Pope - the man who occupies the longest standing institution in human history.
Leading up to the stepping down of Pope Benedict XVI and the new Conclave, we hear a lot of media talk on the Pope and the various reactions people have to what the Pope stands for or for what he does not. The media and the movies rarely get it right about what it means to be the Pope or what is he there for. The longest standing institution in human history, the centre of western life and civilization which has held untold billions of people in it’s 2013 years of history and operating in its own culture, Papacy is an immensely complicated subject and not surprisingly, the most misunderstood office on earth. So here's a short photo essay on the office of the man who carries one of the most awesome burdens borne by any leader – the spiritual care of more than one billion people – how did it start, who instituted it and brief glimpses of it’s history. There is a dramatic scene in the Gospel of Matthew at Caesarea Philippi, when Jesus puts the Apostles in a spot by asking: