Antonio Ghislieri Born January 17, 1504

Antonio Ghislieri became Pope Pius V in 1566 and died in 1572. According to this site, he

~~was a professor of philosophy and theology for years, and served [the Dominican] order and the Church in several high offices: Provincial Superior; Inquisitor at Corno and Bergamo; Bishop of Sutri and Nepi; cardinal; Grand Inquisitor, Bishop of Mondovi and elected Pope Pius V in a modest ceremony on January 17, 1566, his 62nd birthday.

~~Pope Pius V was a great reformer, committed to eradicating simony, the buying or selling of ecclesiastical pardons or offices, and nepotism from the Roman Curia. To numerous relatives who rushed to Rome with the hope of some privilege, Pope Pius V gave comment that a relative of the pope can consider himself sufficiently rich if he is not indigent.

~~Pope Pius V published the catechism of the Council of Trent and an improved edition of the Missal and Breviary. The Pontiff tried to make Rome truly a holy city and punished immorality severely. The rigid discipline that Pope Pius V imposed on the Church was the constant norm of his own life.

~~Pope Pius V promoted several pastoral reforms in the wake of the Council of Trent: The obligation of residence for bishops, the cloister of religious, celibacy and holiness of life of priests, bishops' pastoral visits, the increase of missions, and the correction of liturgical books.

~~Pope Pius V excommunicated Queen Elizabeth I in 1570, an act which heightened the persecution of Catholics in England, but it also did much to strengthen Catholics.*

~~In 1571 a huge Muslim fleet threatened Christendom. Don Juan of Austria led an outnumbered Christian fleet to fight the Muslim navy. Pope Pius V entrusted the Christian fleet to Our Lady.

On October 7, 1571, the Christian fleet won a decisive battle in the Bay of Lepanto. Pope Pius V wished to institute a special feast to honor the Blessed Virgin’s assistance in securing the victory and the safety of Christendom. The feast was to be celebrated on October 7, and Pope Pius V called it the feast day of Our Lady of Victory.

~~A man of great austerity and prayer, Pope Pius V died on May 1, 1572. He suffered much, his prayer was: "Lord increase my pains, but increase my patience too."

He was canonized in 1712. On his feast day, May 5, Romans still gather at his shrine to venerate a great pope and a holy man.

*Last year, a reader chided me for not challenging this statement. Of course, I have posted before on the issues of this Papal bull and discussed it in Supremacy and Survival: How Catholics Endured the English Reformation. Lately, I've been reading a book on Christian England: From the Reformation to the 18th Century by an Anglican author, David L. Edwards; while he still considers Regnans in Excelsis to be a tactical error on the Pope's part, he does note that it made Catholics in England face a choice between the Established Church of England and the universal Catholic Church, between the authority of the monarch in religious matters and the authority of the Pope. Edwards notes that otherwise, the relative ease with which Church Papists were sliding into conformity with the Anglican church would have meant the end of Catholicism in England. So, the Papal Bull did both increase the government persecution of Catholics AND strengthen Catholic resolve to be true to their faith.