Those Blessed Popes Trivia Quiz

Known as Pope Benedict VII, he was elected to the papacy in October of 974 and his ascension was seen as a compromise to replace the antipope, Boniface VII. Boniface had been responsible for the death of Pope Benedict VI, usurped Benedict's office and then proceeded to clean out all of the treasures of the Vatican before fleeing to Constantinople.

Naturally, Boniface and his supporters condemned the ascension of Benedict, however, with the assistance of the Emperor Otto II, he (Benedict) was able to consolidate his position and then set about changing the standards in the church from one of simony (selling off the church's assets for personal gain) to one of monasticism (renouncing worldly pursuits for a life of spiritual devotion). Benedetto remained Pope until his passing in 983.

Also spelled Theophylact, he became ruler of the Papal States from 18 May 1012 until his death some twelve years later. He took over from Gregory VI, who was deemed an antipope (one who claims to be the leader of the Roman Catholic Church in opposition to the truly elected Pope) and was forced to flee Rome.

Teofilato's election came at a time when Italy was under attack from the Saracens, which saw the sacking of Pisa and the upheaval of Sardinia. At this point, the Normans were also seeking to settle in Italy. The Pope saw an opportunity here and allied the Church with the Normans, which ultimately led to peace with them, and then their joint defeat of the Saracens. He also promoted the movement known as "The Truce of God", which furthered the quest for peace during his time. He would be succeeded by his brother, John XIX.

Theophylactus, the nephew of both Benedict VIII and John XIX, was a piece of work, to say the least. Elected as Pope as a twenty year old, he is believed to be the youngest Pope to have been elected and the only Pope to have the seat on more than one occasion.

Legend has it that Benedict IX's father got him the Papacy by bribing Roman officials. His first pontificate, which began in 1032, was described as scandalous, with the likes of Bishop Benno of Piacenza accusing Benedict of "many vile adulteries and murders." Benedict was forced to flee Rome but returned with the assistance of Emperor Conrad II. Further accusations of sodomy and bestiality followed and he was forced to flee again in 1045, at which point Sylvester III was elected Pope.

Not to be denied, Benedict returned two months later and he, and his supporters, were able to expel Sylvester from the Chair of St. Peter. Benedict then offered to resign as Pope in favour of his godfather, Gregory VI, in exchange for full reimbursement of his expenses. Once again, he had a change of heart and returned to try and depose his godfather. At this point, prominent clergy appealed to the King of the Romans, Henry III, who summarily deposed all three aspirants - Benedict IX, Gregory VI and Sylvester III - installing Clement II as the Pope in 1046.

But wait... there's more. When Clement II died in 1047, Benedict seized the opportunity and the Papacy again, but was driven out in 1048. When he failed to appear to face charges of simony in 1049 he was excommunicated. His ultimate fate is obscure.

Giovanni, as Benedict X, had a short stay in the Chair of St. Peter. The son of a powerful political family and the nephew of the notorious Pope Benedict IX, he was elected in 1058 to succeed Pope Stephen IX. However, there remained strong opposition to his elevation, so much so that he fled from Rome, 295 days after his election. He is considered by some to have been an antipope.

The lead up to Benedict XI's elevation to Pontificate was a troubled time. His predecessor, Pope Boniface VIII, had been in conflict with Philip IV, the King of France. The King, in an effort to strengthen the monarchy, had imposed taxes upon the Papacy and sought to bring the Church under state control. Pope Boniface, for his part, turned hostile and had the King excommunicated. Upon Boniface's passing the conclave sought someone who would not be so hostile to the King. Benedict XI was chosen, after one day and a single ballot.

One of Benedict XI's first actions was to release the King from the ban, however, he also chose to excommunicate Guillaume de Nogaret, whom Philip relied heavily upon for his international relations, for his part in the capture and untimely death of Pope Boniface. Despite Benedict working with the King to broker an armistice between he and Edward I of England, he still had enemies in King Philip's court and this raised great suspicions when Benedict passed away a mere eight months after ascending to the chair. Talk of poisoning was raised and eyes fell upon the excommunicated Nogaret, but there was no direct evidence to support this contention. Benedict XI's papacy began in October, 1303 and ended in July of 1304. He was beatified by Pope Clement XII in 1736 and his feast day is July 7th.

What became known as the Avignon Papacy, though, in some circles, it was referred to as the Babylonian Captivity, was a scenario that arose out of conflict between the Papacy and King Philip IV of France. This conflict came to a head with the death of Pope Boniface (at the hands of the King) and the subsequent passing of Pope Benedict XI. After maneuverings by King Philip, which saw the election of Clement V to Pope in 1305, the Papacy refused to camp in Rome and situated itself in Avignon in the Kingdom of Arles. It remained there for 67 years between 1309 to 1376 with seven Popes being in residence during that time. Benedict XII was the third of those.

