Father Francis reminds me that the earliest Popes were, in fact, all Greek speakers, including Pope Clement I (ca. AD 88–99), who actually died in Greece; Pope Telesphorus (ca. AD 126–137), who came from a Greek family in Calabria to the south; and Pope Anicetus (ca. AD 155–160), whose name is Greek for “unconquered.” After all, what good was a Pope who couldn’t read the Greek of the New Testament? Or unpack the hidden teachings of Jesus that even the Gospel of Mark had plainly referred to as musteria, “religious secrets, confided only to the initiated and not to be communicated by them to
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