The Future Pope Blessed Innocent XI Born

Benedetto Odescalchi, the future Pope Innocent XI was born in Como, Italy on May 16, 1611. He was elected Pope on September 21, 1676, over the objections of King Louis XIV of France, succeeding Pope Clement X. He died on August 11, 1689 but his feast on is August 12 (St. Clare of Assisi is celebrated on August 11--that's also why Blessed John Henry Newman's feast is on October 9 even though he died on August 11, to avoid conflict with such an important saint).**

Speaking of conflicts, Pope Innocent XI and Louis XIV were in conflict throughout his reign and that conflict spilled over into the pope's official relations with King James II of England, even as that monarch tried to advance Catholic freedom of worship in his country, according to the Catholic Encyclopedia:

The tension between the pope and the king [Louis XIV] was still increased by the pope's procedure in filling the vacant archiepiscopal See of Cologne. The two candidates for the see were Cardinal Wilhelm Fürstenberg, then Bishop of Strasburg, and Joseph Clement, a brother of Max Emanuel, Elector of Bavaria. The former was a willing tool in the hands of Louis XIV, and his appointment as Archbishop and Elector of Cologne would have implied French preponderance in north-western Germany. Joseph Clement was not only the candidate of Emperor Leopold I of Austria but of all European rulers, with the exception of the King of France and his servile supporter, King James II of England. At the election, which took place on 19 July, 1688, neither of the candidates received the required number of votes. The decision, therefore, fell to the pope, who designated Joseph Clement as Archbishop and Elector of Cologne. Louis XIV retaliated by taking possession of the papal territory of Avignon, imprisoning the papal nuncio and appealing to a general council. Nor did he conceal his intention to separate the French Church entirely from Rome. But the pope remained firm. The subsequent fall of James II of England destroyed French preponderance in Europe and soon after Innocent's death the struggle between Louis XIV and the papacy was settled in favour of the Church. Innocent XI did not approve the imprudent manner in which James II attempted to restore Catholicism in England. He also repeatedly expressed his displeasure at the support which James II gave to the autocratic King Louis XIV in his measures hostile to the Church. It is, therefore, not surprising that Innocent XI had little sympathy for the Catholic King of England, and that he did not assist him in his hour of trial. There is, however, no ground for the accusation that Innocent XI was informed of the designs which William of Orange had upon England, much less that he supported him in the overthrow of James II. . . . 

Yesterday, I highlighted Innocent XI's refusal to allow Father Edward Petre, SJ, to accept the (Anglican?) See of the Archdiocese of York at James II's request. 

Pope Innocent, like Pope St. Pius V before, rallied the Holy League to defend Europe from the invasion of the Ottoman Empire:

It was due to Innocent's earnest and incessant exhortations that the German Estates and King John Sobieski of Poland in 1683 hastened to the relief of Vienna which was being besieged by the Turks. After the siege was raised, Innocent again spared no efforts to induce the Christian princes to lend a helping hand for the expulsion of the Turks from Hungary. He contributed millions of scudi to the Turkish war fund in Austria and Hungary and had the satisfaction of surviving the capture of Belgrade, 6 Sept., 1688.

Because of his assistance to the Austro-Hungarians during the siege of Vienna and until the Turks were driven from Belgrade, he is called the "Savior of Hungary." Pope Leo XIII paid tribute to him in his August 22, 1886 encyclical Quod Multum on the liberty of the Church, written to the Bishops of Hungary:

We have long and ardently desired an opportunity to address you with an apostolic letter. Just as We have addressed the bishops of many other nations, We desire to inform you of Our plans, which concern the prosperity of the Christian cause and the salvation of the Hungarian nation. These days present Us with an excellent opportunity, since Hungary is celebrating the liberation, two centuries ago, of Budapest. - That victory will stand out forever in the memory of the Hungarian people. It was granted to your ancestors, because of their strength and perseverance, to recapture their capital city, which for a century and a half had been occupied by their enemies. That the grace and memory of this divine blessing might remain, Pope Innocent XI justly decreed a celebration throughout all Christendom in honor of St. Stephen, the first of your apostolic kings, on the second day of September, the anniversary of this great event. Moreover it is well-known that the Apostolic See took a significant part in the almost spontaneous victory three years before over the same foe at Vienna. This victory, rightly attributed in great part to the apostolic efforts of Pope Innocent, began the decline of the influence of the Mohammedans in Europe. - Besides, even before that age and under similar circumstances, Our predecessors assisted the Hungarian forces with counsel, aid, money, and treaties. From Callistus III to Innocent XI, many Roman Ponfiffs are recorded whose names deserve to be honored for their activity in such affairs.

