HBO's new show "The Young Pope" takes place in a world where we get a new pope.
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As you may have purchased from the title, he's a sprightly one — just 47 years old. That's pretty young for a pope, who are, on average, elected in their 60s. The character, Lenny Balardo, is played by Jude Law, 44, who takes the title of Pope Pius XIII.
The youngest pope in history, however, is less than half that age. That would be Pope Benedict IX, born Theophylactus of Tusculum, who was elected as pope on three separate occasions in his lifetime, ruling during a tumultuous period in the church with seven different papacies over a short period of time. The date of his birth is uncertain, but his first papacy, in 1032, was given to him somewhere between the age of 11 and 20.
According to "The Catholic Encyclopedia," a series of volumes published in the early 1900s, Benedict was around 20 years old when he became pontiff. Bertrand Russell in "A History of Western Philosophy," though, noted that "he was said to be twelve years old at the time."
The closest source to the pope himself was Rodulfus Glaber, a monk and historian who lived from 985 to 1047. He was a critic of Benedict — and some of his other historical writings have been viewed as less-than-reliable — but nevertheless he's one of the few sources we have. According to him, the pope was 12 in 1032, the time of his accession to him.