Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Episcopal Lineage

Here is an interesting fact.

About 90% of the world's bishops trace their episcople lineage back to a single bishop of the sixteenth century.

3 comments:

Quaestor said...

That's very interesting. Who was the bishop, and how did you stumble across that gem?

Andy Bodoh said...

The Bishop was Scipione (later Cardinal) Rebiba, Titular Bishop of Amicle and Auxiliary Bishop of Chieti.

He was the Episcopal ancestor of Pope Benedict XIII, who as Pope personally consecrated 139 bishops around the world to some key sees.

Unfortunately, there is no known record of who consecrated Cardinal Rebiba.

bakerstreetrider said...

I hope his orders were valid. ;-)

Seriously, that's very interesting. He must have a lot of spiritual children by now.