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.

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.

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.

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.

The papacy is the oldest of all Western institutions with an unbroken existence over almost 2,000 years. In this unique reference, J.N.D. Kelly provides a concise entry on each pope, chronologically arranged so that the book reads as a continuous history of the papacy. He covers not only all the officially recognized popes from St. Peter to John Paul II but also their irregularly elected rivals, the so-called antipopes.

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.