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JohnGerard
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Can anyone recommend a good book that explains a bit about the lives of the popes? No particular pope, just some info on all of them.
Thanks if you can help.
Thanks if you can help.
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MaryHelp777
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Did you know Pope Gregory the Great was one of the first people to collect accounts of people who had near death experiences, and saw Heaven, hell or purgatory,
Some.of these are written in Michael H Brown’s book “What you take to Heaven”, or “Afterlife” or “other side”, can’t remember which one
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UnumCorpus
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I would say a good book for you would simply be the Oxford Dictionary of Popes:
amazon.co.uk/Dictionary-Popes-Oxford-Quick-Reference/dp/0199295816/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1448409789&sr=8-1&keywords=oxford+dictionary+of+popes
It gives detailed but concise descriptions of every officially recognised pope from St Peter to Benedict XVI. Each entry contains information about their pre-papal life and then describes the details of their respective pontificates.
I own it, and it is a good reference if you need to look up a particular detail about (for example) some obscure early medieval pope.
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JohnGerard
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JohnGerard
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Thanks Unum.
That looks like what I am looking for. Interesting that it is written by a non-Catholic. I wonder if a Catholic has done a similar work?
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UnumCorpus
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You’re welcome.
I’m actually not sure if a Catholic has written a similar work. I suppose it is likely but I can’t think of one at the moment. Now that I think about it though, another good source for you might be *The Keeper of the Keys of Heaven *by Roger Collins:
amazon.co.uk/Keepers-Keys-Heaven-History-Papacy/dp/075382695X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1448464622&sr=8-1&keywords=keeper+of+the+keys+roger+collins
This fairly lengthy book covers the entirety of papal history, again from St Peter to Benedict XVI. However, while there is much more material in this book, it is not meant to act as a concise reference. Unlike the dictionary of popes, it is not divided into short descriptions of each pope but instead devotes a chapter to a particular period in papal history.
Also, I’m not sure if Roger Collins is Catholic or not. He is a noted medievalist though.
Both the Oxford Dictionary of Popes and *Keeper of the Keys *are fairly non-biased in their descriptions of the popes, and there does not appear to be anti-Catholic sentiment in them. In fact, the latter work was recommended to me by a very scholarly priest and I trust his judgement on these sorts of books.
I will let you know though if I can think of a similar work that was written by a Catholic.
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JohnGerard
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Hey Unum,
Thanks again for your (name removed by moderator)ut on this. Those both look good.
Hey, since you own the Oxford Dictionary one…maybe you could answer a question for me, if you would. Is there a section, maybe in an appendix, that talks about a female pope?
I’m just curious about what it has to say about that. I would appreciate it if you could let me know that.
Thanks again.
And welcome into the Church!! 2015 Swim Team?? Cool!
Thanks again for your (name removed by moderator)ut on this. Those both look good.
Hey, since you own the Oxford Dictionary one…maybe you could answer a question for me, if you would. Is there a section, maybe in an appendix, that talks about a female pope?
I’m just curious about what it has to say about that. I would appreciate it if you could let me know that.
Thanks again.
And welcome into the Church!! 2015 Swim Team?? Cool!
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UnumCorpus
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You’re welcome!
Yes, there is an appendix at the end of the book that discusses the legend of a female pope (aka “Pope Joan”), a legend that originated sometime in the 13th century.
The appendix includes the details of the legend itself, its possible origins, the widespread belief of the story and its impact, and finally its eventual demise. There is no suggestion that the legend was fact if that is your concern (indeed no serious scholar would entertain that idea). The book even points out that this “Pope Joan” legend gave ammunition to anti-Catholic writers into the modern era, even though the legend was thoroughly disproved by scholars in the 17th century.
I hope that helps!
Thank you!! I was confirmed last Easter and it was an amazing experience. I was born and raised Pentecostal so it outwardly seems like a drastic switch. However, I always had a fascination with the Catholicism (and especially with the popes). It was really my love of history that helped lead my way to the Catholic Church.My academic pursuits have paralleled my spiritual development in a lot of ways. I think it’s notable that I became Catholic the same year that I earned my MA in medieval history.
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JohnGerard
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Yes, that helps very much. And yes, I would be concerned about purchasing a book that would present the Pope Joan legend as an historical fact. So thanks for that info.
Awesome. I think you are not alone in how your interest in history led you to the Church. I’ve heard that that happens sometimes.
Well, congratulations all the way around.My academic pursuits have paralleled my spiritual development in a lot of ways. I think it’s notable that I became Catholic the same year that I earned my MA in medieval history.
And thanks again for your help.
John
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UnumCorpus
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Yes, I believe it was Cardinal John Henry Newman who said “to be deep in history is to cease to be a Protestant”. For me, that was definitely the case.
:tiphat: You’re very welcome. I’m glad I could help.
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Joe_5859
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An online option would be to look at the old Catholic Encyclopedia:
newadvent.org/cathen/12272b.htm
New Advent lists all the popes and you can click on any of them to be taken to the entry on that pope in the old encyclopedia. Since that encyclopedia was published between 1907 and 1914, they don’t have any entries for popes after Pius X.
For the more recent popes, you can find biographies on the Vatican website:
w2.vatican.va/content/vatican/en.html
Towards the bottom of the page, they have a scrolling list of all the popes. You can usually follow the links to a biography of the recent ones. Not all of them are in English, though.
newadvent.org/cathen/12272b.htm
New Advent lists all the popes and you can click on any of them to be taken to the entry on that pope in the old encyclopedia. Since that encyclopedia was published between 1907 and 1914, they don’t have any entries for popes after Pius X.
For the more recent popes, you can find biographies on the Vatican website:
w2.vatican.va/content/vatican/en.html
Towards the bottom of the page, they have a scrolling list of all the popes. You can usually follow the links to a biography of the recent ones. Not all of them are in English, though.
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JohnGerard
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tomarin
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I can recommend Eamon Duffy’s “Saints and Sinners: A History of the Popes” it was exhaustive, therefore good.
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JohnGerard
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tomarin
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There have been a lot of popes. Sometimes, more than one at the same time.
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JohnGerard
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Yeah…over 260 of them. But, I wasn’t aware that there was ever more than one at a time. I think there can only ever be one pope at a time…although there may be several others who claim to be pope at the same time (or others claim them to be). But only one of them would legitimately be the pope, I would think.
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tomarin
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But you’re familiar with the Great Schism, or the Western Schism, right?
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Joe_5859
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I think John is just clarifying that there is a difference between people who claim to be the pope and people who actually are the pope. During the Western Schism, there were up to three people at one time claiming to be the pope. But only one of them was actually the pope.
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tomarin
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There can only be one pope, yes. But the Great Schism was a confusing period because as you say there were three claimants to the throne backed by different political factions.
I was just pointing out that in addition to all those popes, there were at times anti-popes. I was being a tad facetious, I admit.
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Joe_5859
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Right. I knew what you were talking about.
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