The pope, as Bishop of Rome, may open a process and has the authority to waive the five year waiting period, as was done for Mother Teresa by Pope John Paul II, and for Lúcia Santos and for John Paul II himself by Pope Benedict XVI.

Consequently, canon 351 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law requires that a cardinal be at least in the order of priesthood at his appointment, and that those who are not already bishops must receive episcopal consecration, a rule from which dispensation may be obtained from the pope, as by Cardinals Roberto Tucci, Albert Vanhoye, Domenico Bartolucci and most recently Karl Josef Becker.

In addition to the named cardinals, the pope may name secret cardinals or cardinals in pectore ( Latin for in the breast ).

If conditions change, so that the pope judges it safe to make the appointment public, he may do so at any time.

The whole, however, may be judged from this fragment: " We Irish, though dwelling at the far ends of the earth, are all disciples of St. Peter and St. Paul ... we are bound to the Chair of Peter, and although Rome is great and renowned, through that Chair alone is she looked on as great and illustrious among us ... On account of the two Apostles of Christ, you pope are almost celestial, and Rome is the head of the whole world, and of the Churches ".

He referred to the conditions under which the condemnation of his 18 theses was brought about ; and the same may be said of his books dealing with the Church, the office of king, and the power of the pope – all completed within the space of two years ( 1378 – 79 ).

No pope may say that he is the head, for he cannot say that he is elect or even a member of the Church.

But the decision proved the precursor of the long Avignon Papacy, the " Babylonian captivity " ( 1309 – 77 ), in Petrarch's phrase, and marks a point from which the decay of the strictly Catholic conception of the pope as universal bishop may be dated.

If it be the fact, as is asserted by a contemporary, that Benedict validly acquiesced in his deposition, and if, as seems certain, no further protest was made against Leo's position, he may well be regarded as a true pope from July 964, to his death in 965, about the month of March.

A large sum of gold that the pope possibly carried with him or Attila ´ s logistical and strategic concerns may have been the true reasons for Attila's mercy.

The Roman Catholic Church also developed on the parallel and complementary idea of papal infallibility — that the pope may speak in the same capacity ; this idea was finally defined dogmatically at the First Vatican Council of 1870 and incorporated into doctrine.

Edward Gibbon wrote of her that the " influence of two sister prostitutes, Marozia and Theodora was founded on their wealth and beauty, their political and amorous intrigues: the most strenuous of their lovers were rewarded with the Roman tiara, and their reign may have suggested to darker ages the fable of a female pope.

The only person who could crown Eustace was Archbishop Theobald, who may well have seen the coronation of Eustace only as a guarantee of further civil war after Stephen's death ; the Archbishop refused to crown Eustace without agreement from the current pope, Eugene III, and the matter reached an impasse.

One reason the archbishop may have backed down was that he was in debt to the Italian banking family of the Riccardi, who also were bankers to Edward and the pope, and Peckham was under threat of excommunication from the pope unless he repaid the loans.

It may well be that the pallium was introduced as a liturgical badge of the pope, or that it was adopted in imitation of its counterpart, the pontifical omophor, already in vogue in the Eastern Church.

The use of the pallium is reserved to the pope and archbishops who are metropolitans, but the latter may not use it until it is conferred upon them by the pope, normally at the celebration of the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul in June.

It was against this backdrop that Robert refused to consecrate Spearhafoc, although there is no other evidence that Robert embraced the reform position, and his claim that the pope forbade the consecration may have had more to do with finding an easy excuse than any true desire for reform.

Dagobert may well have visualised turning Jerusalem into a fiefdom of the pope, however his full intentions are not clear.

That the pope or bishop anoints, makes tonsures, ordains, consecrates, or dresses differently from the laity, may make a hypocrite or an idolatrous oil-painted icon, but it in no way makes a Christian or spiritual human being.

On the other hand the presence of these magnates at these two great assemblies may merely have been necessary to confirm Charles ' illegitimate son as his heir ( Waiblingen ), a plan which failed when the pope refused to attend, and then to confirm Louis instead ( Kirchen ).

Beyond these two, theologians disagree on which, if any, previous papal declarations may be considered as possible examples of extraordinary infallible dogmatic definitions on the part of a pope.

