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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Christianity was an “outsider” religion against several major pantheons.
It wasn’t until Christianity became the state religion of Rome that you could say religion had any “power”. After it was spread through the empire, it remained when the Romans pulled out and left people to fend their own nations.
Rome remained, but fell in power. However, the birthplace of christian state power remained.
Technically, what you’re calling the “Catholic Church” is the Roman Catholic Church and Orthodox Catholic Church is, in fact, still unofficially based in the Middle East.
Following the schism between the various Churches the Western Church coalesced around Rome and the Eastern Church around Constantinople (until it fell).
The Western Church tried for 2 centuries to reclaim Jerusalem and the Holy Lands during several Crusades, but we’re ultimately unsuccessful.
Because of Rome. The Emporer Constantine concerted the empire to Christianity, and when Constantinople fell to the Ottomans, Rome became the center by default.
The Roman Catholic Church was the state religion of the Roman Empire, therefore it’s HQ was in the capital.
The empire did have control of the holy land.
Then it lost it.
Then it tried to get it back.
And it failed. Spectacularly.
But at least the Italians got some sweet trade deals.
Another reason is due to the centers of Church authority in the Middle East (Jerusalem, Antioch, Damascus, etc.) were taken over by the Rashidun Caliphate in the 600s. While there were large Christian populations there for centuries (and indeed there’s plenty of Christians there today) Islam would dominate the region more. This meant more Church authority would be found in places like Rome or Constantinople.
The Roman Catholic Church would regain more control in the Middle East for about 200 years during the Crusades but with the end of the Crusader states the area would be dominated by Muslim states.
(Note: before the 1000s while there were regional differences in customs there was still one Church)
ELI5 Catholics believe Jesus made Peter the first head of the Church. There’s a wordplay in the Gospel of Matthew where Jesus renamed Peter since he was “Rock, and upon this Rock I will build my Church.”
Tradition says Peter went to Rome and was martyred for the faith. After he died, the claim of primacy remained in Rome. St. Peter’s Basilica is literally built on what the [Vatican believes to be St. Peter’s grave.](https://stpetersbasilica.info/Necropolis/RedWall.htm)
So concerning what Christ said, Catholics literally believe St. Peter was the Rock and upon that Rock they built the Church.
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.
I see a lot of interesting suggestion/theories in here. I’m going to go with… it’s hot in the Middle East. Have you ever been over there? Miserable. Historically, it doesn’t even get to 32C at the hottest part of the year at the Vatican. If I was heading up the most powerful organization on the planet, I would want to HQ somewhere at least a little more comfortable.
Because most of the people in the Middle East rejected Christianity. One of the great ironies in the history of religion is that the religion of the King of the Jews was rejected by its intended audience–the Jews. Most Jewish people saw Jesus as another Messianic pretender because the Kingdom and methods He spoke of were far different than the political and worldly approach that the Jewish Messiah in their scripture would take. So failing that, the early Christians focused their attention to people who were actually interested in what Jesus had to say and those people happened to be Greeks and Romans. It was in these places where Christianity grew and became the main religion so inevitably, the power centers would be those places rather than where it actually originated.
Because the Christians lost the Crusades.
A long time ago the Catholics and Orthodox were part of the same Roman Church and the Roman empire held Jerusalem. Islam came along and Islamic powers took over Jerusalem.
Then the Roman Church split into Orthodox and Catholic sometime after that. Then they tried to reconquer Jerusalem during the Crusades. Short story didn’t work.
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