The history of the papacy spans nearly 2,000 years. It provides the opportunity for many “firsts” among popes starting with St. Peter, but, “The Pope wrote a line of code,” has got to be one of the more eye-opening examples.
That’s what happened when Pope Francis helped contribute a line of code to an app designed to promote the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. Francis likely won’t attend a coding boot camp any time soon, but it’s a moment that hearkens back to 235 A.D. and Pope Pontian as it relates to recorded firsts.
Pontian was the pope during the reign of Emperor Maximinus Thrax and Christian persecution. Pontian, arrested and sent to the island of Sardinia, chose to resign to make the election of a new pope possible. Not only did it mark the first renunciation of a pope, but the date, Sept. 23, was recorded in the Liberian Catalogue, making the inscription of his resignation the first specific date in papal history.
Fast forward to 2019: Pope Francis, with the assistance of Seattle entrepreneur and Code.org co-founder Hadi Partovi and several computer science students from the around the world, added the following to the last line of code:
setScreen(“por la paz”);
Translation: For the peace.
Some might bristle over the pope engaging in what could be seen as a triviality, but advances in technology shouldn’t go ignored even among the faithful. Particularly if the pope can harness it to reach a new audience.
