when his Holiness Pope John 23, first called for an Ecumenical Council, and at the same time voiced his yearning for Christian unity, the enthusiasm among Catholic and Protestant ecumenicists was immediate.

First of all, it is now known that Pope John sees the renewal and purification of the Church as an absolutely necessary step toward Christian unity.

Equally significant, Pope John has said that Catholics themselves bear some responsibility for Christian disunity.

McClellan's letter incensed Radical Republicans, who successfully pressured Lincoln to appoint John Pope, a Republican, as head of the new Army of Virginia.

* 1329 – The Roman Catholic Diocese of Quilon, the first Indian Christian Diocese, is erected by Pope John XXII ; the French-born Jordanus is appointed the first Bishop.

* 1862 – American Civil War: Battle of Cedar Mountain – At Cedar Mountain, Virginia, Confederate General Stonewall Jackson narrowly defeats Union forces under General John Pope.

Ozanam was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1997.

In 2004, Pope John Paul II's efforts to unite Europe were honoured with an ‘ Extraordinary Charlemagne Medal ’, which was awarded for the first time ever.

But John having died, the Pope and the English aristocracy changed their allegiance to his nine-year-old son, Henry, forcing the French and the Scots armies to return home.

He went to Rome in 1007 to receive his pallium — symbol of his status as an archbishop — from Pope John XVIII, but was robbed during his journey.

* 2005 – Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger is elected the 265th Pope of the Catholic Church following the death of Pope John Paul II.

Baldassarre Cossa ( c. 1370 – 21 December 1418 ) was Pope John XXIII ( 1410 – 1415 ) during the Western Schism.

John XXIII was acknowledged as pope by France, England, Bohemia, Prussia, Portugal, parts of the Holy Roman Empire, and numerous Northern Italian city states, including Florence and Venice ; however, the Avignon Pope Benedict XIII was regarded as pope by the Kingdoms of Aragon, Castile, and Scotland and Gregory XII was still favored by Ladislaus of Naples, Carlo I Malatesta, the princes of Bavaria, Louis III, Elector Palatine, and parts of Germany and Poland.

Pope Martin V protested in vain against the inscription on the sarcophagus: " John the former pope ".

He should not be confused with Pope John XXIII of the twentieth century.

When Angelo Cardinal Roncalli was elected and became Pope John, there was some confusion as to whether he would be John XXIII or John XXIV ; he then declared that he was John XXIII to put this question to rest.

His brothers were equally willing to save the dowager queen, but Otto got an army into the field: they subsequently met at the old Lombard capital of Pavia and were married in 951 ; he was crowned emperor in Rome, 2 February 962 by Pope John XII, and, most unusually, she was crowned empress at the same ceremony.

They are first mentioned in the papal bulls Extravagantes of Pope John XXII and of Pope Benedict XII.

To regulate the proper expedition of these reserved benefices, Pope John XXII instituted the rules of chancery to determine the competency and mode of procedure of the Chancery.

Other authors reject this early institution and ascribe it to Pope John XXII ( 1316 ).

Pope John XXIII also revised the Breviary in 1960, introducing changes drawn up by his predecessor Pope Pius XII.

Under Pope Benedict XVI's motu proprio Summorum Pontificum, Roman Catholic bishops, priests, and deacons are again permitted to use the 1962 edition of the Roman Breviary, promulgated by Pope John XXIII to satisfy their obligation to recite the Divine Office every day.

Pope Sixtus V limited the number of cardinals to 70, composed of six cardinal bishops, 50 cardinal priests, and 14 cardinal deacons ; however, Pope John XXIII began to exceed the overall limit of 70, and this continued under his successors.

In 1965 Pope Paul VI decreed in his motu proprio Ad Purpuratorum Patrum that patriarchs of the Eastern Catholic Churches who were named cardinals would also be part of the episcopal order, ranked after the six cardinal bishops of the suburbicarian sees ( who had been relieved of direct responsibilities for those sees by Pope John XXIII three years earlier ).

When Pope John XXIII abolished the limit, he began to add new churches to the list, which Popes Paul VI and John Paul II continued to do.

Since the time of Pope John XXIII a priest who is appointed a cardinal must be consecrated a bishop, unless he obtains a dispensation.

When announcing Vatican II, Pope John XXIII stated that the precepts of the Council of Trent continue to the modern day, a position that was reaffirmed by Pope Paul VI.

Pope John XXIII initially called for a Synod of the Diocese of Rome, an Ecumenical Council, and an updating to the 1917 Code.

In 1963 Pope John XXIII established a commission of six European non-theologians to study questions of birth control and population.

The commission that Pope John XXIII formed to study population problems as well as acceptable methods of birth control met once in 1963 and twice in 1964.

" Human life is sacred — all men must recognize that fact ," Our predecessor Pope John XXIII recalled.

* 1962 – Pope John XXIII excommunicates Fidel Castro.

Pope John XXIII removed this feast from the General Roman Calendar in 1960, along with various other second feasts of a single saint.

* 1962 – St. Martín de Porres is canonized by Pope John XXIII.

* 1881 – Pope John XXIII ( d. 1963 )

' Pope, Alexander ( 1688 – 1744 )', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography ( Oxford University Press, Sept 2004, online edn, Jan 2008 ).

