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.

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.

Pope Gregory I repeats the concept, articulated over a century earlier by Gregory of Nyssa that the saved suffer purification after death, in connection with which he wrote of " purgatorial flames ".

The same word in adjectival form ( purgatorius-a-um, cleansing ), which appears also in non-religious writing, was already used by Christians such as Augustine of Hippo and Pope Gregory I to refer to an after-death cleansing.

Alfred's first translation was of Pope Gregory the Great's Pastoral Care, which he prefaced with an introduction explaining why he thought it necessary to translate works such as this one from Latin into English.

This order is known from a bull of Pope Gregory XI addressed to the monks of the church of St Ambrose outside Milan.

In 1375 Pope Gregory XI gave them the Rule of St Augustine, with set of constitutions.

Therefore, Pope Gregory IX requested him to give up this practice.

On 20 August 1233, Andrew had a meeting with the legate of Pope Gregory IX in the woods of Bereg, and they made an agreement which ensured the privileges of the clergy.

Pope Gregory VII canonized Ælfheah in 1078, with a feast day of 19 April.

The Angles are the subject of a legend about Pope Gregory I, who happened to see a group of Angle children from Deira for sale as slaves in the Roman market.

He was one of the seven cardinals who, in May 1408, deserted Pope Gregory XII, and, with those following Antipope Benedict XIII from Avignon, convened the Council of Pisa, of which Cossa became the leader.

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.

During the third session, rival Pope Gregory XII authorized the council as well.

The first Archbishop of Canterbury was St Augustine ( not to be confused with St Augustine of Hippo ), who arrived in Kent in 597 AD, having been sent by Pope Gregory I on a mission to the English.

It seems that Pope Gregory, ignorant of recent developments in the former Roman province, including the spread of the Pelagian heresy, had intended the new archiepiscopal sees for England to be established in London and York.

Pope Gregory XVI rescinded this privilege and reserved to the Pope the right of creation of such knights ( Acta Pont.

Apart from a short poem attributed to Mark of Monte Cassino, the only ancient account of Benedict is found in the second volume of Pope Gregory I's four-book Dialogues, thought to have been written in 593.

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.

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.

Bede was the first to refer to Jerome, Augustine, Pope Gregory and Ambrose as the four Latin Fathers of the Church.

It may be one of the " aestels " Alfred had sent to each bishopric with a copy of his translation of Pope Gregory the Great's book Pastoral Care.

It corresponds also with Pope Leo the Great's definition, jejunia ecclesiastica per totius anni circulum distributa (" fasts of the church distributed through the whole circuit of the year ").

It may have been one of the precious ' æstels ' or staffs that Alfred sent to each bishopric along with a copy of his translation of Pope Gregory the Great's book Pastoral Care.

His death was later celebrated as a martyrdom due to the influence of Pope Gregory the Great's Dialogues, in which he portrayed Hermenegild as a " Catholic martyr rebelling against the tyranny of an Arian father.

British Library, Additional MS 31031 is an 8th century illuminated copy of Pope Gregory the Great's Moralia in Job, books I-V. The codex is missing the last folio and ends in the words " et singuli tota ".

The cult of St. Maurus slowly spread to monasteries throughout France and by the 11th century had been adopted by Monte Cassino in Italy, along with a revived cult of St. Placidus ( the fellow pupil of St Benedict at Monte Cassino along with St Maurus, according to Pope Gregory the Great's Life of St. Benedict.

In 2009, Pope Benedict XVI gave a homily about him in Saint Peter's square.

In his 2006 homily for Corpus Christi, Pope Benedict XVI noted the similarity between the Christian story of the resurrection and pagan myths of dead and resurrected gods: " In these myths, the soul of the human person, in a certain way, reached out toward that God made man, who, humiliated unto death on a cross, in this way opened the door of life to all of us.

In a passage of his inauguration homily, quoted above, Pope John Paul II remarked that both his immediate predecessor and he himself had wished neither a coronation nor a tiara, and added: " This is not the time to return to a ceremony and an object considered, wrongly, to be a symbol of the temporal power of the Popes.

In the second day, Pope Benedict's homily had pronounced in front of more than 500, 000 pilgrims a reference to the Fátima prophecy about the triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary and related it to the final " glory of the Most Holy Trinity ".

