L. 1999. Eusebius: The Church History. Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications.

Stuart, Joseph T. and Stuart, Barbara A. 2022. The Church and the Age of Reformation. Notre Dame, IN: Ave Maria Press.

Wagner, David M. 2020. The Church and the Modern Era. Notre Dame, IN: Ave Maria Press.

Weidenkopf, Steve. 2020. The Church and the Middle Ages. Notre Dame, IN: Ave Maria Press.

—. 2017. The Real Story of Catholic History. El Cajon, CA: Catholic Answers, Inc.

[1] Eusebius, The Church History, p 53
[2] Eusebius, The Church History p. 93
[3] Eusebius, The Church History p. 134
[4] Eusebius, The Church History p 155
[5] Campbell, The Church and the Dark Ages, p 48
[6] Campbell, The Church and the Dark Ages p 61
[7] Campbell, The Church and the Dark Ages p 62
[8] Campbell, The Church of the Dark Ages, p 99
[9] Campbell, The Church of the Dark Ages, p 108
[10] Weidenkopf, The Church of the Middle Ages, p 5
[11] Weidenkopf, The Church in the Middle Ages, p 78
[12] Weidenkopf, The Church and the Middle Ages, p 125
[13] Stuart, The Church and the Age of Reformation, p 25
[14] Stuart, The Church and the Age of Reformation, p 16
[15] Weidenkopf, The Real Story of Catholic History, p 132
[16] Weidenkopf, The Real Story of Catholic History, p 168
[17] Stuart, The Church and the Age of Reformations, p 123
[18] Aquila, The Church and the Age of Enlightenment, p 23
[19] Weidenkopf, The Real Story of Catholic History, p 265