The Age-Old Importance of the Papacy

The coming papal conclave is just days away and, within days or weeks of the doors to the Sistine Chapel closing, the Catholic Church will have a new pontiff. The coming days and weeks will be exciting and crucial not just for Catholics, but for the entire world. The Catholic Church is effectively the bedrock of Western civilization — even the significant contributions of the Greco-Roman world were only preserved after the fall of the Roman Empire by Catholics, and brought further into accord with the fullness of truth which the Church safeguards. The actions of the next pope will not only be important for Catholics, but will impact and shape the entire world.

Almost since the beginning of the Catholic Church, the pope has wielded great authority and influence. St. Peter, was such a bold witness for Christ that the Roman Emperor Nero had the first bishop of Rome crucified. (Considering himself unworthy to suffer the same death as Christ, Peter requested to be crucified upside down.) The fifth pope, St. Evaristus, developed the idea of parishes within each diocese, an idea further developed and implemented by St. Fabian, which would later shape how churches, cities, and even nations organized territories and borders. Pope St. Pius I determined that Easter should only be celebrated on a Sunday, while St. Soter made the celebration of Christ’s resurrection an annual feast.

As time went on and the Church grew in stature, the popes also found themselves with new responsibilities. Pope St. Leo the Great famously rode out to meet the warlord Atilla the Hun and convince him not to sack Rome. Later, Leo negotiated with the Vandals to spare the lives of Roman citizens when the barbarians invaded the city. Pope St. Gregory the Great rewrote and revised the calendar, yielding the Gregorian calendar that is still in use today; sent missionaries to convert England to Christianity; and is considered to have laid the foundation for the medieval ages. The administrative and liturgical forms Gregory instituted served as the unifying force binding medieval Europe together for centuries after.

Pope St. Stephen II was the first sovereign of the Papal States, a gift from the Frankish king Pepin the Short, the son of Charles Martel and father of Charlemagne, the first Holy Roman Emperor. From the mid-8th century until 1870, the Papal States served to either increase or safeguard the pontiff’s authority and geopolitical influence, denoting his role as both a temporal and spiritual ruler. Later that same century, Pope St. Leo III crowned Charlemagne the first Holy Roman Emperor, another influential office which would shape the Western world for centuries.