Famous Popes

How Rodrigo Borgia Bought the Papacy and Became the Symbol of Renaissance Corruption (r. 1492–1503)

Joseph Ratzinger's Theological Papacy and a Historic Abdication (r. 2005–2013)

Unam Sanctam and the Humiliation That Broke Papal Supremacy (r. 1294–1303)

The Argentine Jesuit Who Reshaped the Modern Catholic Church (r. 2013–)

Gregorian Reforms, the Mission to Britain, and the Forging of Medieval Christendom (r. 590–604)

The Investiture Controversy and How One Pope Remade the Medieval Church (r. 1073–1085)

How One Roman Aristocrat Dominated Medieval Europe at Thirty-Seven (r. 1198–1216)

Karol Wojtyła, the Collapse of European Communism, and a Consequential Pontificate (r. 1978–2005)

The Peasant's Son Who Opened the Church to the Modern World (1958–1963)

Armies, Michelangelo, Raphael, and the Renaissance Papacy (1503–1513)

Defender of Orthodoxy and Moral Anchor of a Collapsing Empire (440–461)

Indulgences, Luther, and the Fuse That Lit the Reformation (1513–1521)

Rerum Novarum and Christianity's Answer to Industrial Capitalism (1878–1903)

Trent, the Jesuits, and the Church's Answer to Luther (1534–1549)

Papal Infallibility, Lost Papal States, and a Hostile Modern Age (1846–1878)

Dominican Friar, Enforcer of Trent, Defender of Christendom (1566–1572)

Eugenio Pacelli, the Holocaust, and the Most Debated Pope of the Modern Era (1939–1958)

Renaissance Prince, Master of Nepotism, and Plotter Against the Medici (1471–1484)

The Sermon at Clermont That Reshaped Medieval Europe (1088–1099)

Baroque Rome, Papal Patronage, and a Treasury Spent on War (1623–1644)

The Galilean Fisherman Who Founded Catholic Tradition (c. 1–68 AD)