Pope Pius V
Pope Pius V was the austere Dominican who enforced the Council of Trent and organised the alliance that defeated the Ottoman fleet at Lepanto. Born Antonio Ghislieri near Alessandria in 1504 to a poor family, he herded sheep as a boy, entered the Dominican order at fourteen, and taught philosophy and theology for sixteen years. He became an inquisitor, rose to Commissary General of the Roman Inquisition, and was made a cardinal in 1557 by Paul IV and Grand Inquisitor in 1558. He was elected pope in January 1566 with Charles Borromeo's support. He kept his coarse Dominican habit as pope, which is why popes have worn white ever since. He lived austerely, cut the papal household, expelled prostitutes from Rome and made adultery punishable, and gave to the poor what his predecessors had spent on relatives. His work was implementing Trent. He issued the Roman Catechism in 1566, a revised Breviary in 1568, and in 1570 the Roman Missal by the bull Quo primum, which fixed the Latin liturgy essentially unchanged until 1962. He pursued heresy without restraint. He supported the suppression of Protestants in France and the Netherlands, and in February 1570 issued Regnans in Excelsis, excommunicating Elizabeth I of England and declaring her subjects released from allegiance. It was a serious miscalculation: it made English Catholics suspected traitors and provoked far harsher penal laws. He built the Holy League with Spain and Venice, and on 7 October 1571 its fleet under Don John of Austria destroyed the Ottoman navy at Lepanto, ending the presumption of Turkish naval supremacy. He died in 1572 and was canonised in 1712.
- Lived: 1504 CE – 1572 CE
- Nationality: Italian
- Roles: pope, reformer
