HABEMUS PAPEM II

Not really. It is just “Habemus Papem!”

We have one pope, Pope Francis. We have a Pope Emeritus, Benedict XVI, but we have only one boss and he is the first pope to take the name of Francis. Lots of folks are calling him Pope Francis I or Pope Francis the First. There is no need to do so.

He is Pope Francis, the one and only. He doesn’t need a Roman numeral after his name until such time as there is a second pope to take the name of Francis. Pope John Paul I was just Pope John Paul until Karol Józef Wojtyła took the name of John Paul and became John Paul II.

There were 266 popes before Pope Francis. Of that number, forty-two fall into the one and only category with Pope Francis. With names like Pope Evaristus, Eleutherius, and Silverius it is not surprising that some papal names will never be repeated. There is only one pope named Peter and it is not likely that someone would choose to become Peter II. “And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock…” Some things are too sacred to change.

The first pope to leave the one and only category was our seventh pope, St. Sixtus I. He was pope from 115 to 125. In 257, St. Sixtus II began his reign as pope and thus made Pope Sixtus I the first pope to be able to say, “Sum numerus unus! Sum numerus unus!”

Before Pope Francis, the last pope without a Roman numeral after his name was Pope Lando. He was a native of Sabina and was elected pope in July or August of 913 and died in February or March of 914, a reign lasting a little over six months. We do not know much about him except that he was a worthy man, granted a privilege to a church in his native land and went on to play a crucial role in Star Wars V: The Empire Strikes Back in 1977 and Star Wars VI: Return of the Jedi in 1983. At the time, we thought the movies were Star Wars II and III, part of the one and only Star Wars trilogy which turned out to be the sequel trilogy even though it was made before the prequel trilogy, Star Wars I, II and III. All of these Roman numerals get to be too much, even for Lando Calrissian.

So we have a new pope who is the first Jesuit to become pope, the first pope from the Americas, the first Latin American pope, the first pope from Argentina. Pope Francis, the one and only, is leading the way.

Catholic Encyclopedia, The List of Popes