He was beatified by Pope Pius XII in 1956. There's a video of a new report of the event! 

**Note that Newman's feast of October 9 will be the mandatory feast to be celebrated on that date in England and Wales, once he has been canonized. The optional memorials that are on that date will be moved:

The Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales agrees to the raising of Bl. John Henry Newman to the rank of Feast on 9 October, subsequent to his canonisation, in the National Calendar for England and the National Calendar for Wales.

It requests the optional memorials of St Denis and Companions and St John Leonardi be transferred to 10 October.

The Holy Name of Mary and Vienna

Christopher Check writes about the defeat of the Turks who were besieging Vienna on September 12, 1683:

Before dawn, Sobieski assisted at Mass in the ruined Church of the Camaldolites, offered by Blessed Marco D’Viano. Gathering his force he commended their mission and their souls to the care of the Blessed Virgin.

The descent began.

As the sun rose on the morning of 12 September, the Ottomans saw, according their own account, “a flood of black pitch flowing down the hill, smothering and incinerating everything that lay in its way.”

Taking one ridge at a time, the Christians fought their way down the hill. Little could the commanders do but exhort their forces to press ahead in the confusion. The Saxons on the left of the Holy League line were the first to engage the forward deployed Ottomans, but by ten a.m. the whole Turkish army was arrayed for counterattack. For several hours the battle traded advantage, the Holy League ever closing on the city.

By late afternoon, Sobieski’s army had reached the plain, and he was now positioned to exploit his greatest asset, the famed Winged Hussars. Drawing up these courageous cavalrymen, their feathered plumes streaming off their backs, he led them himself, lances couched in a full-tilt charge at the center of the Ottoman line. Shouting “Jezus Maria ratuj!” they charged and reformed, charged and reformed, charged and reformed. The Polish horsemen followed their intrepid king deeper and deeper into the army of Islam, smashing what remained of their resistance, setting the followers of Muhammad to flight, relieving the siege, and carrying the day.

“We came, we saw, God conquered.” Sobieski wrote to Innocent XI.

Pope Blessed Innocent XI instituted the today's feast of the Holy Name of Mary to commemorate that victory. After the Second Vatican Council the feast was suppressed, but Pope St. John Paul II restored it to the universal Roman Calendar in 2002. Check wonders if the pope was inspired by the the 9-11, 2001 attacks in New York and Washington, DC (and Shanksville, PA before the plane reached its target).

St. Edward the Confessor and Papal Gifts

Pope Francis wisely featured St. Edward the Confessor (in the center of the left half of the Wilton Diptych, behind Richard II) in his gifts to both Queen Elizabeth II and her great grandson Prince George. St. Edward is a shared saint between the Church of England and the Catholic Church--primarily because he was canonized by Pope Alexander in 1161 and his cult extended to the entire Catholic Church by Blessed Pope Innocent XI in 1679 (!) According to the Vatican's report of their meeting, "The Pope . . . presented the Queen with a replica of a decree from the Vatican archives, dating from 1679, by which Pope Innocent XI extended the veneration of St Edward the Confessor to the Universal Church, establishing his feast day on October 9^th." (Except that sources I found say his feast day is October 13, since that is the date of the translation of his relics to Westminster Abbey.) It is interesting to think that Blessed Pope Innocent promoted this feast while Catholic priests in England were being executed because of Titus Oates' "Popish Plot". It's also important to remember that Innocent did not approve of Catholic King James II's methods in promoting Catholicism in England--nor of James's closeness with King Louis XIV of France (and probably not of Charles II's, either).