* Pope Benedict XVI: A Biography of Joseph Ratzinger by John L. Allen Jr. ( 2005 ), Continuum, ISBN 0-8264-1787-6, pp. 287 – 291

The finished biography, Anthony Trollope, won the Whitbread Award for Biography in 1972 and is largely regarded as Pope Hennessy's finest work since Queen Mary.

* Witness to Hope: The Biography of Pope John Paul II, Harper Collins, 1999, ISBN 0-06-018793-X.

* Pope John Paul II: The Biography ( ISBN 0-671-00047-0 )

There had been reading at table, especially from two books, Pope Gregory The Great's account of St. Scholastica in his Dialogues and my own The World Of Washington Irving.

There are a great many bishops who have never had a cross on their bosom, nor a mitre on their head, who appeal not to the authority of the Pope at Rome, but to the Almighty Dollar, a pope much nearer home.

Pope Leo 13, on the 13th day of December 1898, granted the following indulgences: `` An indulgence of three hundred days is granted to all the Faithful who read the Holy Gospels at least a quarter of an hour.

Pope Pius the Sixth, at Rome, in April, 1778, wrote the following: `` The faithful should be excited to the reading of the Holy Scriptures: For these are the most abundant sources which ought to be left open to everyone, to draw from them purity of morals and of doctrine, to eradicate errors which are so widely disseminated in these corrupt times ''.

However, lacking requested reinforcements from McClellan, now commanding the Army of the Potomac, Pope was soundly defeated at the Second Battle of Bull Run in the summer of 1862, forcing the Army of the Potomac to defend Washington for a second time.

The first case recorded of the partial exemption of an abbot from episcopal control is that of Faustus, abbot of Lerins, at the council of Arles, AD 456 ; but the exorbitant claims and exactions of bishops, to which this repugnance to episcopal control is to be traced, far more than to the arrogance of abbots, rendered it increasingly frequent, and, in the 6th century, the practice of exempting religious houses partly or altogether from episcopal control, and making them responsible to the pope alone, received an impulse from Pope Gregory the Great.

In 1095 his ambassadors appeared before Pope Urban II at the Council of Piacenza.

In 853, at the age of four, Alfred is said to have been sent to Rome where, according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, he was confirmed by Pope Leo IV who " anointed him as king ".

Autpert's election as abbot caused internal dissent at St. Vicenzo, and both Pope Stephen III and Charlemagne intervened.

The union was confirmed by Pope Paul V in 1606, at which time the congregation added the name of St. Barnabas to its title, adopted new constitutions, divided its houses into four provinces, two of them, St Clement's and St Pancras's, being in Rome.

When at last successful, he was excommunicated by Pope Callixtus II for having expelled the monks of Saint-Gilles, who had aided his enemies.

During the English Reformation the Church of England broke away from the authority of the Pope and the Roman Catholic Church, at first temporarily under Henry VIII and Edward VI and later permanently during the reign of Elizabeth I.

Arnulf was greeted at the Ponte Milvio by the Roman Senate who escorted him into the Leonine City, where he was received by Pope Formosus on the steps of the Santi Apostoli.

High medieval sources mention the assassination of King Demetrius Zvonimir ( 1089 ), dying at the hands of his own people, who objected to a proposition by the Pope to go on a campaign to aid the Byzantines against the Seljuk Turks.

One example might be traveling in a car protected by a bubble of clear bulletproof glass, such as the Popemobile of Pope John Paul II – built following an attempt at his life.

Alexander Pope implied the architecture is rather dull, lacking either the vigour of the baroque style which was fading from fashion at the time, or the austere grandeur of the Palladian style which was just coming into vogue.

The author of the Festal Index, who was the original collector of St. Athanasius ' famed Festal Epistles ( collected shortly after his death ), stated that the Arians had accused St. Athanasius, among other accusations, that his ordination as Pope of Alexandria in 328 was not canonical because at the time of the consecration to the episcopate he had not yet attained the canonical age 30.

In Gregory ’ s day, history was not recognized as an independent field of study ; it was a branch of grammar or rhetoric, and historia ( defined as ‘ story ’) summed up the approach of the learned when they wrote what was, at that time, considered ‘ history .’ Gregory ’ s Dialogues Book Two, then, an authentic medieval hagiography cast as a conversation between the Pope and his deacon Peter, is designed to teach spiritual lessons.

For recent events the Chronicle, like his Ecclesiastical History, relied upon Gildas, upon a version of the Liber pontificalis current at least to the papacy of Pope Sergius I ( 687 – 701 ), and other sources.

In the monastic library at Jarrow were a number of books by theologians, including works by Basil, Cassian, John Chrysostom, Isidore of Seville, Origen, Gregory of Nazianzus, Augustine of Hippo, Jerome, Pope Gregory I, Ambrose of Milan, Cassiodorus, and Cyprian.

He was suspected and denounced, but nothing ensued until the establishment of the Inquisition in Rome in June 1542, at the instigation of Cardinal Giovanni Pietro Carafa, the first Grand Inquisitor, and later Pope Paul IV.

Saint Boniface ( c 680 – 750 ), Pope Gregory I ( c 540 – 604, r. 590 – 604 ), Adalbert of Egmond ( 8th century ), and priest Jeroen van Noordwijk, depicted in a 1529 painting by Jan Joostsz van Hillegom, currently on display at the Frans Hals Museum.