Jewish Popes? Oy vey!

“Who will be the next in line?”

By David Ramati

The question is sometimes asked, “Were there Jewish Popes?” and the answer is yes, many more than you think. Do opposites really attract, or is there a commonality between monistic religions that constantly draws them together like magnets?
According to all counts, the first Jewish Pope was Peter, referred to by Christians as Saint Peter.
Peter the Fisherman (Pope Peter the First)

Peter was a poor fisherman before he met Jesus; apparently, he went back to fishing after the Death of Jesus. Peter was originally from the town of Bethsaida. His date of birth remains unknown, but historians believe he was born sometime in the first Century BCE. Peter was married, although they don’t say much about his wife. In fact, we only know about his marriage in the past. Apparently, Peter left his wife and his work as a fisherman to join the radical followers of the man known today as Jesus, at least temporarily.

Paul found this annoying and is quoted as saying, “Do we not have the right to be accompanied by a believing wife, as do the other apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas (Peter). Was he then the first Pope? The Catholic Church still operates on the assumption that he was. What historians know for certain is that Peter is clearly one of the most important figures in Christianity. And was also a legendary figure among Jews who believed in the Middle Ages that Peter abandoned Christianity and returned to the religion of his ancestors before he died.

POPE ZOSIMAS
417 CE- 418 CE: JEWISH POPE

There are records claiming that he came from Thessaloniki, Greece, and his father was named Bram. Abram would have been an extremely unlikely name for a non-Jewish Greek.

KHAZAR BYZANTINE, a Khazar Byzantine Emperor, was also Pope

Leo IV or Leo the Khazar. He and his son, Constantine VI, were depicted on Byzantine coins and ruled for almost 20 years. 1138 CE.

JEWISH POPE — Anacletus II (1130 CE- 1138 CE)

He was born Pietro Pierleoni and was an Antipope who ruled in opposition to Pope Innocent I since a majority of cardinals did not accept Innocent’s election in 1130 CE and elected Pierleoni as Pope later the same day. When Anacletus II died in 1138 CE, Pope Innocent II ruled, and Anacletus II was branded an antipope.

1200s CE- 1600s CE: JEWISH POPES — The Medici

The Medici were a powerful and influential Florentine family from the 13th to the 17th century. They produced four popes who were related to the Medici and to each other. #1 Pope Leo X (1475 CE–1521 CE), born Giovanni de’ Medici, was Pope 1513 CE- 1521 CE, #2 Pope Clement VII (1478 CE–1534 CE), born Giulio di Giuliano de Medici, was Pope 1523 CE- 1534 CE,
Pope Pius IV (1499 CE- 1565 CE), born Giovanni Angelo Medici, was Pope from 1559 CE- 1565 CE and was only distantly related to the other Medici Popes.
Pope Leo XI (1535 CE–1605 CE), born Alessandro Ottaviano de’ Medici, was pope in 1605. And in 1455 CE- 1503 CE: A Jewish Pope from the House of Borgia, an Italo-Spanish noble family that rose to prominence during the Italian Renaissance and was founded in 1455 CE.

The Borgias became prominent in both ecclesiastical and political affairs, producing two popes: Alfons de Borja, who ruled as Pope Callixtus III from 1455 to 1458, and Rodrigo Lanzol Borgia, as Pope Alexander VI, from 1492 to 1503.

The reign of Pope Alexander VI,
He and his family were suspected of many crimes, including adultery, incest, simony, theft, bribery, and murder (especially murder by arsenic poisoning). Because they grasped for power, they made enemies of the Medici, the Sforza, and the Dominican friar Savonarola, among others. Pope Alexander VI was infamous for many reasons. Still, one was that he and his family were Jewish and were often called Marranos, which means Jewish converts to Christianity. This was demonstrated by Pope Alexander VI’s friendliness towards the Jews, which allowed Jews expelled from Spain in 1492 CE to settle in Rome.
Jews of the time circulated stories of Jewish conversos (converts) rising in the Church ranks to become Pope.
1492 CE: FEAR OF A JEWISH POPE
The expulsion of Jews from Spain by the Alhambra Decree in 1492 was accompanied by a mass conversion of Jews to Christianity. A fear arose among many Christians that these crypto-Jews would rise in influence and gain authority in the Church, and destabilize Christianity. Thus, the Spanish Inquisition was formed to root out “secret Jews.”

2005 CE: JEWISH CARDINAL AND CONSIDERED FOR POPE
Aaron Lustiger, son of two Polish Jews who converted to Catholicism when he was 13 and baptized Jean-Marie Lustiger, rose up the ranks of the Catholic Church, eventually becoming a cardinal. In 2005, after the death of Pope John Paul II, Cardinal Lustiger’s name came up as a potential candidate to succeed him. So, he almost made it but was not voted in.

The question now is: “Who will be the next in line?”