Re: Haven't a clue even who the candidates are, and am even less interested tbh. They all look the same to me lol! They're all ancient with one foot in the grave and the other on a banana skin, and they all dress the same and look solemn and miserable all the time.
Re: Guess the pope Actually the interesting question isn't who, it's where. Will there be Italian pope again? Or will he be first non-European pope since Peter? There are strong South American candidates. Or first African pope? There's someone from Ghana, but I read his odds aren't good.
I'm guessing Italians, the camerlengo or archbishop of Milan, or whatever that was. Or are they same?
Haven't seriously looked into this yet.
Re: The position of pope evolved from the position of Pontifex Maximus (high priest) in the Roman Pagan religion. For a while, the Bishop of Rome was the most senior bishop in the emerging Christian religion and became known as Papa and his post, chosen by the other bishops ran concurrently with that of the Pontifex which was a political appointment and changed every year as did all the political positions change in January. Several of the people we know from history served as Pontifex Maximus at some time in their path up the cursus honorem (the career path of "honour"). When Christianity was formally declared the religion of the Empire, not by Constantine, in 324 as is popularly believed, but by Theodosius in 380. Until then all religions were still tolerated, despite Constantine declaring it the only formal religion of the army, and that was simply because there were too many days being used for worship: Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
The position of Bishop of Rome, being the most senior bishopric, became the head of the Christian church, was then named as the descendent of Peter (Simon Peter, the apostle) who was then declared to be the "first" Pope. See the list here.
The pope at the time of Theodosius's declaration was
quote:
St Damascus I, Patron of Jerome, commissioned the Vulgate translation of the Bible. Council of Rome, 382.