Almost everything about catholic faith revolves around events that (allegedly) happened in the Middle East. Most of the holiest sites seem to be there in relation to the bible’s depiction of events. So wouldn’t it make sense that the pope/vatican would place its power center as near as possible from the holiest sites? How did it come to be Rome? Was this a decision based on the current political climate at the time or was there a reason based on faith/rethoric of the church?
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The “Holy Land” as it is called (which is only a small part of the Middle East) was predominantly Christian at one time, but was taken over by the Muslim conquests in the 600s. It didn’t become majority-Muslim overnight but over time the dominant religion became Islam, which incidentally also considers most of the same sites to be holy. Today there are still large Christian minorities particularly in Lebanon but also Syria, Israel/Palestine, and Jordan.
More relevant to Catholicism is that the region was ruled by the Roman Empire. As more of the empire’s citizens became Christian, and especially as Christianity became the state religion, it made sense to have the religious capital in the same city as the political capital. According to Catholic tradition, Saint Peter was named by Jesus to lead the church after his death and traveled to Rome to found a church there, making him the first Pope.
Christianity has for the most part historically not been all that concerned with holy sites. Yes, places connected to the life of Jesus do have elevated importance but nothing compared to Islam’s relationship with Mecca or Judaism’s with Jerusalem. Western Christianity generally attached more significance to relics, either left by local saints or brought to Europe from the holy land. The Crusades were one of the major counterpoints, when Christian control of holy sites in and around Jerusalem was considered very important.
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