Give me the scoop on Liberius. At long last, we have the first pope to not be recognized as a saint. It was a bummer, too, because Liberius is the only one in the first 49 popes to not bear that title in the Catholic Church. Liberius is, however, recognized as a saint by the …
Give me the scoop on Julius I. Born in Rome, Pope St. Julius I was elected pope on February 6, 337 and reigned for 15 years. He knew the great St. Athanasius, who was the on-again-off-again Bishop of Alexandria at the time, and even spoke up on his behalf when Athanasius’ enemies sought to remove …
Give me the scoop on Mark. Not to be confused with the Gospel author of the same name, Mark was a Roman by birth, according to the Liber Pontificalis. He appears to have been a priest or deacon under Pope Miltiades (two popes ago) when Constantine asked for a group of bishops to deal with …
Give me the scoop on Sylvester I. Despite being the second pope to reign under Constantine and preside over a now-legal Church, surprisingly little is factually known about St. Sylvester’s time as pope. There’s no shortage of legends, though. Around the sixth century, people started cooking up all sorts of tall (and untrue) tales about …
Give me the scoop on Miltiades. This pope was African by birth. Though not elected until after Emperor Galerius issued a reluctant edict of toleration (aka a note that said “we’ll stop killing the Christians”), Miltiades was elected pope on July 2, 311. The formal act of toleration toward Christians by the Roman Empire two …
Give me the scoop on Eusebius. Not to be confused with Eusebius of Caesarea, who wrote about all things Church history around the same time, Pope St. Eusebius had to deal with more fallout from the recent persecutions. What’s worse, they’d become so contentious that Eusebius himself was exiled to Sicily by the Roman emperor, …
Give me the scoop on Marcellus I. A surprising four years passed between the death of St. Marcellinus and the election of St. Marcellus I, due to the incredible intensity of the Diocletian Persecution. The persecution itself had subsided by 306, yet it still took nearly two years for a new Bishop of Rome to …