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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Several reasons (it’s all politics):
1. Modern christianity descends not from the christians in Judea (who were more conservative jews), but from christianity as preached “to the gentiles” by Paul & Peter. Paul&Peter first gravitated towards Antioch (further north) and then to Ephesus (Greece) and then to Rome.
2. Once a part of the roman empire everything gravitated towards Rome, the political center at the time.
3. The bishop of Rome has since almost day 1 claimed primacy, but once christianity became a legal religion in rome authority of the roman empire had moved mainly to Constantinopel and authority was split between the Patriarchs of Rome, Constantinopel (modern day Istanbul), Alexandria, Jerusalem and Antioch (because this was the political order supported by the Roman emperor of Constantinopel). Each of these ruled a “metropolis” (mother city) and every lesser bishop was subordinate to one of these mother cities. For most of this time the Patriarchs of Constantinopel and Alexandria were by far the most influential, as these cities were the greatest cities of the empire at this time.
4. Rome didn’t become preeminent until much later, when the Patriarch of Rome and Charlemagne (who united the first super-empire in western Europe since the fall of the Western Roman empire) threw their lots together in a deal that was basically “I back you as the head honcho of Christianity, and in return you back my claim as Holy Roman Emperor”.
5. This eventually led to the Great Schism between Western christianity and Eastern Ortodox which can basically be summed up as “I, the Pope of Rome, have total authority over christianity” and Eastern ortodox going “No you don’t”. They claim all sorts of religious reasons for the split, but basically it boiled down to politics. Just like the Nestorian schism (where the syrian, coptic etc churches all split off) boils down to a conflict between Nestorius (Patriarch of Constantinopel) and Kyrillos (Patriarch of Alexandria. The pope in Rome had the backing of Henry III, Holy Roman Emperor at the time, and the rest were kind of vaguely backed by the Eastern roman emperor (Eastern Rome had problems as the time though. This is just a few decades before The Crusades).
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