The first among them were a shady lot: Alexander VI, a legendary lecher; Urban II, an epic warmonger. Clement V became so entangled in politics he had to move the headquarters of the church to France, where it stayed for 70 years. And Sixtus IV made six of his nephews cardinals.
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Our photo gallery spans the pope's youth to his last days at the vatican.
But then, there were bound to be controversial pontiffs in the course of almost 2,000 years of unbroken history and 264 successions, and many of them were not without redeeming features. Indeed, some of the most scandalous popes have been responsible for the church's greatest achievements—from the arts to language.
The institution of the papacy stretches back to the age of imperial Rome, and in those 20 centuries, the role of the pope has been transformed over and over. Popes have been persecuted missionaries, Roman noblemen, dissolute Renaissance princes, and globally respected spiritual leaders. "It's muddled along," says Notre Dame historian Richard McBrien, author of Lives of the Popes. "Czars and emperors have come and gone, but the papacy's still around."
The pope's prestige as a religious leader is unique. He is the successor to St. Peter and the Holy See, the vicar of Christ, and in essence the ruler of that state within a state, the Vatican. Under church doctrine, he is infallible—God would not let him fail in matters of moral or religious judgment.
According to tradition, the first pope was Jesus's most ardent disciple, Simon bar Jonah. A simple fisherman from Galilee, he set down his nets and followed the charismatic rabbi's call to become a "fisher of men." Later, Jesus dubbed the impulsive Simon "Kephas," or Peter: the Rock. "Upon this rock I will build my church, and I will give to you the keys of the kingdom of heaven," Jesus told him. "Whatever you bind on this earth shall be bound also in heaven."
Those words became the founding charter of the Roman Catholic Church and the keystone of the pope's authority through history. Inside the massive dome of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, the passage is written in letters 6 feet high. They look down upon the elaborate papal throne, which in turn sits atop a rough shrine—according to the church, Peter's tomb. To enter the massive basilica is to feel the weight of centuries all rising up from the grave of Christ's Rock.
Yet the truth about Christianity's early years—and its early popes—is shrouded in mystery. For at least two centuries, Christianity was one of many cults competing for the faith of Romans. Made up mainly of lower-middle-class Romans and immigrants, the congregations in Rome turned to the authority of a single bishop around A.D. 200.
Despite early waves of persecution, the church's popularity grew steadily. In 312, the emperor Constantine converted, bringing the once obscure sect into a new age. Constantine believed "Christianity would provide imperial Rome with the common set of values and the single cult which it so badly lacked," writes Eamon Duffy in Saints and Sinners: A History of the Popes. "From a persecuted sect, Christianity became the most favored religion."
