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Every Pope that I've heard of has been from the Latin rite/the Roman Catholic Church. Is it possible for the Pope to be a bishop from an Eastern Catholic church instead? For example I reckon it'd be really cool to have a Pope from the Syro-Malabar Church or the Ethiopian or Eritrean Churches, or the Byzantine Melkite Church.

I'm wondering if this has happened at any time historically and if not, why not? Is there anything preventing an Eastern Catholic bishop from being elected Pope?

If an Eastern bishop were to be elected Pope, could they celebrate their native liturgical rite regularly in Vatican City? Or would they be forced into using the Roman Rite most of the time? My understanding is that this is possible because the Pope is considered omniritual: he can celebrate whatever liturgy he wants and is not tied down to the Latin Rite.

As a historical footnote, I'll point out that before the great schism there was a period of church history where the Popes were all imported from Byzantine Greece, Byzantine Syria, and Byzantine Sicily. However this was before the great schism and so is not as remarkable as it seems at first glance because Eastern and Western Christianity were united at the time. See here: Byzantine Papacy

TheIronKnuckle
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  • There's only two actual questions and an affirmative answer to the first is a pre-requisite for moving onto the next – TheIronKnuckle Feb 09 '17 at 04:18
  • By Eastern Catholic bishops, I presume you mean Eastern Rite Catholic bishops, There are Latin Rite Catholic bishops in all Eastern Catholic Rite regions around the world. Not all Greek bishops are of the Greek Catholic Rite, a few are of the Latin rite. – Ken Graham Feb 09 '17 at 04:39
  • @KenGraham I don't understand what you're saying. If the bishop is in an Eastern Catholic Church, then how can he be a Latin Rite Bishop? Latin Rite Bishops are for the Latin Rite, and Eastern Rite Bishops are for the Eastern Rites. If you're talking about Geographical distribution, or racial composition of bishops regardless of rite, this question has nothing to do with that. Sure you can have a Latin Rite Bishop who is ethnically Greek, just like you can have a Latin Rite Bishop who is ethnically Korean. That doesn't change the fact that they are a Latin Rite bishop – TheIronKnuckle Feb 09 '17 at 04:45
  • Related Question Which answers the second element of your question about the Eastern Rite Pope. – KorvinStarmast Feb 09 '17 at 12:32
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    @TheIronKnuckle: the geographical distributions of Latin and Eastern dioceses frequently overlap. In fact, as far as I am aware, the only geographical area not covered by a Western diocese is Eritrea. – AthanasiusOfAlex Feb 09 '17 at 17:49
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    Tangentially related, the last Pope before Francis I to be born outside of Europe was Gregory III, a Syrian, well before the Schism (first half of the 8th Century). After that, there's Stephen III, a Sicilian, but even though Sicily was then ruled by Byzantium, he seems to have been ordained in Rome. After that, all Popes seem to be from Latin regions (Rome, France, Spain, Germany, England, etc.) – Wtrmute Feb 09 '17 at 18:24
  • @Wtrmute there was an english pope? – TheIronKnuckle Feb 09 '17 at 22:40
  • I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because there are three separate questions here that could be individually asked on their own merit, thus making it too broad. – Ken Graham Feb 10 '17 at 05:44
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    @Wtrmute, Zachary, his successor, was also Greek. (He was from Calabria, but back then, southern Italy was a Greek-speaking area and the liturgy they follows was what we would now call Byzantine.) – AthanasiusOfAlex Feb 10 '17 at 07:19
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    @TheIronKnuckle The only English pope was Adrian IV (Nicholas Breakspear). – AthanasiusOfAlex Feb 10 '17 at 07:20

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There are really only two requirements for becoming pope: being male and being baptized into the Catholic Church.

Canon 332 § 1 of the 1983 Code simply states that one already a bishop (nb: not necessarily a cardinal) who accepts legitimate papal election becomes pope immediately. One who is not yet a bishop (and the Church has elected several non-bishops to the papacy) can accept election, but must be immediately consecrated bishop. By implication, that would seem to require that a papabile (a) be male, and be willing (b) to be baptized, (c) ordained deacon, priest, and bishop, and (d) have the use of reason in order to accept election and, if necessary, holy orders. - In the Light of the Law

Could an Eastern Rite cardinal be elected pope? Yes, it could happen and a pope is free to make changes to reflect his heritage, but we would have to wait and see if this ever happens.

When Eastern Rite cardinals meet with other cardinals or con-celebrate the liturgy, they generally wear their own vestments. On the other hand, if a bi-ritual priest celebrates the liturgy, not native to him, he uses the other rite's vestments. Someone elected pope is the Bishop of Rome, so presumably he would celebrate henceforth as Bishop of Rome, i.e., Latin Rite. Since we haven't run into this situation in modern times (and probably don't have sufficient records when it did happen, which I think it did) they would probably have to make some new decisions about it, much like they did with Pope Benedict's resignation.

My guess is he would wear Western vestments when celebrating a Latin-rite Mass. As for his white cassock, I'm not sure. On the one hand that's kind of unique to the pope and in a class by itself, but then again it is based on Latin-rite dress.

Maybe the pope would like to retain some of his Eastern heritage. I don't know, I think that would be up to him. - Ask A Catholic

Update: Thanks to @AthanasiusOfAlex and his comment: There seems to have been no Eastern Catholic pope. "Looking at the list of popes since 1054, the answer appears to be “no”."

Ken Graham
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