Who in the Holy See is this Pope guy anyway and why is his hat so big and pontifical?

God sees all.

Q: Describe the history of the Papacy from its origins to the present day, concentrating especially, but not exclusively, on its influence in Europe, Asia, America and Africa. Be brief, concise and specific.

I was recently informed that this question has been labeled across the internet as an “impossible final exam question.” Well, on this occasion I am afraid I am going to have to disagree with the series of tubes because I believe that if this question ever crawled onto one of my tests I would slap it in the snout and squeak out at the very least a solid AA+. That being said, let us get right into it by first addressing the question, “Who in the Holy See is this Pope guy anyway and why is his hat so big and pontifical?”

To answer that question, we will have to head back a thousand and odd years back to the the establishment of the early church and the Bible itself. Christian tradition establishes that Jesus had several BFFs called the Apostles (it has been suggested that Judas, one the twelve, thought BBF stood for “best friends until the Romans show up”). Excluding Judas, these would be the men that would go off and spread the Jesus' word after he died, again. To their great credit, they all pushed it to the limit. St. Thomas even hitchhiked all the way to India. Presumably, Arab truckers demanded, “gas, ass, grass, or mass.” Despite the Romans' nasty little habit of either crucifying Christians or feeding them to the lions, by the end of the first century, Christian communities grew fairly large in several Roman cities including Antioch, Jerusalem, Alexandria, and even Rome. Eventually, a Christian community spanning the Empire was born and in each city the Christian head honcho was dubbed a bishop. A couple centuries down the line the Bishop of Rome bestowed upon himself a new title, Pope.

So, we have answered the question, “who is the Pope?” Pure and simple, he is Rome's Bishop. But, “what makes him better than every other bishop? Why is his hat so big?” Well, that is up for debate. According to Catholic dogma, as I said earlier, the Apostles spread the word of Jesus, but there is an added amendment. Catholics believe that the Apostle that founded the Roman Church, Peter, is pretty much the best Apostle ever. Now mind you, this belief is not based on his sweet guitar chops and cool sunglasses alone, it is backed by the Bible and Jesus himself. In the good book, there is a verse where Jesus states, “Peter, this is the rock that the Church will be built upon.” According to the Roman Christians, Peter is the “rock.”* According to everybody else, Jesus was just saying, “Hey Peter, you are pretty cool. Check out this rock! It is huge! We could totally build a Church on this, no problem.” Thus, a bit of a disagreement arose. The Romans made the claim that their bishop should be foremost over the rest because Peter was the foremostest of the Apostles and everyone else thought the Romans are illiterate dumbasses.

At the time, European politics were also worsening the situation. The Roman Empire was slowly going down the crapper and the city of Rome was grasping at straws to maintain some type of control. By 306 AD, the Emperor Constantine had stripped Rome of most of its power and established a new capital in the East, a city which he completely coincidentally called Constantinople. A few years down the road, Constantine also converted the Empire to Christianity ultimately kicking the Romans' addiction to killing Christians, excluding a short relapse under Julian the Apostate. On one hand, the Christian conversion was great because the Church received much more influence. On the other hand, it sucked because now everyone in the Church was fighting this new-found power. Christianity began a long history of splitting into smaller sects and Rome and Constantinople began giving each other the cold shoulder for nearly the next 1000 years. During that time, barbarians called the Lombards attacked Rome and Constantinople did not give any support saying, “Oh sorry, I didn't hear you getting ransacked and pillaged over there. I'll help next time.” After that event, the Roman Christians allied themselves with the Francs under Charlemagne and by 1054 had nearly given up all contact with the Eastern Empire. This event, called the Great Schism, gave birth to the Catholic and Orthodox branches of Christianity. With the East out of the picture, the Bishop of Rome was the only powerful religious figure left in the West and he finally got the opportunity to break out his big hat, call himself Pope, and presumably stay up late and eat gelatos and pizza for breakfast.

Throughout the Middle Ages, the Pope was the Grand Puba of all Western Europe crowning Emperors of the Holy Roman Empire, initiating the Crusades, and doing generally treacherous things ranging from keeping concubines to promising murderers and rapists salvation if they squeegeed the stained glass-windows at the Sistine Chapel. As Catholic states in Western Europe began to stretch their legs across the world, the Pope's influence expanded. For example, the Pope was the one that decided that half of South America would belong to the Spanish and half to the Portuguese. Thus, resulting in the strange fact that Brazil is the only country in South America that does not speak Spanish. However, as these Catholic Empires grew so did Protestantism and the Pope's influence in Europe began a slow decline until modern Italy confined the Pope's true power the Vatican in the 1870s. In recent years, Pope John Paul II broke out of the Vatican and took the world by storm, hanging out with rock stars, and even prompting the creation of his own action figure. 

Yeah, that's John Paul II sporting Bono's sunglasses.

So far Benedict XVI as not reached such a level of action-figure worthy awesomeness. As a result, the Pope only remains as a figurehead and symbol that causes all non-Catholic Christians to question why one even exists. Well, you know what heathens? Maybe you would know, if you read more Historyory.

*This interpretation combined with Peter's Hendrixian guitar skills almost certainly led to the adoption of the term “rock 'n' roll.”