The practice of adopting a new name became ingrained during the 11th century, a period of German popes who chose names of early church bishops out of “a desire to signify continuity,” said the Rev. John can refer to St. John the Apostle, one of Jesus’ 12 apostles and the author of one of the Gospels, or St. John the Baptist, the prophet who baptized Jesus. Pius IX ordered the kidnapping of the Jewish boy Edgardo Mortara in 1858 and raised him Catholic in the Vatican after learning he had been secretly baptized by a housekeeper; Pius X was the early 20th century anti-modernist who inspired the anti-Vatican II schismatic group, the Society of St. Pius X; Pius XII was the World War II-era pope criticized for not speaking out sufficiently about the Holocaust.
Author: Associated Press
Published at: 2025-05-06 21:31:11
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