This is the pope whose job was to implement the historic Council of
Trent. If we think recent popes have had difficulties in implementing
Vatican Council II, Pius V had even greater problems after that
historic council more than four centuries ago.
During
his papacy (1566-1572), Pius V was faced with the almost overwhelming
responsibility of getting a shattered and scattered Church back on its
feet. The family of God had been shaken by corruption, by the
Reformation, by the constant threat of Turkish invasion and by the
bloody bickering of the young nation-states. In 1545 a previous pope
convened the Council of Trent in an attempt to deal with all these
pressing problems. Off and on over 18 years, the Church Fathers
discussed, condemned, affirmed and decided upon a course of action. The
Council closed in 1563.
Pius V was elected in 1566 and was
charged with the task of implementing the sweeping reforms called for
by the Council. He ordered the founding of seminaries for the proper
training of priests. He published a new missal, a new breviary, a new
catechism and established the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine (CCD)
classes for the young. Pius zealously enforced legislation against
abuses in the Church. He patiently served the sick and the poor by
building hospitals, providing food for the hungry and giving money
customarily used for the papal banquets to poor Roman converts. His
decision to keep wearing his Dominican habit led to the custom of the
pope wearing a white cassock.
In striving to reform both Church
and state, Pius encountered vehement opposition from England's Queen
Elizabeth and the Roman Emperor Maximilian II. Problems in France and
in the Netherlands also hindered Pius's hopes for a Europe united
against the Turks. Only at the last minute was he able to organize a
fleet which won a decisive victory in the Gulf of Lepanto, off Greece,
on October 7, 1571.
Pius's ceaseless papal quest for a renewal of
the Church was grounded in his personal life as a Dominican friar. He
spent long hours with his God in prayer, fasted rigorously, deprived
himself of many customary papal luxuries and faithfully observed the
Dominican Rule and its spirit.
Comment:
In
their personal lives and in their actions as popes, Pius V and Paul VI
(d. 1978) both led the family of God in the process of interiorizing
and implementing the new birth called for by the Spirit in major
Councils. With zeal and patience, Pius and Paul pursued the changes
urged by the Council Fathers. Like Pius and Paul, we too are called to
constant change of heart and life.
Quote:"In
this universal assembly, in this privileged point of time and space,
there converge together the past, the present, and the future. The
past: for here, gathered in this spot, we have the Church of Christ
with her tradition, her history, her Councils, her doctors, her saints;
the present: we are taking leave of one another to go out toward the
world of today with its miseries, its sufferings, its sins, but also
with its prodigious accomplishments, values, and virtues; and the
future is here in the urgent appeal of the peoples of the world for
more justice, in their will for peace, in their conscious or
unconscious thirst for a higher life, that life precisely which the
Church of Christ can give and wishes to give to them" (from Pope Paul's
closing message at Vatican II).