‘The Bishop of Rome’: A brief guide for busy readers

Here’s what the Vatican’s new document on ‘primacy and synodality’ says.

In his 1995 encyclical Ut unum sint, Pope John Paul II made what many at the time considered a startling proposal. 

He invited other Christians around the world to join him in exploring ways in which the Bishop of Rome could exercise a renewed “ministry of unity.”

A detail of the statue of St. Peter in St. Peter’s Square, photographed on Feb. 28, 2013. © …