This brief synopsis aims to summarize the influence of the highest leadership on the growth and development of the Catholic Church and to encourage the reader to study the lives of the popes in a more detailed manner. Christ entrusted the chair of St. Peter to mortals, and as mortals, they are subject to the same temptations that surround us all. Some of them resisted temptation better than others. Some succumbed to temptations worse than others. May God bless the papacy, the Church, and the whole world.