Pope Pius V (1566-1572)

Saint Pius V, original name Antonio Ghislieri, (born Jan. 17, 1504, Bosco, duchy of Milan [Italy]—died May 1, 1572, Rome, Papal States [Italy]; canonized May 22, 1712; feast day April 30), Italian ascetic, reformer, and relentless persecutor of heretics, whose papacy (1566–72) marked one of the most austere periods in Roman Catholic church history. During his reign, the Inquisition was successful in eliminating Protestantism in Italy, and the decrees of the Council of Trent (1545–63) were put into effect.

Early Life And Career.

Pius V, born Antonio Ghislieri, came from a poor family in northern Italy. He was a shepherd until the age of 14, when he became a Dominican friar. His first important appointment was as inquisitor, a high office of the Inquisition, then the Roman Catholic church’s judicial system for discovering, examining, and punishing heretics. Ghislieri’s methods, prompted by excessive zeal, provoked such opposition from his bishop’s officials as well as his chapter that he was recalled in 1550. The chief inquisitor in Rome, Giovanni Pietro Carafa, convinced of his value, sent him on a mission to Lombardy and, in 1551, appointed him commissary general of the Roman Inquisition. When Carafa became pope (as Paul IV), Ghislieri was made bishop of Nepi and Sutri (1556), cardinal (1557), and finally grand inquisitor of the Roman church (1558). He was continued in this office by Pius IV, whom, however, he antagonized by his censoriousness and obstinacy.

Papal Reforms.

After the death of Pius IV, the adherents of strict religious rules, led by Cardinal (later St.) Charles Borromeo, the nephew of Pius IV, had no difficulty making him pope (Jan. 7, 1566). Retaining his ascetic mode of life, Pius immediately began the work of reform. Decrees and ordinances were issued rapidly; the papal court became a model of sobriety; prostitutes were driven from the city or confined to a certain quarter; penalties were fixed for Sunday desecration, profanity, and animal baiting; clerics holding benefices were required to spend definite periods in their administrative districts; members of convents were compelled to live in strict seclusion according to their vows; instruction in the catechism, the short manual outlining the principles of Catholicism, was ordered. A new catechism appeared in 1566, followed by an improved breviary (the daily prayers for clergy and nuns [1568]) and an improved missal (a book containing the prayers and responses for celebrating the mass [1570]). The use of indulgences—i.e., the remission of temporal punishment due for sin—and dispensations from vows was restricted, and the whole system of penance was reformed.