Benedict endeavoured to move the Papacy to either Rome or Bologna during his time in the chair however, he too was stymied by the political workings of both King Philip and the King of the Romans, Louis IV. As a result Benedict would be the Pope that instigated the great work on the palace at Avignon. He also made great strides to remove nepotism within the church, reformed monastic orders and he quashed the theories of Pope John XXII that the souls of the dead remained in a state of limbo until judgement day. Instead, he pushed forward the dogma of the "Benedictus Deus" (1336) that the soul received its reward immediately upon death.

To avoid some possible confusion of the fact that there are two Benedict XIIIs and three Benedict XIVs, here's a short paragraph about the Western Schism. It was Pope Gregory XI who finally shifted the Papacy from Avignon to Rome, in 1377. He passed away in 1378 and was succeeded by Urban VI. This ascension was contested by a group of French cardinals who declared the election invalid. This caused a split in the Catholic church. The French then elected Pedro Martinez de Luna as Pope Benedict XIII and he resided in the palace at Avignon. He was expelled from Avignon in 1403 and is now considered to be an antipope. Two others followed in his footsteps as Popes Benedict XIV in Bernard Garnier (1424 to possibly 1430) and Jean Carrier (possibly 1430 to 1437). These two have also been declared antipopes.

Pietro (also known as Pierfrancesco) Orsini initially accepted Benedict XIV as his papal name but altered it to XIII with the denouncing of de Luna as an antipope. Pietro was the third member (and the last) of the powerful Orsini family to rise to the position of Pope; however, his was not a memorable Papacy. In the chair from 1724 to 1730, he repealed the worldwide ban on smoking tobacco that had been instituted by Pope Urban VII, but he had little in the way of political nous. The result of this is that he came to rely, too heavily, on Cardinal Coscia, his secretary, for guidance. The Cardinal was a rogue, which led to a string of financial abuses that virtually ruined the papal treasury.

The English historian Horace Walpole described Pope Benedict XIV as "loved by papists, esteemed by Protestants, a priest without insolence or interest, a prince without favorites, a pope without nepotism, an author without vanity, a man whom neither intellect nor power could corrupt."

A great scholar and, some say, polymath, Benedict XIV was at pains to promote learning, especially of science, the human form, art and theology. He committed the church to carrying out the decrees that were set out by the Council of Trent (1545-63), which clarified the church's position in respect to its doctrine and teachings, liturgy and censorship. Significantly he promoted the church's ceremonies by invigorating them with pomp. He promoted agriculture, reduced taxes in certain areas and supported free trade within the Papal States. He was also responsible for setting up the Sacred and Profane Museums, which are still situated within the Vatican.

Pope Benedict XVI called this man the "Prophet of Peace" and, considering that he took the chair at the start of World War I and his efforts during the conflict... the sobriquet sits nicely on his shoulders. Elected at, what is nowadays, the tender age of 57 years, the war and the impact that it had politically, socially and humanitarianly on the continent of Europe were always going to be at the forefront of Pope Benedict XV's mind.

His first act was to declare the neutrality of the Vatican in the conflict. In the years 1916 to 1917 he attempted to broker a peace agreement between the Germans and the French but both sides were contemptuous of his efforts. The Germans called it insulting and the French claimed it was anti-France. He would eventually repair this rift with the French with the latter re-establishing relations with the Vatican in 1921.

The Pope devoted much of his time to reducing the impact of the war on the rest of Europe. He brokered the exchanges of wounded soldiers, arranged for food parcels to be delivered to the needy and attended to those held as prisoners of war. One of Pope Benedict XV's major achievements was, in 1917, to put in place the "Code of Canon Law". This was a work that was commissioned by his predecessor, Pope Pius X, in 1904, to gather and codify the masses of canons created over almost eight centuries and install them under a single banner.

Benedict XV would contract pneumonia and pass away in 1922, after seven years in office.

At his core, Pope Benedict XVI was an academic. He became a full professor of theology at the age of 31, spoke fluent German (his native tongue), was proficient in French, Italian, English, and Spanish and could hold his own with Portuguese, Latin, Biblical Hebrew, and Biblical Greek.

Among his many achievements was the elevation of the Tridentine Mass, celebrated traditionally in Latin, to a more prominent position; he also reintroduced several Papal garments that had fallen out of use and pushed the acceptance and use of fundamental Christian values as a means of combatting the growing secularization (a move to more worldly values) of religion in the Western world. He was prominent in bringing the Catholic church closer to the arts and authorized the formation of the Anglican ordinariates, which enabled both Anglicans and Methodist to have easier access to the Catholic church.

Benedict was not without his share of controversies, none more prominent than his handling of a variety of cases of sexual abuses by church members and his strong opposition to the use of condoms. The latter was during a period of growing issues with HIV and AIDS.

In 2013, citing ill-health, he renounced his Papacy, the first to do so since Gregory XII in 1415 and, the first to do so of his own volition since Celestine V in 1294. He would pass away in 2022 at the age of 95, at the time, the longest lived Pope on record.