Changing the numbering system to be more suggestive of a bracket. Sixtus is the third one seed, if you will.

Image: Sandro Botticelli, 1480, Pope Sixtus II

Popes names Sixtus (originally Xystus):

St Sixtus I 117 or 119 to 126 or 128 Martyr

St Sixtus II 257 to 258 Famous martyr, in the Roman Canon

St Sixtus III 432 to 440

Sixtus IV 1471 to 1484 Sistine Chapel named for him

Sixtus V 1585 to 1590 Great reformer of the Papal States and Curia

 

Sixtus or Xystus I: the earliest pope we have covered so far, in the very uncertain period of the second century, during the reign of Hadrian. The chronicles that look back to this time do not agree on the dates of his ministry and otherwise only record a few vague details. He is supposed to have placed the chanting of the Sanctus at its present place in the Mass, right after the Preface; he is also recorded to have been martyred, although nothing seems to be preserved about the event.

 

Sixtus / Xystus II: pope during the persecution of Valerian in the third century. His brief reign saw a reconciliation with St. Cyprian and churches in Africa and Asia Minor, which had been requiring heretics to be rebaptized. The persecution was stepped up in August 258 and Pope Xystus was beheaded with four deacons in a cemetery where he was celebrating Mass; two more deacons were executed the same day; the last and most famous deacon, Lawrence, survived a few days to be captured and according to legend roasted to death. Pope Sixtus to this day is mentioned in the full version of the Roman Canon of the Eucharistic Prayer.

 

Sixtus / Xystus III: prior to his election as pope, a correspondent with St. Augustine. Approved the acts of the Council of Ephesus and rededicated the restored basilica of St. Mary Major. This historical period included continued disputes with both Pelagians and Nestorians. Defended and maintained papal supremacy over Illyricum. Succeeded by Leo the Great.

 

Sixtus IV: pope of the late fifteenth century. Born of poor parents; became a Franciscan and a notable theologian. Unfortunately once pope he became a traditional nepotist and involved the Papal States in wars to put his nephews in charge of Florence and Ferrara, and wars of this nature continued to absorb papal attention through the beginning of the Reformation. He opposed and annulled the decrees of the Council of Constance and was successful in turning the Church away from conciliarism. He was a great builder and is said to have made Rome much more livable, helping continue its recovery from the Avignon period of the papacy. He reorganized and essentially refounded the Vatican Library and most famously built the Sistine Chapel.

 

Popes 1C - Sixtus

Paul followed through on his promise to read Fathers and Sons by Turgenev, Paradise Lost, and Crime and Punishment to discuss with a former student. Some gleanings from his particular corner of the asylum.

TSSM Bonus - Gloriously Depressing Literature Edition

Life keeps happening.

Pope Sixtus is the next name on the docket and I will get it out by July. Another fascinating history if not as long as Leo or Gregory.

I have promised a former student to read along with her: Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky, Fathers and Sons by Turgenev, and Paradise Lost by you know who. So I will attempt to drop a few thoughts about that sometime over the course of June.

Another topic: Pope Leo's first encyclical. After reading the first ten paragraphs, I am very struck by his distributist (that word is clearly lurking in the background) interpretation of Nehemiah, the story he presents as paradigmatic for human economic effort arranged in a way consistent with human nature and our relationship with God. Surely Bill and I can find some grist to grind there when I get him corralled and back at a microphone.

Popes Bonus Episode - PB1

The talk I actually gave at the retreat...I ended up not even giving the Man of God talk.

Artwork: The Ghent Altarpiece, 15th century

Mystical Body of Christ - Bonus Episode

I would have liked to get an episode of the bracket out during the actual NCAA tournament, but I was asked to give two talks at a confirmation retreat, so I'm giving those to you as bonus episodes.

Stay tuned later in April for an episode featuring the name Sixtus...only five of them but quite the history.

--Paul

Image credit for Christ, the Man of Sorrows: https://www.wga.hu/html/c/ceccarel/sorrows.html

Man of God - Bonus Episode

SHOW NOTES FOR “A CALENDAR OF GREGORIES”

 1.  The bracket is back! Paul’s application of March Madness oddsmaking to the name and fame of popes throughout history returns in this episode. Co-hosts Paul and Bill, [http://billschmitt.substack.com/] after completing a tour of popes called Leo, now look at Pope Gregory, a popular name that appeared in sixteen iterations. This makes for an informative roller coaster ride through the past.

 2.  This chain started out with a man actually born as Gregory. He chose to be Pope Gregory I and ruled in the Vatican in the years 590-604, but the Catholic Church has chosen to call him Gregory the Great [https://www.vaticannews.va/en/saints/09/03/st--gregory-the-great--pope-and-doctor-of-the-church.html]. He did much to shape the Church of the Dark Ages and Medieval times. He was a great administrator, even helping to “orchestrate” the development of Gregorian Chant. He is a canonized saint.