Onofrio Panvinio, in the revised edition of Bartolomeo Platina's book about the popes, added an elaborate note indicating that the legend of Pope Joan may be based on a mistress of John XII: Panvinius, in a note to Platina's account of pope Joan, suggests that the licentiousness of John XII, who, among his numerous mistresses, had one called Joan, who exercised the chief influence at Rome during his pontificate, may have given rise to the story of " pope Joan.

when the pope, trying no doubt to appeal to his better nature, said to him, `` You have already taken Normandy.

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.

( The later pope St. Gregory I the Great is not known to have composed any Gregorian chant, the plainsong or " Romish chant ".

Several saints and six popes have borne this name, including the only English pope, Adrian IV, and the only Dutch pope, Adrian VI.

Persons who claim to be pope, but have few followers, such as the modern sedevacantist antipopes, are not classified with the historical antipopes.

At the Siege of Bayonne in October 1131, three years before his death, he published a will leaving his kingdom to three autonomous religious orders based in Palestine and politically largely independent on the pope, the Knights Templars, the Hospitallers, and the Knights of the Holy Sepulchre, whose influences might have been expected to cancel one another out.

Walter of Pontoise was canonized by Hugh de Boves, the Archbishop of Rouen in 1153 ; Walter was the last saint in Western Europe to have been canonized by an authority other than the pope.

The right to enter the conclave of cardinals who elect the pope is now limited to those who have not reached the age of 80 years on the day of the pope's death or resignation.

A well-known instance of the " John Cardinal Doe " style is that in the proclamation, in Latin, of the election of a new pope by the cardinal protodeacon: " Annuntio vobis gaudium magnum ; habemus Papam: Eminentissimum ac Reverendissimum Dominum, Dominum ( first name ) Sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae Cardinalem ( last name ), ..." ( Meaning: " I announce to you a great joy ; we have a Pope: The Most Eminent and Most Reverend Lord, Lord ( first name ) Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church ( last name ), ...")

Cardinals have in canon law a " privilege of forum " ( i. e., exemption from being judged by ecclesiastical tribunals of ordinary rank ): only the pope is competent to judge them in matters subject to ecclesiastical jurisdiction ( cases that refer to matters that are spiritual or linked with the spiritual, or with regard to infringement of ecclesiastical laws and whatever contains an element of sin, where culpability must be determined and the appropriate ecclesiastical penalty imposed ).

The Holy Roman Emperors of Ottonian Dynasty, when they came to the throne, believed they should have the power to appoint the pope.

In part because of the constant presence of the King, other rulers demanded that they have a say in who would be pope.

Although some scholars have identified this person with pope Vigilius, there is nothing else to support the identification besides the name.

Henry's control of Rome enabled him to have his choice of pope, Antipope Clement III, consecrated and in turn for this pope to crown Henry as emperor.

However, John A. T. Robinson and other scholars argued for a much earlier dating, based on the fact that the New Testament writings make no mention of ( 1 ) the Great Fire of Rome ( A. D. 64 ), one of the most destructive fires in Roman history, which Emperor Nero blamed on the Christians, and led to the first major persecution of believers ; ( 2 ) the final years and deaths of Paul, who wrote most of the epistles, Peter, whom Catholics recognize as the first pope, and the other apostles ; ( 3 ) Nero's suicide ( A. D. 68 ); or ( 4 ) the total destruction of the temple in Jerusalem ( A. D. 70 ), which Robinson thought should certainly have appeared, considering the importance of that event for Jews and Christians of that time.

Over the centuries, papal claims of spiritual authority have been ever more firmly expressed, culminating in 1870 with the proclamation of the dogma of papal infallibility for rare occasions when the pope speaks ex cathedra — literally " from the chair ( of St. Peter )"— to issue a formal definition of faith or morals.

The pope was understood to have the power to draw on the " treasury " of merit built up by the saints and by Christ, so that he could grant indulgences, reducing one's time in purgatory.

We have a pope !").

In recent centuries, when a pope was judged to have died, it was reportedly traditional for the Cardinal Chamberlain to confirm the death ceremonially by gently tapping the pope's head thrice with a silver hammer, calling his birth name each time.

Some New Religious Movements, especially those that have disassociated themselves from the Catholic Church yet retain a Catholic hierarchical framework, will use the designation " pope " for a movement's founder or current leader.

Alexander III was the first pope known to have paid direct attention to missionary activities east of the Baltic Sea.

He was one of only two men known to have served as Camerlengo immediately prior to being elected as pope ( the other being Pope Leo XIII ).