In his August 15, 2004, homily given at Lourdes, Pope John Paul II quoted John 14: 3 as one of the scriptural bases for understanding the dogma of the Assumption of Mary.

* Full text of the homily by Pope Paul VI on the occasion of the canonization of St. Seton

Had he survived Pope John Paul II, who delivered the homily at his funeral-the last while John Paul was alive -, Cardinal Schotte would, as the senior member of the order of Cardinal Deacons under the age of 80, have made the announcement of the next Pope's election.

In 2008, St Mary's Cathedral became the focus of World Youth Day 2008 and was visited by Pope Benedict XVI who, in his homily on 19 July, made the historic full apology for child sex abuse by Catholic priests in Australia, of whom 107 have been committed by the courts.

After kissing the text of the Book of the Gospels, Cardinal Ratzinger stood before the congregants to offer the homily which included references to the life and service of Pope John Paul.

Cardinal Ratzinger became emotional at certain parts of his homily, especially in reflection of the inability of Pope John Paul to speak in the last days of his life.

However in his homily at his October 1978 Papal Inauguration, Pope John Paul II dismissed that claim and asserted that the papacy had long had no wish to possess any temporal jusdiction outside the Vatican.

In his homily at the canonisation ceremony on 1 October 2000, Pope John Paul II made a statement asking for forgiveness for any past wrongs by the missionaries to China: " There are those who with a partial and not very objective reading of history see only limits and errors in their action.

In his inauguration homily, Pope John Paul II said:

At the end of this period two pious Christians in Rome receive the revelation which leads them to seek the next Pope on the rock.

-- Indonesia Military Supreme Court has confirmed the death sentence passed on Alan Lawrence Pope, an American pilot.

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.

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, an Allocution is a solemn form of address or speech from the throne employed by the Pope on certain occasions.

Protracted conflict through the seventeenth century with more radical Protestants on the one hand and Roman Catholics who still recognised the primacy of the Pope on the other, resulted in an association of churches that were both deliberately vague about doctrinal principles, yet bold in developing parameters of acceptable deviation.

Angilbert delivered the document on Iconoclasm from the Frankish Synod of Frankfurt to Pope Adrian I, and was later sent on three important embassies to the pope, in 792, 794 and 796.

In 1884, he was created by Pope Leo XIII Archbishop of Caesarea in partibus and sent to India as an Apostolic Delegate to report on the establishment of the hierarchy there.

He was canonized and proclaimed a Doctor of the Church on December 16, 1931 by Pope Pius XI and patron saint of the sciences.

Only the death of Stephen, the great hospodar of Moldavia, enabled Poland still to hold her own on the Danube River ; while the liberality of Pope Julius II, who issued no fewer than 29 bulls in favor of Poland and granted Alexander Peter's Pence and other financial help, enabled him to restrain somewhat the arrogance of the Teutonic Order.

Hippolytus of Rome ( d. 235 ) is commonly considered to be the earliest antipope, as he headed a separate group within the Church in Rome against Pope Callixtus I. Hippolytus was reconciled to Callixtus's second successor, Pope Pontian, and both he and Pontian are honoured as saints by the Roman Catholic Church with a shared feast day on 13 August.

In 1204 his doctrines were condemned by the university, and, on a personal appeal to Pope Innocent III, the sentence was ratified, Amalric being ordered to return to Paris and recant his errors.

He was next sent by the Pope to the Emperor Sigismund to ask his aid in the pope's efforts to end this Council, which for five years had been encroaching on papal prerogatives.

The Pope transferred the Council from Basel to Ferrara on 18 September 1437.

The new Pope takes on the regnal name Benedict XVI.

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

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.

By decree of pope Leo X they were created papal nobles, ranking as Comes palatinus (' Count Palatine '), familiars and members of the papal household, so that they might enjoy all the privileges of domestic prelates and of prelates in actual attendance on the Pope, as regards plurality of benefices as well as expectives.

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.

During Pope Shenouda III's visit to Rome from 4 to 10 May 1973, Pope Paul VI gave the Coptic Patriarch a relic of Athanasius, which he brought back to Egypt on 15 May.