Black Pope series | Samuel Fosso (2024)

FAQs

Has the Catholic Church ever had a black pope? ›

That history tells us there were three Black popes in Catholic Church history: Pope Victor I who headed the church from 189 A.D. to 199 A.D., Pope Miltiades (311 A.D. – 314 A.D.) and Pope Gelasius who served between 492 and 496 A.D.

Samuel Fosso, The Chief: He Who Sold Africa to the Colonists (Le chef: Celui qui a vendu l'Afrique aux colons), self-portrait from the Tati series, 1997.

The Church's records tell us there were potentially three Black popes in Catholic history: Pope Victor I, who headed the church from 189-199, Pope Miltiades (311-314), and Pope Gelasius I, who was pope from 492-496.

The Oxford Dictionary of Popes declares that there is "no contemporary evidence for a female Pope at any of the dates suggested for her reign", but nonetheless acknowledges that Pope Joan's legend was widely believed for centuries, even by Catholics.

Pope Francis is a first in many ways. He's the first Latin American pontiff; the first Jesuit; the first Francis – and the first non-European in 1,272 years. The last time someone from outside Europe led the Roman Catholic Church was the year 741. That's when Pope Gregory III, born in Syria, ended his 10-year reign.

Brazil and British American ports were the points of disembarkation for most Africans. On a whole, over the 300 years of the Transatlantic slave trade, 29 per cent of all Africans arriving in the New World disembarked at British American ports, 41 per cent disembarked in Brazil.

Slavery in northern Africa dates back to ancient Egypt. The New Kingdom (1558–1080 BC) brought large numbers of slaves as prisoners of war up the Nile valley and used them for domestic and supervised labour. Ptolemaic Egypt (305 BC–30 BC) used both land and sea routes to bring in slaves.

Sumer or Sumeria is still thought to be the birthplace of slavery, which grew out of Sumer into Greece and other parts of ancient Mesopotamia. The Ancient East, specifically China and India, didn't adopt the practice of slavery until much later, as late as the Qin Dynasty in 221 BC.

Perhaps the first thing to say about the three African popes is that most people do not know that they existed. Most people if asked whether there have ever been any black popes in the Catholic Church would say something like, "Of course not.

Jesuit superior generals are known as "black popes" because, like the pontiff, they wield worldwide influence and usually keep their position for life -- and because their simple cassock is black, in contrast to the pope who dresses in white.

Who was the first corrupt pope? ›

Alexander VI (born 1431, Játiva, near Valencia [Spain]—died August 18, 1503, Rome) was a corrupt, worldly, and ambitious pope (1492–1503), whose neglect of the spiritual inheritance of the church contributed to the development of the Protestant Reformation.

The earliest reigning African pope, Victor I, was a native African whose episcopate lasted for 11 years. Most notable about Pope Victor's pontificate is the Easter Controversy in which the Church debated the appropriate day to celebrate Easter.

Three early popes were from the Roman Africa Province. These were Pope Victor I (reigned c . 189 to 199), Pope Miltiades (reigned 311 to 314) and Pope Gelasius I (492 to 496); all three were North African men.

Marino was named auxiliary bishop of Washington in 1974, and when Joseph L. Howze became the first openly-Black Catholic bishop of a diocese when he was named Bishop of Biloxi in 1977. Marino would become the first-ever Black Catholic archbishop in 1988, following an open demand made to the USCCB in 1985.

*On this date, 1579, St. Martin de Porres was born. He was an Afro Peruvian patron saint.