 3.  Gregory II [https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Gregory-II] reigned in 715-731. He was one of the popes dealing with warring European factions and with the rise of Islam. He is a canonized saint.

 4.  Gregory III [https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Gregory-III], whose term was 731-741, addressed issues such as iconoclasm, a penchant among some European Catholic factions as well as in Islam.

 5.  Paul goes on to tell tales of Gregory IV [https://www.britannica.com/biography/Gregory-IV] (827-844) and of Gregory V [https://www.britannica.com/biography/Gregory-V] (996-999), who was the first German pope, and of Gregory VI [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Gregory_VI] (1045-1046). This simoniac [https://search.yahoo.com/search?fr2=p%3Ads%2Cv%3Aomn%2Cm%3Asa%2Cbrws%3Achrome%2Cpos%3A1&fr=mcafee&type=E210US1494G0&p=simoniac+definition] resigned a year before his death.

 6.  Gregory VII [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Gregory_VII] (1073-1085) was born Hildebrand of Sovana. This great reformer is a canonized saint. Gregory VIII [https://www.britannica.com/biography/Gregory-VIII-pope] ruled for two months in 1187.

 7.  Gregory IX [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Gregory_IX] (1227-1241) was followed by Gregory X [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Gregory_X] (1271-1276) and by Gregory XI [https://www.britannica.com/biography/Gregory-XI] (1370-1378), who was the last French pope and the last pope to reign in Avignon as the holy see.

 8.  Gregory XII [https://www.britannica.com/biography/Gregory-XII] (1406-1415) He was the last of the Roman line during the Western Schism [https://www.britannica.com/event/Western-Schism] (1378–1417), when the papacy [https://www.britannica.com/topic/papacy] was contested by antipopes [https://www.britannica.com/topic/antipope] in Avignon [https://www.britannica.com/place/Avignon] (France) and in Pisa [https://www.britannica.com/place/Pisa-Italy] (Italy).

 9.  Gregory XIII [https://www.britannica.com/biography/Gregory-XIV] (1572-1585) promulgated the Gregorian Calendar.

 10. Gregory XIV [https://www.britannica.com/biography/Gregory-XIV] had a short tenure in 1590-1591. Then came Gregory XV [https://www.britannica.com/biography/Gregory-XV] (1621-1623).

 11. 

Popes Gregory - P3

Leo - Episode P2

 

Artwork: by Francesco Solimena - Web Gallery of Art: Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15398079

 

This is hopefully a placeholder awaiting Bill's contribution.

 

In this episode:

Pope St. Leo I "The Great" 440-461 - of the Tome and the pacification of Attila the Hun

Pope St. Leo II 682-3

Pope St. Leo III 795-816 - who crowned Charlemagne in 800

Pope St. Leo IV 847-853

Pope Leo V 903?

Pope Leo VI 928-9

Pope Leo VII 936-9

Pope Leo VIII 964-5

Pope Leo IX (Bruno) 1049-54 - early reformer in an era of simony and clerical incontinence

Pope Leo X (Giovanni de Medici) 1513-1521 - Renaissance pope at the time of Luther

Pope Leo XI (Alessandro de Medici) 1605

Pope Leo XII (Annibale della Genga) 1823-1829

Pope Leo XIII (Gioacchino Pecci) 1878-1903 - Author of Rerum Novarum

 

Please pardon the awkward insertion of "from Irenaeus of" [Lyon] into the episode toward the end...I had originally, mistakenly, called him Ignatius...and a few oddly timed pauses where I took the opportunity to blank out some even more excessive than usual "uhs". I miss podcasting and being in the classroom to keep me sharper on my speaking skills!

Popes Leo - P2

 1.  Dr. Paul Giesting and Bill Schmitt welcome listeners back for new episodes of our “legacy” podcast, “That’s So Second Millennium.” See below for biographies. Check out our archived episodes: That's So Second Millennium [https://www.thatssosecondmillennium.net]

 2.  Here’s a chronological list of popes [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_popes]. For context in this episode, start with Pope Leo XIII (#256) and look through the 20th century for Popes Pius X, XI, and XII. (Please forgive a couple of small historical and mathematical mistakes--at one point Paul says something amounting to 5+7 make 11 or 4+7 make 12.)

 3.  What’s in a name? Paul has developed a sports-inspired bracket for papal names and their likelihood, with 64 possibilities. We'll digitize it and post it in connection with the next episode.

 4.  Papal tiara logo borrowed from The Mad Monarchist [https://madmonarchist.blogspot.com/2017/02/royal-regalia-recent-papal-tiaras.html].

 5.  Pope Leo XIV conforms with Paul’s bracket prediction of the “top seed”: With the passing of Pope Francis, Leo was the most likely name to be chosen.

