Was there a female pope in the Catholic Church?
The Vatican is announcing a new Bishop of Rome in May 2025 to succeed Pope Francis who died on Easter Monday of April 2025.
The Roman Catholic Church does not allow women to become Popes, which means whoever gets elected to become the new Pontiff, must be a male cardinal.
However, there is the story about one Pope Joan, a lady who is alleged to have served as Pope (Popess?).
Ioannes Anglicus, who reportedly reigned as Pope John VIII, albeit for only two years, (855–857), according to unverified accounts, was a woman who ascended to the highest seat of the Catholic Church during the Middle Ages.
Pope Joan’s story first appeared in chronicles in the 13th century before spreading all over Europe.
But while the Female Pope’s story was widely believed for centuries, most modern researchers and scholars dismiss it as fictional.
However, as far as the story goes, this female pope, was originally from Mainz, Germany, though some claim she had British roots, had made her way to Athens as a young woman in the company of a lover.
Yearning for education and scholarship, Joan disguised herself as a man and became proficient in law, theology and philosophy.
The best-known account comes from The Chronicle of Popes and Emperors by Martin of Opava, written in the mid-13th century.
Martin wrote that Pope Joan was an English woman living in the 9th century, who had been brought to Athens by a male companion. Martin introduced details that the female pope’s birth name was Ioannes Anglicus of Mainz, that she reigned in the 9th century having entered the church to follow her lover
There, dressed as a boy, she had acquired an education, and was admired for her knowledge, wit and intellectual gifts.
Joan moved to Rome and began a career as a teacher. Her reputation grew, and she earned considerable respect throughout the city. When the time came to elect a new pope, there seemed to be no better choice.
Martin, describes Pope Joan’s pontificate as being very successful. However, after two years, disaster struck.
Joan fell pregnant with the child of her unnamed companion, and one day, whilst processing on a horse through Rome from the church of Saint Peter’s, she suddenly went into labor.
Pope John VIII, as she was known, gave birth right there, in the middle of the street, to the shock of the crowd and her fellow churchmen.
Stories reveal that later the church processions avoided this spot and that the Vatican removed the female pope from its official lists keeping her in seclusion and crafted a ritual to ensure that future popes were male.
Her child is also said to have survived and lived to become a Bishop.
The tale, usually dismissed as an old urban legend, is normally regarded as a weapon against the papacy.
But due to the widespread use of the story. Pope Clement VIII decided to issue an official statement in 1601 that the alleged Pope Joan never existed.
The Catholic Church points out that there is no space in the papal timeline for her to fit into, because Saint Leo IV died on 17 July 855 AD and his successor, Benedict III, had been elected by late September.
And while there was indeed a real Pope John VIII, he was certainly a man who came later, reigning from AD 872 to 882.