…why the Pope chooses a new name?
A man receives a name when he is born into the world by nature, when he is born into grace through Baptism, when he dies to the world through religious vows, and when he dies to himself by virtue of a vocation that confiscates him entirely.
Abram was renamed Abraham after God promised him countless descendants (cf. Gn 17:5). Jacob received the title of Israel after wrestling with the Angel of the Lord (cf. Gn 32:29). Simon was named Peter by Jesus Christ, who assigned him the mission of being the rock of the Church, investing him as head of the Apostolic College (cf. Mt 16:18). He was the first Pope, and the first Pope to change his name.
However, it would be five centuries before another Pontiff would receive a new name. On January 2, 533, the presbyter Mercury was elected Pope. The carcass of paganism, killed by the Cross, had not yet completely rotted away in the sixth century, and it was therefore extremely inopportune that the Vicar of Christ should be called by the same name as the ancient and false vicar of the Latin gods. Mercury, then, ascending to the papal throne, chose for himself the name John.
Thus began, in a surge of rupture and war with the world, the procession of Popes who would abandon their names to identify themselves with a mission that would consume them entirely. ◊
…why we call the Supreme Pontiff Pope?
Pope: this is the title Catholics use to refer to their father… Yes, father, in the strictest and most etymological sense of the term.
Πάππας – papas – was one of the first words babbled by Greek-speaking children. Directed with effusive affection to the father who protected, fed, taught, corrected and guided them, this domestic expression was equivalent to our papa.
The Hellenes, who became children of God and of the Church through Baptism, soon bestowed their πάππας on their progenitors in the Faith, the Bishops. This affectionate epithet was thus applied to all the princes of the Church until the 6th century, when it became the prerogative of the Supreme Roman Pontiff, the Bishop of Bishops and, for that very reason, the father of fathers.
How wonderful it is to be Catholic! While all the rulers of the world are exalted for their power, influence or wealth, we have the privilege of seeing in our sovereign, above all, a father. ◊
