List of popes

This chronological list of popes of the Catholic Church corresponds to that given in the Annuario Pontificio under the heading "I Sommi Pontefici Romani" (The Roman Supreme Pontiffs), excluding those that are explicitly indicated as antipopes.

[1] The 2001 edition of the Annuario Pontificio introduced "almost 200 corrections to its existing biographies of the popes, from St Peter to John Paul II".

Each title has been added by unique historical events and unlike other papal prerogatives, is not incapable of modification.

Christopher was considered a legitimate pope for a long time but was removed due to how he obtained the papacy.

The decisions of the Council of Pisa (1409) were reversed in 1963 in a reinterpretation of the Western Schism, extending Gregory XII's pontificate to 1415 and classifying rival claimants Alexander V and John XXIII as antipopes.

The first ancient lists of popes were not written until the late 2nd century, after the monarchical episcopate had already developed in Rome.

The years given for the first 30 popes follow the work of Richard Adelbert Lipsius, which often show a 3-year difference with the traditional dates given by Eusebius of Caesarea.

Pope Julius II allowed people seeking indulgences to donate money to the Church which would be used for the construction of Saint Peter's Basilica.

Tutor of Emperor Charles V. Came to the papacy in the midst of one of its greatest crises, threatened not only by Lutheranism to the north but also by the advance of the Ottoman Turks to the east.

Adrian's remarkable admission that the turmoil of the Church was the fault of the Roman Curia itself was read at the 1522–1523 Diet of Nuremberg.

However Copernicus made very few astronomical observations and based his new model squarely on his mathematical calculations.

Natural philosophers of that time (professionals who began to be called scientists only in the 19th century) noted that if the earth rotated there would be observable Coriolis effects.

The first pope to bestow the Immaculate Conception as patroness to the Philippine Islands through the bull Ilius Fulti Præsido (1579).

During his pontificate Galileo's scientific contributions caused difficulties for theologians and natural philosophers of the time, as they contradicted scientific and philosophical ideas based on those of Aristotle and Ptolemy and closely associated with the Catholic Church at that time.

Opposition from Tycho Brahe and others arose from the fact that, if heliocentrism were true, an annual stellar parallax should be observed, although no such evidence existed at the time.

Galileo's arguments – based on sunspots and the action of tides – were flawed and were refuted and rejected by other scholars at the time.

Promulgated the apostolic constitution Cum occasione (1653) which condemned five doctrines of Jansenism as heresy.

Decorated the bridge of Sant' Angelo with the ten statues of angels and added one of the two fountains that adorn the piazza of St. Peter's.

During his pontificate Isaac Newton published the Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, which placed heliocentrism on a firm theoretical foundation.

Completed the Trevi Fountain and affirmed the teachings of Thomas Aquinas; founded academies of art, liturgy, religion and science.

Authorized the publication of an edition of Galileo's complete scientific works which included a mildly censored version of the Dialogue.

Also discovered that the Milky Way (which in the late 18th century was believed to be the entire Universe) is flat, disk-shaped and with the Sun at its center (assertion discovered to be wrong decades later, because today it is known that the Sun is not located in the Galactic Center).

At the time, no high-level Church pronouncement attacked head-on the theory of evolution as applied to non-human species.

[43] Even before the development of the scientific method, Catholic theology had allowed for biblical texts to be read as allegorical rather than literal where they appeared to contradict that which could be established by science or reason.

Signed the Lateran Treaty with Italy (1929) establishing Vatican City as a sovereign state.

Invoked papal infallibility in the encyclical Munificentissimus Deus; defined the dogma of the Assumption.

Credited with intervening for peace during World War II; controversial for his reactions to the Holocaust.

Elevated the Tridentine Mass to a more prominent position and promoted the use of Latin; re-introduced several disused papal garments.

The first pope who chooses a unique name is not usually identified by an ordinal, John Paul I being the exception.

Antipopes are treated as pretenders, and their numbers are reused by those considered to be legitimate popes.