Patriarch

===="Patriarch of the West"====
{{main|Patriarch of the West}}
In theological and other scholarly literature of the [[Early Modern]] period, the title "[[Patriarch of the West]]" ([[Latin language|Latin]]: ''Patriarcha Occidentis''; [[Greek language|Greek]]: Πατριάρχης τῆς Δύσεως) was mainly used as designation for the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome over the [[Latin Church]] in the West. From 1863 to 2005, the title "Patriarch of the West" was appended to the list of papal titles in the ''[[Annuario Pontificio]]'', which in 1885 became a semi-official publication of the Holy See. This was done without historical precedent or theological justification: There was no ecclesiastical office as such, except occasionally as a truism: the patriarch of Rome, for the [[Latin Church]], was the only patriarch, and the only apostolic see, in the "west".

The title was not included in the 2006 ''Annuario''. On 22 March 2006, the [[Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity]] offered an explanation for the decision to remove the title. It stated that the title "Patriarch of the West" had become "obsolete and practically unusable" when the term ''the West'' comprises Australia, New Zealand and North America in addition to Western Europe, and that it was "pointless to insist on maintaining it" given that, since the [[Second Vatican Council]], the [[Latin Church]], for which "the West" is an equivalent, has been organized as a number of [[episcopal conference]]s and their international groupings.<ref>{{cite news | url = http://www.zenit.org/en/articles/communique-on-title-patriarch-of-west | work=Zenit | title=Communiqué on title 'Patriarch of the West' | date= 22 March 2006| access-date = 20 December 2017}}</ref>

Though the formulation "Patriarch of the West" is no longer used, the pope in that role issues the ''Code of Canon Law'' for the Latin Church. During the [[Synod of Bishops (Catholic)|Synod of Bishops]] on the Middle East in 2009, [[Pope Benedict XVI]] appeared, as patriarch of the Latin Church, with the other patriarchs, but without the [[Latin patriarch of Jerusalem]], though he was present at the same synod.<ref>{{cite web|title=Meeting of the Eastern Catholic Patriarchs and Major Archbishops with Pope Benedict XVI|url=http://orientale-lumen.blogspot.it/2009/09/meeting-of-eastern-catholic-patriarchs.html|website=Society of St. John Chrysostom| access-date=30 September 2017|date=20 September 2009}}</ref>