On the death of Pius IV. the conclave, mainly through the exertions of Cardinal Borromeo, elected Cardinal Ghisleri, who took the title of Pius V.[1] (1566-72) in memory of his predecessor. In his youth the future Pope joined the Order of St. Dominic, and for years had acted as professor of theology, master of novices, and prior. He was noted specially for his simplicity and holiness of life, a holiness which it may be remarked had nothing in common with the morose rigour of Paul IV., for his humility, his love of silence and meditation, and for his kindness towards the poor and the suffering. As a man of good education and of conservative tendencies he was summoned to assist Cardinal Caraffa, then president of the Holy Office, and when the latter became Pope he was created cardinal and appointed Grand Inquisitor. After his election Pius V. followed still the strict life of fasting and prayer to which he had been accustomed as a Dominican friar. He did not seek to create positions, or to carve out estates from the papal territories for his relatives. Anxious to promote the temporal as well as the spiritual welfare of the people in his temporal dominions he took steps to see that justice was meted out to poor and rich, banished women of loose character from the streets, put an end to degrading amusements, enforced the observance of the Sunday, and, backed by St. Charles Borromeo and the princes of Italy, he changed the whole face of the capital and the country. Rome was no longer the half-pagan city of the days of Leo X., nor yet did it partake of the savage rigour of Geneva.
Pius V. was most anxious to enforce the decrees of Trent, and it was for the accomplishment of this object that he had prepared for the instruction of pastors the Catechism of the Council of Trent. In compliance with the wishes of the bishops he published also a revised edition of the Roman Breviary and of the Missal. With the Catholic princes of Europe he maintained very friendly relations. He furnished supplies to Charles IX. of France in his struggle with the Huguenots, and to Philip II. of Spain in his wars against the Calvinists of the Netherlands. He encouraged the Emperor, Ferdinand I., and Maximilian of Bavaria to stand firm against the further encroachments of the Lutherans, and sympathised actively with the unfortunate Queen of Scotland. Having realised that Queen Elizabeth was lost hopelessly to the Church and that she was making every effort to involve the whole English nation in heresy, he directed against her a Bull of excommunication and deposition. But though he endeavoured to cultivate friendly relations with the Catholic rulers he had no intention of abandoning the rights of the Church or of yielding in the slightest to the increasing demands of the civil power. Against the wishes of some of his advisers and to the no small annoyance of the Catholic princes he republished the Bull, known as the /In Coena Domini/, because he commanded that it should be read in all churches on Holy Thursday.
Like his great namesake Pius II. he had especially at heart the defence of Europe against invasion by the Turk. Owing to the religious controversies and the eagerness of some of the princes to ally themselves with the Sultan the followers of Islam had grown bolder, and had shown that they dreamed still of overcoming Western Europe and of planting the crescent even in the very city of the Popes. Pius V.
appealed to the rulers of Europe to close up their ranks against their common enemy. He granted generous subsidies to the Knights of Malta and the rulers of Venice and Hungary upon whom the brunt of the struggle must inevitably fall. When on the accession of Selim II. in 1570 the danger was pressing, the Pope succeeded in bringing about a Christian confederacy composed of Spain, Venice, and the Papal States with Don Juan of Austria in command of the Christian forces. For the success of the enterprise the Pope ordered that public prayers and particularly the Rosary should be recited in the churches throughout the world. The decisive struggle between the two forces, as a result of which the Turkish fleet was almost completely annihilated, was fought in the Bay of Lepanto on Sunday, 7th October 1571.[2] In memory of this great victory the Pope instituted the Feast of the Holy Rosary to be celebrated for ever on the first Sunday of October. While he was engaged in making arrangements to follow up his success by driving the Turks beyond the Bosphorus he was called to his reward. Even by his contemporaries Pius V. was regarded as a saint. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that one hundred years after his death he was beatified, and forty years later, in 1712, he was canonised formally by Clement XI.