Innocent XI

Innocent XI (in Latin Innocentius XI , in Italian Innocenzo XI ), “Bellua insatiabilis” in the Prophecy of Saint Malachie, born Benedetto Odescalchi with Like, in Lombardy, the May 16th 1611 and dead the August 21st 1689, was pope of the September 21st 1676 with its death.

Youth and career with the Curia

Born in a family from old nobility lombarde, he studies at the Jésuites of Like. Still child, it loses successively his father (1622) and his mother (1630). He passes then under the supervision of the one of his uncles, Papirio, which makes it come to Genoa. He rubs then in the administration and business world before starting a canonical course of Civil law and with Rome and Naples, where he obtains his license in 1639. To Rome, it binds friendship with the Alfonso cardinals of Cueva, Francesco Barberini or Giambattista Pamphilj, future pope Innocent X. It then decides to make career in the Roman Curie.

Its career is then fulgurating: Urbain VIII, Barberini, names it successively Protonotaire taking part, general police chief of the Stamp, governor of Macerata and Picène. In 1645, whereas it is only 34 years old and that it is not priest, it receives the hat of cardinal-deacon of the Saint-Like-and-Damien of the hands of Innocent X. It is then named legate with Ferrare, during the famine of 1648, where it gains the reputation of a man close to the people.

In April 1650, it is named bishop Novare. A few months later, it is ordered priest, then devoted. It is announced in its diocese for its caritative and pastoral activity, in the line line of the Concile of Thirty. However, he is not a large reformer.

Pope

At the time of the Conclave according to the death of Clement X, in 1676, the name of the Odescalchi cardinal is quickly marked. France, opposed to its candidature, finally gives up throwing against him the Exclusive, in front of the support which testify to him the Roman cardinals, with the first chief of which the cardinals Cybo, Ludovisi and Barberini. Finally, Benedetto Odescalchi is elected pope on September 21st and takes the name from Innocent XI, in the honor of Innocent X.

Foreign affairs

On the political plan, Innocent XI gets busy at once to reconcile the France and the Holy roman Empire, in order to carry out the union of Christendom against the Protestantisme on the one hand, the Othoman threat of the other. However, the pope remains being wary with respect to Louis XIV of France, which it reproaches its lack of engagement towards Catholicism and its dealings with the Turk. This latent hostility crystallizes in 1673, when the king of France extends the levels (management by the king of the benefit of évêchés vacant) with the provinces of Languedoc, of Guyenne, