April 30th - St. Pius V, OP Pope (RM)
(also known as Michael Ghislieri)
Born in Bosco (near Alessandria), Italy, on January 17, 1504; died May 1,
1572; canonized in 1712; feast day formerly on May 5.
People who know nothing else about Pius V are quite apt to remember him as
the Pope of the Rosary, recalling his remarkable connection with the
Battle
of Lepanto.
Antonio Michael was born into the distinguished but impoverished Ghisleri.
His parents could not afford to educate their alert little boy, who seemed
far too talented to be a shepherd. One day, as he was minding his father's
small flock, two Dominicans came along the road and fell into conversation
with him. Recognizing immediately that he was both virtuous and
intelligent,
they obtained permission from his parents to take the child with them and
educate him. He left home at age 12 and did not return until his
ordination
many years later.
After a preliminary course of studies, he received the Dominican habit at
the priory of Voghera at age 14 and, as a novice, was sent to Lombardy.
Here, for the first time, he met the well-organized forces of heresy which
he was to combat so successfully in later years.
After his ordination in 1528, he went home to say his first Mass, and he
found that Bosco had been razed by the French. There was nothing left to
tell him if his parents were alive or dead. He finally found them,
however,
in a nearby town. After he said Mass, he returned to a career that would
keep him far from home for the rest of his life. He began as a lector in
theology and philosophy for 16 years.
Then he served as novice-master, then as prior of several convents,
Michael
proved to be a wise and charitable administrator. He was made inquisitor
at
Como, Italy, where many of his religious brethren had died as martyrs to
the
heretics. By the time of Michael's appointment there, the heretics' chief
weapon was the printed word; they smuggled books in from Switzerland,
causing untold harm by spreading them in northern Italy. The new
inquisitor
set himself to fight this wicked traffic, and it was not the fault of the
heretics that he did not follow his brethren to martyrdom. They ambushed
him
several times and laid a number of complicated plots to kill him, but only
succeeded in making him determined to explain the situation more fully to
the pope in Rome.
He arrived in Rome on Christmas Eve, tired, cold, and hungry, and here it
was not the heretics that caused him pain, but his own brothers in Christ.
The prior of Santa Sabina saw fit to be sarcastic and inhospitable to the
unimportant looking friar, who said he was from Lombardy. The pope knew
very
well who he was, however, and immediately gave him the commission of
working
with the heretics in the Roman prisons.
He was a true father to these unfortunates, and he brought many of them
back
to the faith. One of his most appealing converts was a young Franciscan, a
converted Jew of a wealthy family, who had lapsed into heresy through
pride
in his writing. Michael proceeded to straighten out his thinking, to give
him the Dominican habit, and to assure him of his personal patronage, thus
securing for the Church a splendid Scripture scholar and writer.
In 1556, Michael was chosen bishop of Nepi and Sutri. The next year he was
named inquisitor general against the Protestants in Italy and Spain and
was
appointed cardinal, in order, as he said, that irons should be riveted to
his feet to prevent him from creeping back into the peace of the cloister.
In 1559, Pope Pius IV made him bishop of the war-depleted Piedmont see of
Mondovi, to which he soon brought order. Insofar as possible, Michael
continued to adhere to the Dominican Rule.
He constantly opposed nepotism. Michael opposed Pius IV's attempt to make
13-year-old Ferdinand de'Medici a cardinal, and defeated the attempt of
Emperor Maximilian II of Germany to abolish clerical celibacy.
January 7, 1565, when the papal chair was vacant following the death of
Pius
IV, the cardinals, chiefly through the influence of Saint Charles
Borromeo,
elected Cardinal Ghislieri pope. With great grief, he accepted the office
and chose the name Pius V. Charles Borromeo had backed Michael during the
election, trusting that he would act as a much-needed reformer.
His judgment proved true: on Pius's coronation, the money usually
distributed to the crowds was given to the hospitals and the poor, and
money
for a banquet for the cardinals and other dignitaries was given to poor
convents. When someone criticized this, he observed that God would judge
us
more on our charity to the poor than on our good manners to the rich. Such
an attitude was bound to make enemies in high places, but it endeared him
to
the poor, and it gave right-thinking men the hope that here was a man of
integrity, and one who could help to reform the clergy and make a firm
stand
against the Lutheran heresy.
There were massive problems of immediate urgency during the brief reign of
Pius V. From within, the peace of the Church was disturbed by the several
heresies of Luther, Calvin, and the Lombards, and by the need for clerical
reform. In addition, England was tottering on the brink of a break with
Rome. The Netherlands were trying to break away from Spain and had
embraced
Protestantism. The missions across the sea needed attention. And all
through
the Mediterranean countries, the Turkish were ravaging Christian cities,
creeping closer to world conquest. In the six years of his reign, Pope
Pius
V had to deal with all these questions-any one of which was enough to
occupy
his entire time.
One of Pius's first actions was to demand that bishops should live in
their
dioceses and parish priests in their parishes. His efforts at regulating
his
see embraced issues ranging from the abolition of bullfighting,
bear-baiting
and prostitution, to cleaning out the Roman curia and eliminating
nepotism,
to cutting down the activities of bandits. He insisted that Sunday must be
hallowed. Once a month he held a special court for anyone who felt they
had
been treated unjustly. He also brought in shipments of corn during a
famine
at his own expense.
In his personal life he continued to be a devout mendicant friar; as pope
he
set himself to enforce the decrees of the Council of Trent with energy and
effect. The catechism ordered by the Council of Trent was completed during
his rule (1566), and he ordered translations made. The breviary reformed
(1568) and missal (1570). He also commissioned the best edition to date of
the writings of Saint Thomas Aquinas; it was he who made Thomas a Doctor
of
the Church in 1567.
His was a rigorous character; he made full use of the Inquisition and his
methods of combatting Protestantism were ruthless. Pius had hoped to
convert
Queen Elizabeth of England. The unfortunate Mary Queen of Scots enjoyed
his
sympathy and encouragement. He sent reassuring letters to her, and once,
at
a time when no priest was allowed to go near her, he granted her special
permission to receive Holy Communion by sending her a tiny pyx that
contained consecrated Hosts. It was he who finally had to pronounce
excommunication on Elizabeth of England in 1570, after he had given her
every possible chance of repentance.
Pius V had a high estimate of papal power in secular matters, though
sometimes showing little talent for dealing with them. When he
excommunicated Elizabeth I, he absolved her subjects of the allegiance to
her as queen. This served only to endanger the Catholics in her realm,
however, and many were accused of treason and martyred. (It is interesting
to note that Elizabeth II visited Pope John XXIII at the Vatican on Pius
V's
original feast day, May 5, nearly four centuries later.) That he also came
into conflict with Philip II of Spain shows with what consistency he
applied
his principles.
He encouraged the new society founded by Saint Ignatius of Loyola and
established the Jesuits in the Gregorian University. He consecrated three
Jesuit bishops for India, gave Saint Francis Borgia his greatest
cooperation, and helped to finance missionaries to China and Japan. He
built
the church of Our Lady of the Angels for the Franciscans and helped Saint
Philip Neri in his establishment of the Oratory. Probably the act for
which
he will be longest remembered in his leadership at the time of the Battle
of
Lepanto.
In 1565, the Knights of Saint John defended Malta against a tremendous
attack by the Turkish fleet and lost nearly every fighting man in the
fortress. It was the pope who sent encouragement and money with which to
rebuild their battered city. The pope called for a crusade among the
Christian nations and appointed a leader who would be acceptable to all.
He
ordered the Forty Hours Devotion to be held in Rome, and he encouraged all
to say the Rosary.
When the Christian fleet sailed out to meet the enemy, every man on board
had received the sacraments, and all were saying the Rosary. The fleet was
small, and numerically it was no match for the Turkish fleet, which so far
had never met defeat. They met in the Bay of Lepanto on Sunday morning,
October 7, 1565. After a day of bitter fighting, and, on the part of the
Christians, miraculous help, the Turkish fleet-what was left of it-fled in
disgrace, broken and defeated, its power crushed forever.
Before the victorious fleet returned to Rome, the pope had knowledge of
the
victory through miraculous means. He proclaimed a period of thanksgiving;
he
placed the invocation, "Mary, Help of Christians" in the Litany of Loreto
and established the feast in commemoration of the victory. It was almost
the
last act of his momentous career for he fell victim to a painful illness
that killed him in less than a year. He was attempting to form an alliance
of the Italian cities, France, Poland, and other Christian nations of
Europe
to march against the Turks when he died. He is enshrined at Santa Maria
Maggiore in Rome.
Although he was criticized for 'wanting to turn Rome into a monastery,'
Saint Pius had the respect of the Roman people, who knew his personal
goodness and concern for everybody's welfare. He gave large sums to the
poor, lived a life of austerity and piety, and personally visited the sick
in hospitals. Pius V is remembered as one of the most important popes of
the
Counter-Reformation (Attwater, Benedictines, Bentley, Delaney, Dorcy,
White).
Saint Quote:
The joy of this life is nothing; the joy of the after life is everlasting.
- Blessed William Hart
Bible Quote:
If a blind man guides a blind man, both fall into a pit. St. Matthew 15:14
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PRAYER TO OUR LADY OF THE BLESSED SACRAMENT
O Virgin Mary, our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament, glory of the Christian
people, joy of the universal Church, salvation of the world; pray for us,
and awaken in all the faithful devotion to the Holy Eucharist in order
that
they render themselves worthy to receive it daily.
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