A lot has been made, within the US no less than, of the truth that the brand new pope – Robert Prevost, now Leo XIV –comes from the USA. The papacy is likely one of the few establishments on the earth the place Individuals have been beneath-represented. In current a long time, the rationale for that was the US’s disproportionate international affect – a pope from outdoors the US was seen as a counterbalance. But till the earlier pope – an Argentinian – it might have been ludicrous to argue that the collection of popes was in any approach balanced, since for over 1200 years each single pope had come completely from the continent of Europe.
It’s essential to recollect, although, that that wasn’t at all times the case! For the Catholic Church as an establishment predates the rise of European affect on the earth. Christianity, with its mixture of Greek and Hebrew influences, is carefully tied to the event of the “Western civilization” with those self same influences. And a have a look at the Church’s historical past may also help remind us, in a brand new approach, that the West is neither white nor European – for neither, basically, is the Church.
Right this moment, in fact, Europe represents solely a small slice of the Catholic inhabitants. There are extra Catholics in Latin America alone than within the entirety of Europe. There are extra Catholics within the Democratic Republic of the Congo than there are in Italy, extra Catholics within the Philippines than in France or Spain. And whereas the prevalence of Catholics in these areas – Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia – is a product of colonialism and trendy inhabitants progress, what’s not trendy is the attain of the Catholic Church outdoors of Europe.
Earlier than Francis, the final pope from outdoors of Europe was Gregory III, from what’s now Syria – who left workplace in 741, over a millennium again. However earlier than that, popes from outdoors of Europe have been commonplace – as one ought to count on. In spite of everything, Jesus himself by no means set foot in Europe. The Catholic Church considers the primary pope to be the apostle Peter, who was born in what’s now the Golan Heights, and the founding of the church to have taken place in Jerusalem.
In the last few weeks there had been some hypothesis that the brand new pope is perhaps chosen from Ghana or the Congo – and if that had occurred, it might not have been the primary African pope! Victor I (d. 199) was born in Roman Africa, in all probability Leptis Magna (now Libya). There was additionally Gelasius I, pope from 492 to 496 – who was in all probability from Roman Africa although there’s been some ambiguity. Pope Miltiades was additionally from North Africa, and had the excellence of being pope in 313 – presumably a very powerful date in Christian historical past, when Emperor Constantine made the Roman Empire Christian, and thereby created the lengthy hyperlink between Christianity and the West. (Thus, whereas Leo XIV would rely as “Black” in keeping with the bizarre segregationist logic of “progressive” Individuals, he’s removed from the primary pope to suit their criterion!) These popes share their African Christianity with Augustine: that nice thinker who did greater than anybody to form the Christian thoughts all through the centuries, and who was a Berber from what’s now Algeria.
With all of that background in thoughts, how did the Church then handle to run a streak of completely European popes for 1200 years? Within the previous couple of centuries, little doubt some quantity of colonialism and racism are responsible. But it surely’s essential to do not forget that in an establishment with a historical past so long as the Church’s, even these are comparatively current phenomenon. Colonialism and racism in all probability clarify why the popes have been completely European within the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. They don’t clarify that within the 14th century, when the idea of race didn’t exist.
There, the reason has extra to do with the Church having involuntarily narrowed its historic scope. Most clearly, in fact, Islam unfold quickly by Augustine’s North Africa and Gregory III’s Syria after they have been conquered by the Umayyad Caliphate; the east and south coasts of the Mediterranean have been now not primarily Christian.
But it surely’s additionally price remembering that there remained Christians in these locations; not everybody there turned a Muslim, simply as not everybody in Rome turned a Christian beneath Constantine. By the point of Gregory III, the town of Rome had fallen to barbarians; the capital of the Roman Empire within the eighth century was Constantinople, now Istanbul – from which a robust swimmer might attain Asia. The Church in these days had been divided into 5 official “patriarchates” – of which a majority (the Asian Antioch and Jerusalem, and the African Alexandria) weren’t in Europe. It was the East-West Schism – midway by the church’s historical past – that cut up off these church buildings, now known as “Japanese Orthodox”, and left Roman Catholicism (itself a a lot later time period) as an virtually completely European phenomenon.
However even that lasted just for a number of brief centuries – earlier than colonial-era missionaries would, for higher or for worse, start spreading Catholicism in nice numbers to the world outdoors Europe. Within the period 1054-1492, Catholicism qua Catholicism – versus Orthodoxy – was virtually completely a European phenomenon. However even centuries are a short while when put towards the entire span of church historical past. Trendy church members right this moment, of whom the overwhelming majority are non-European, inherit the lengthy pre-1054 historical past of a church that started and unfold outdoors of Europe. It’s about time that that they had some non-European popes once more.
