Roman Catholic Popes Dataset

A structured, open dataset of Roman Catholic popes, canonical pontificate records, and antipopes.

This repository is designed for historical reference, Catholic reference tools, timelines, APIs, research notes, and educational projects.

Dataset files

File	Description
data/canonical-popes.json	Canonical pope person records.
data/pontificates.json	Canonical pontificate records. Benedict IX has three records.
data/antipopes.json	Antipope claimant records separated from the canonical list.
data/canonical-popes.csv	CSV export of canonical pope person records.
data/pontificates.csv	CSV export of canonical pontificate records.
data/antipopes.csv	CSV export of antipope records.
data/canonical-popes.txt	Plain text canonical person list.
data/canonical-pontificates.txt	Plain text canonical pontificate list.
data/antipopes.txt	Plain text antipope list.

Counts

• Canonical pope person records: 265
• Canonical pontificate records: 267
• Antipope records: 41
• Current pope: Leo XIV

Modeling approach

The dataset separates:

1. canonical pope people
2. canonical pontificate records
3. antipope claimant records

This allows historically difficult cases to be modeled cleanly.

Benedict IX appears once in canonical-popes.json, but three times in pontificates.json.

Benedict X is excluded from the canonical pope files and included in antipopes.json.

Validation

python scripts/validate.py

Export regeneration

python scripts/export.py

License

CC0-1.0.