Searchable database of the information in chronological order of all the officially recognized popes from St Peter to John Paul II, whose entry has now been expanded and brought up to date. Providing a continuous history of the papacy, it also includes their irregularly elected rivals, the so-called antipopes, and discusses the tradition that there had been a female pope.

Reviewing 262 Popes - provides historical and theological contexts for each profile. He groups his entries into 8 historical periods, his approach is down to earth and critical.

This first installment of the Encyclopedia of Theology and Church is the best one-volume reference work on the popes and the papacy. Part one covers every pope and antipope; part two discusses the institution of the Vatican and the papacy.

Marcantonio Colonna's The Dictator Pope has rocked Rome and the entire Catholic Church with its portrait of an authoritarian, manipulative, and politically partisan pontiff. Occupying a privileged perch in Rome during the tumultuous first years of Francis’s pontificate, Colonna was privy to the shock, dismay, and even panic that the reckless new pope engendered in the Church’s most loyal and judicious leaders. The Dictator Pope discloses that Father Mario Bergoglio (the future Pope Francis) was so unsuited for ecclesiastical leadership that the head of his own Jesuit order tried to prevent his appointment as a bishop in Argentina. Behind the benign smile of the "people's pope" Colonna reveals a ruthless autocrat aggressively asserting the powers of the papacy in pursuit of a radical agenda.

Entries on heresies and condemnations are included along with those on the Vatican reaction to various ideological movements such as Arianism, Jansenism, Gnosticism, Fascism, Racism, Marxism, and Americanism. Entries address current issues such as the Papal position on social questions, abortion, homosexuality, liberation theology, and birth control.

A behind-the-scenes view of the power struggles within the Vatican and “a look inside the byzantine halls of the institutional Catholic Church.”—Publishers Weekly A journalist who has long covered the Vatican, Marco Politi takes us deep inside the struggle roiling the Roman Curia and the Catholic Church worldwide, beginning with Benedict XVI, the pope who famously resigned in 2013, and intensifying with the unexpected election of Jorge Mario Bergoglio, archbishop of Buenos Aires, now known as Pope Francis. Politi’s account balances the perspectives of Pope Francis’s supporters, Benedict’s sympathizers, and those disappointed members of the laity who feel alienated by the institution’s secrecy, financial corruption, and refusal to modernize. Politi dramatically recounts the sexual scandals that have rocked the church and the accusations of money laundering and other financial misdeeds swirling around the Vatican and the Italian Catholic establishment, and how Pope Francis’s attempts to address these crimes has been met with resistance from entrenched factions. He writes of the decline in church attendance and vocations to the priesthood as the church continues to prohibit divorced and remarried Catholics from receiving Communion. He visits European parishes where women perform the functions of missing male priests—and where the remaining parishioners would welcome the ordination of women, if the church would allow it. Pope Francis’s emphasis on pastoral compassion for all who struggle with the burden of family life has also provoked the ire of traditionalists. He knows from experience what life is like for the poor in South America and elsewhere, and highlights the contrast between the vital, vibrant faith of these parishioners and the disillusionment of European Catholics. As Pope Francis and his supporters are locked in battle with the defenders of the traditional hard line and with ecclesiastical corruption, the future of Catholicism is at stake—and it is far from certain Francis will succeed in saving the institution from decline.

Tracing the history of the papacy from ancient times to the present day, this illuminating study features detailed profiles of each pope, describing the events of their reign, their role in relation to Catholic doctrine, their accomplishments and failures, and other aspects of each man who ruled the Vatican.