Catholicism

The pope is called pontiff because the word has long described a high priest or chief religious leader, a sense adopted early by the bishop of Rome. In everyday Catholic usage,...

A papal conclave is the formal process by which cardinals elect a new pope following a vacancy of the Holy See. The word conclave comes from the Latin cum clave, meaning "with a...

When the pope dies, a set of well established ceremonial and administrative procedures begins immediately, balancing solemn tradition with precise logistics. This process, overs...

In Catholic teaching, a saint is a person who has lived a life of heroic virtue and is in heaven, officially recognized by the Church through a canonical process of canonization...

The most recent pope before the current pontificate is Pope Benedict XVI, born Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger on 16 April 1927 in Marktl, Germany. He served as pope from 19 April 200...

There are no verified, historically certain cases of a pope who was married while serving as pope in the ordinary canonically recognized sense. Some early bishops, including sev...