Saint Pius V

Saint Pius V was a Dominican and pope from 1566 to 1572. He steadily put the decisions of the Council of Trent into practice: he issued the Roman Catechism and a renewed Breviary and Missal. The Church commemorates him on April 30.

He was born on January 17, 1504, in Bosco, today Bosco Marengo, near Alessandria, and was baptized Antonio. He came from a poor family and from childhood had to work to help support it. At the age of fourteen he entered the Dominicans in Voghera and took the name Michele. He was formed in the friaries of the Order in Vigevano, Bologna, and Genoa, where he was ordained a priest in 1528. He held Sacred Scripture, the Fathers of the Church, and the works of Saint Thomas Aquinas in particular esteem.

Pope Paul III entrusted him with safeguarding the purity of the faith in the regions of Padua, Pavia, and Como. He later worked in Rome in the Inquisition and under Paul IV became its head. In 1556 he was made bishop of Sutri and Nepi, in 1557 a cardinal, and afterward bishop of Mondovì. He took as his motto the words “walk in the truth.”

In January 1566 he was elected pope and took the name Pius V. He required bishops to reside in their dioceses, religious to keep enclosure, and the clergy to lead holy lives. In 1566 he issued the Roman Catechism, intended above all for parish priests, in 1568 the renewed Breviary, and in 1570 the Roman Missal. He proclaimed Saint Thomas Aquinas a Doctor of the Church. He himself prayed the whole Rosary every day and warmly encouraged this prayer.

Faced with the threat of the Ottoman Empire, he brought about an alliance of the Holy See with Spain and Venice. On October 7, 1571, the allied fleet defeated the Turks at Lepanto. The victory was attributed to the intercession of the Mother of God, and the pope instituted a Marian feast in its memory.

He was also an unbending and severe man, both as inquisitor and as pope. In 1569 he ordered the expulsion of the Jewish communities from the Papal States, allowing them to remain only in a few cities, above all in Rome and Ancona. In 1570 he excommunicated Queen Elizabeth I of England.

He died in Rome on May 1, 1572. His body rests in the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore. Pope Clement X beatified him in 1672, and Clement XI canonized him on May 22, 1712.