 6.  Scholars have called the 1660-1836 period as “the long 18th century” [https://ucsd.libguides.com/c.php?g=123619&p=809148] in English literature. They point to a “long 19th century” [https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/whp-origins/era-6-the-long-nineteenth-century-1750-ce-to-1914-ce] between 1750 and 1914.

 7.  Here’s one take on why Cardinal Robert Prevost chose Leo [https://www.biography.com/religious-figures/a64726555/pope-leo-xiv-name-origins] as his papal name. Leo is now the fourth-most common papal name in history along with Clement. The only more popular names are John, Benedict, and Gregory.

 8.  Would you like to read the book—Their Name is Pius—that Paul read in his youth? Amazon says it doesn’t come cheap. [https://www.amazon.com/Their-portraits-great-modern-Leather/dp/B0BZ4XNNQR/ref=sr_1_1?crid=22Z87TM6DW0XM&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.1eEpq4V1b2BAHjzMJp4H8A.j70M-nFMKpahpIHBQetopUJwjWtSFLQYpgi8EVn1DWc&dib_tag=se&keywords=%22their+name+is+pius%22&qid=1761598173&sprefix=their+name+is+pius+%2Caps%2C125&sr=8-1]

 9.  You can also read Eamon Duffy’s The Stripping of the Altars [https://www.amazon.com/Stripping-Altars-Traditional-Religion-1400-1580-ebook/dp/B09ZJ7B7H4/ref=sr_1_1?crid=M8QM5KHXN88M&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.7SwrA3DNU88bhLstdvB17urcOoXqQ-DCC_1J1kUgJ_KteHCnrLkmUatRRBjkze_Gk5gW1w5aqsIk584zhJQwtYjBfiiGrNq74HUiU3gGz6XQLkTDZzqSb_gnR7BKU8PDSOluMiproxvMksfgLzkDsA.aRAysBEF04DbxjbUp2tdtcue1ef6Mq_EMX7ELHiQKAs&dib_tag=se&keywords=%22stripping+the+altars%22&qid=1761598371&sprefix=stripping+the+altars+%2Caps%2C134&sr=8-1].

 10. Pope Leo XIV has called for a new Rerum Novarum, according to the Aleteia news site [https://aleteia.org/2025/10/24/pope-leo-xiv-calls-for-a-new-rerum-novarum/].

 11. Here’s the bio of St. Francis Xavier [https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Francis-Xavier], missionary and one of the original seven Jesuits.

 12. Yes, there was a Pope Lando [https://www.britannica.com/biography/Lando], reigning in the years 913-914.

 13. Pope Julius I [https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Julius-I], a canonized saint, reigned in 337-352.

Papal Names Bracket - P1

Paul felt it was important to put Daniel's book title in the episode title, but Bill's suggested title is too good not to place somewhere:

TSSM: NEW BOOK EXPLORES MEANING IN MOTION

 1. In this new episode of the “That’s So Second Millennium” podcast, your host Paul Giesting [https://wyomingcatholic.edu/person/paul-giesting/], assistant professor of mathematics and sciences at Wyoming Catholic College [https://wyomingcatholic.edu/], interviews his faculty colleague, Dr. Daniel Shields [https://wyomingcatholic.edu/new-face-shields/], assistant professor of philosophy. Shields’s book, Nature and Nature’s God: A Philosophical and Scientific Defense of Aquinas’s Unmoved Mover Argument, has just been released by Catholic University of America Press and is available for purchase here [https://www.cuapress.org/9780813236674/nature-and-natures-god/].
 2. This discussion is tailor-made for these two Catholic scholars who bring broad scientific and philosophical knowledge, plus fervor for conversations at the intersection of multiple disciplines, to their research and teaching. It is also tailor-made for the “TSSM” podcast [https://www.thatssosecondmillennium.net/], which seizes this golden opportunity for a curtain-call while remaining on official hiatus. The podcast generated about 150 episodes between 2018 and 2022, with co-host Bill Schmitt [http://billschmitt.substack.com]. They focused on the intersection, incorporating everyday life and the pursuit of virtuous wisdom—past, present, and future.
 3. Shields makes reference to Dr. Robert C. Koons [https://liberalarts.utexas.edu/philosophy/faculty/koons], professor of philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin. Koons wrote a review of Nature and Nature’s God, praising its integration of natural philosophy and metaphysics. The book combines scientific knowledge with insights into the writing of St. Thomas Aquinas [https://liberalarts.utexas.edu/philosophy/faculty/koons].
 4. Shields and Giesting go into depth on Aquinas’s proofs for the existence of God [https://www.realclearreligion.org/articles/2014/10/08/thomas_aquinass_proof_of_god.html#:~:text=Thomas%20Aquinas%20famously%20laid%20out%20five%20arguments%20for,that%20is%20moved%20must%20be%20moved%20by%20another.], especially his favored “first way”—arguing our cosmos filled with motion needs an “unmoved mover” at its origin (and beyond). The discussion elaborates on the idea that God keeps everything in motion.
 5. The book, Shields explains, goes on to apply natural philosophy and metaphysics to such subjects as statistical mechanics, contemporary cosmology, and even biology.
 6. Through it all, Shields and Giesting make mention of many historical figures, from Aristotle to Copernicus to Newton to Maimonides [https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/maimonides/]to Helmholtz [https://www.thermal-engineering.org/what-is-helmholtz-free-energy-definition/#:~:text=In%20thermodynamics%2C%20the%20Helmholtz%20free%20energy%20is%20a,thermodynamic%20system%20at%20a%20constant%20volume%20and%20pressure.]. Present-day references include Brother Guy Consolmagno, SJ [https://www.vaticanobservatory.va/en/who-are-we/staff/br-guy-j-consolmagno-s-j], known as the Pope’s Astronomer, and quantum physics scholar Sean Carroll [https://www.sciencenews.org/article/sean-carroll-something-deeply-hidden-quantum-physics-many-worlds].

