Heard about Pope Joan? Why did Catholic Church denied her existence?

The Catholic Church denies her existance because she didn't really exist. She's an urban legend.

"The story of Pope Joan is known mainly from the 13th century chronicler Martin of Opava – writing 500 years after the alleged Popess. Most scholars dismiss Pope Joan as a medieval legend. The Oxford Dictionary of Popes acknowledges that this legend was widely believed for centuries, even among Catholic circles, but declares that there is “no contemporary evidence for a female pope at any of the dates suggested for her reign,” and goes on to say that “the known facts of the respective periods make it impossible to fit [a female pope] in”.

Because she never existed.

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But by no name would she win a place in the Vatican's official catalog of popes. The church insists that its papal line, dating back to St. Peter, is an unbroken string of men. Scholars tend to agree. An array of reference books, from the Encyclopaedia Britannica to the Oxford Dictionary of Popes, dismiss Pope Joan as a mythical or legendary figure, no more real than Paul Bunyan or Old King Cole. (Another Joan, the 15th-century martyr Joan of Arc, is honored by the church as a saint.)

The chief weakness of the Pope Joan story is the absence of any contemporary evidence of a female pope during the dates suggested for her reign. In each instance, clerical records show someone else holding the papacy and doing deeds that are transcribed in church history.

Another problem is the gap between the alleged event and the news of it. Not until the 13th century–400 years after Joan, by the most accepted accounts, ruled–does any mention of a female pope appear in any documents. That's akin to word breaking out just now that England in 1600 had a queen named Elizabeth.

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/doubleissue/mysteries...

There never was a Pope Joan. It was a ploy used by those against the enemies of the Pope to discredit him. Do you want to learn about fiction or fact? If you want to learn about fact here is a complete list of Catholic Popes. Bishops never were allowed to be women in the Catholic Church.

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12272b.htm

Historians deny the existence of pope joan, for the simple fact that ;

- there is no evidence that she existed

- there is evidence that she never existed

The Church denies her existence because she never existed. There's absolutely zero historical proof for her existence and we have an unbroken historical record of all Popes going back to Pope St. Peter the Apostle.

Yes, I have heard of her and she's a wonderful fictitious character that someone concocted in. The late 19th Century.

There is absolutely no historical proof that she ever existed and all credible historians agree that the story is completely fabricated and has absolutely no merit.

The Catholic Church denies her existence because she never existed. It is akin to an "urban legend."

http://www.ewtn.com/library/answers/popeapol.htm#4

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08407a.htm

Pope Joan is just a myth:

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08407a.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Joan

Another movie about the myth is in the works: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0458455/

With love in Christ.

Because it is a myth and she never existed. God bless!

In Christ

Fr. Joseph

Pope Joan the 23rd? Yeah, I've heard of him! He was succeeded by Pope Joan-Paul.