Popes become saints not because they become popes but because they become saints. Michele Ghislieri, whose election was as much of a surprise as papal elections sometimes are, started life like King David in the sandals of a shepherd lad, or more probably barefoot. A Dominican at age 14, as is no longer recommended, he was on being ordained appointed lector in philosophy and theology and taught for sixteen years, a friar of great austerity and exemplary life. They made him novice-master and prior.
The Roman Church of the mid sixteenth century was a theatre of struggle, the Church’s leadership characterised sometimes by self-indulgence and the abuse of power, sometimes by an impatience and intransigence bordering on zealotry. Ghislieri was taken up by that reforming whirlwind of a man, Giampetro Carafa, who screwed up the Roman Inquisition to a pitch of inhuman severity, say the historians. When elected to the papacy as Paul IV he placed the future Pius V at its head. He showed himself equally severe. There was a reaction on Paul’s death, the more conciliatory Pius IV succeeded him. But Ghislieri’s earnestness, austerity and evangelical poverty brought him in turn to the Holy See as the true leader of the party of reform: St Charles Borromeo was behind the push to elect him.
The third of only four Dominicans to become popes, and the only one much remembered, really, Pius V began an immediate vigorous reform. The largesse usually squandered at a papal coronation was given instead to the poor. Instead of banquets for magnates, the distribution of food to poor convents. He wore the rough habit underneath his papal robes and made no change to his life-style, keeping his cell at Santa Sabina. He made it his avowed intent in every sphere to put into effect the decrees of the Council of Trent. He cut down the Papal court, purged the Curia and legislated against the Roman vices of brigandry, bull-fighting and prostitution. A fresco in his old cell shows the Pope rushing at a group of ladies who are scattering in terror: the figlie di gioia of Rome trying to get away!
Pius wanted every parish priest to be an educator of youth, he wanted catechisms in all the languages, he had new editions of St Thomas Aquinas made and declared him a Doctor of the Church. He republished the breviary with all the tall stories removed. Well a lot of them. The missal that bears his name. A great reform pope whose work bore fruit for decades and who left a lasting Tridentine mark on the Church.
Popes called Pius have been appealed to by some modern dissidents in the name of tradition! But tradition is not stasis: the tradition is always renewing itself by the action of the Holy Spirit. Tradition is the spring of renewal and reform, to which Pius was faithful in his life and work.
On his first morning as bishop of Rome, the first pope to be called Francis made a visit to Sta Maria Maggiore to pray at the tomb of a shepherd boy who had never ceased to identify with the poor. Well. I wonder if he also remembered there those other Jesuits whom Pius sent into the jaws of death, having excommunicated and deposed Queen Elizabeth I. Michele Ghislieri too was an unlikely sort of pope. Perhaps he stands as a warning to the unwary. Become a Dominican, you could get to take more responsibility than you bargained for! He reminds us too: the pastor should smell of the sheep.
- Reproduced with the permission of the author, fr Bob Eccles OP, chaplain to our Fraternity and Promoter of Laity in our Province.
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