Ep 147 - Daniel Shields on Nature and Nature’s God

 1. The co-hosts announce that the TSSM podcast, now posting our 146th episode, will begin a hiatus, but all programs and show notes will continue to be archived and accessible [https://www.thatssosecondmillennium.net/].
 2. This episode allows Dr. Paul Giesting and Bill Schmitt to look back on their four-and-a-half years of interviews and discussions seeking a greater synthesis of knowledge: an exploration of science and religion, philosophy and spirituality, neuroscience and quantum physics, policies and principles, history and the future, to better understand ourselves and the values and virtues in our lives. Our curiosity and concerns are grounded in our experiences as cradle Catholics, a confidence that faith and reason can grow together as essentials for problem-solving wisdom, and a desire to honor the Church a central source of guidance and continuing growth.
 3. Our first episode was posted on April 2, 2018, more than four-and-a-half years ago. We have welcomed a long list of well-known guests with expertise in a variety of fields, seizing the opportunity for rigorous but highly accessible, interdisciplinary and inspirational, conversations that transcend silos of specialization. We are grateful for the grand adventure of pursuing truth and reality, both visible and invisible, with the scholars and thought-leaders who shared their insights.
 4. That’s So Second Millennium was the first podcast to provide structured news coverage and commentary on the conferences and lectures of the Society of Catholic Scientists [https://catholicscientists.org/], and we interviewed a number of SCS members. Both Paul and Bill have been members of the growing, international organization.
 5. Paul, who holds a PhD in Geology from the University of Notre Dame, presented a lecture on uranium and nuclear power at the SCS 2022 conference in Chicago.
 6. In this episode, we made references to Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire” [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFTLKWw542g] and to “Sing God a Simple Song” [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4a4naYEHUZs]—from Leonard Bernstein’s

 * We talked about Wyoming Catholic College [https://wyomingcatholic.edu/], where Paul is on the faculty, and we talked Holy Cross College [https://www.hcc-nd.edu/], where Bill taught as an adjunct professor for three semesters before moving from South Bend, IN, to Troy, NY, in 2022. Both solidly Catholic colleges, we agreed, excel in their efforts to integrate the different aspects of our humanity and the various forms of knowledge within the hearts and minds of students.
 * Paul and Bill are inveterate Catholic communicators and educators. Learn more about Paul’s background in teaching, consulting, and public service [https://wyomingcatholic.edu/person/paul-giesting/]. Learn more about Bill’s life as writer-editor, broadcaster-blogger, and author. [https://www.linkedin.com/in/billschmitt-onword/]
 * Here are some of the people we have been privileged to interview: SCS president Stephen Barr; planetary scientist Jonathan Lunine; astrophysicist and astronomer Brother Guy Consolmagno, SJ; theologian Paul Seongh Chung; Magis Center president and EWTN series host Father Robert Spitzer, SJ; astrochemist Karin Oberg; neurobiologist Maureen Condic; speaker-evangelist Deacon Harold Burke-Sivers; pro-life experts Richard Doerflinger and Christopher Bell; geologist Anne Hofmeister; cybersecurity expert Michael Cloud; psychologist Darcia Narvaez; business professor-author Anjan Thakor; and soul and spiritual musician Micki Miller. Learn more about them in the show notes accompanying their TSSM episodes. Thanks also to our friend, composer and performer Vin Marquardt, for writing our podcast’s closing theme for a long time, “Igneous Grok.”

Ep 146 - TSSM Takes a Break

That's So Second Millennium - a podcast about the intersections between faith, philosophy, physical and social science.