Definition of "pope" []

• Roman Catholic Church The bishop of Rome and head of the Roman Catholic Church on earth. (noun)
• Eastern Orthodox Church The patriarch of Alexandria. (noun)
• The Coptic patriarch of Alexandria. (noun)
• The male head of some non-Christian religions: the Taoist pope. (noun)
• A person considered to have unquestioned authority: the pope of surrealism. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "He received a "Medal of Peace" from Pope John Paul I, that guy who was pope for about ten minutes, but found time to give a peace award to a man who invented a filthy weapon of mass-death."
• "After a New York Times story reported that Pope Benedict XVI (then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger) failed to defrock a priest who abused 200 deaf children in Wisconsin, the pope lashed out against the news media."
• "Indeed, in the wake of much praise for Mayor Bloomberg's defense of civil and religious liberty, let me modestly suggest that he next go to Rome in October and deliver a sequel at Pope Benedict XVI's synod on what the pope recently called the "urgent" plight of Christian minorities in the Middle East."