Additionally, St. Edward the Confessor was featured in the other gift Pope Francis presented to the Queen for Prince George, third in the line of succession to the throne:  "It was a blue, lapis lazuli orb, topped with a cross of St Edward the Confessor and around the base a dedication reading ‘Pope Francis to His Royal Highness Prince George of Cambridge’."

Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip faced a greater challenge in giving ceremonial gifts to Pope Francis: what do you give to the man who does not really want anything? In keeping with the informal nature of the visit, they gave him a hamper "stuffed with goodies from her royal estates: honey from the gardens of Buckingham Palace, venison, beef and some best bitter from Windsor Castle, cider, apple juice and a selection of chutneys from Sandringham and some shortbread and whiskey from the Balmoral estate in Scotland."

We should recall that Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI and then Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams knelt together in prayer before the tomb of St. Edward the Confessor on Friday, September 17, 2010 during the ecumenical Evensong in Westminster Cathedral:

Pope Benedict, in his address, said he was grateful for his welcome and described his visit as a “pilgrimage”, by the Successor of St Peter, to the tomb of St Edward the Confessor. He said King Edward was “a model of Christian witness” and “an example of that true grandeur to which the Lord summons his disciples in the Scriptures we have just heard: the grandeur of a humility and obedience grounded in Christ’s own example”.

St. Edward the Confessor, so-called because he was not a martyr, is the only English king to be proclaimed a saint.

Blessed Pope Innocent XI and James II

Blessed Pope Innocent XI died on August 12, 1689. His papacy is known for his efforts to reform and simplify life in the Vatican and throughout the Church. He was also an opponent of King Louis XIV's Gallicanism and absolutism. As the Catholic Encyclopedia tells it, that opposition spread to concerns about King James II's "autocratic" reign in England:

The whole pontificate of Innocent XI is marked by a continuous struggle with the absolutism of King Louis XIV of France. . . . All the efforts of Innocent XI to induce King Louis to respect the rights of the Church were useless. . . . Innocent XI did not approve the imprudent manner in which James II attempted to restore Catholicism in England. He also repeatedly expressed his displeasure at the support which James II gave to the autocratic King Louis XIV in his measures hostile to the Church. It is, therefore, not surprising that Innocent XI had little sympathy for the Catholic King of England, and that he did not assist him in his hour of trial. There is, however, no ground for the accusation that Innocent XI was informed of the designs which William of Orange had upon England, much less that he supported him in the overthrow of James II.

Of course, popes are not impeccable; they can err in political and strategic matters. Blessed Pope Innocent XI was either misinformed or unaware that James II was pursuing freedom of conscience in England through Parliamentary elections and that he had the backing of many other Christians and even William Penn, the Quaker.

As this blogger sees it:

In the north there were more problems. Catholic hopes had soared when King Charles II of Britain converted on his deathbed and was succeeded by his openly Catholic brother King James II. The Pope advised the new King of England, Scotland and Ireland to move slowly and carefully, knowing that the English had developed a paranoid fear of Catholics, before trying to restore religious freedom to Catholics and dissenting Protestants. However, James II was tied by blood and money to the King of France and he paid no attention to the warnings of Innocent XI. He went ahead with his program of religious freedom, British Protestants were terrified and James was promptly overthrown by a Protestant coup in concert with a Dutch invasion. The chance for a Catholic revival in Britain had been lost and Pope Innocent XI, whose opposition to Louis XIV had put him on the generally Protestant side of that conflict, died only the next year in June of 1689.

The image of Pope Innocent XI depends a great deal on who is painting the picture. Many British and French Catholics still have a little lingering dislike of him. In fact, more than 50 years after his death French cardinals still blocked efforts to canonize the pontiff in 1744. It was not until 1956 that the Pope was declared Blessed Innocent XI and a declaration on his sainthood seems unlikely. However, despite the considerable opposition he aroused, it was mostly due to his staunch defense of the independence of the Church. He was not a lavish pontiff and left the treasury in surprisingly good shape, he was sincerely and devoutly religious and committed to cleaning up the Church and defending Christianity. All in all, a great man.