Pope Francis, who succeeded Benedict XVI after his surprise resignation in March 2013 is the 266th person to occupy the office said to have first been held by St. Peter, a humble fisherman who became a disciple of Christ and, eventually, the man Jesus described as the ‘rock’ upon which he would build his Church. Today, the Pope rules over a Church that has more than a billion adherents, making it one of the world’s great religions. The story of its leaders, the Popes, encompasses the history of the world from the first century AD to the present day. No other earthly power has presided for so long over matters both temporal and spiritual, enduring from the last centuries of the Roman Empire to the dying gasps of Communism and beyond.
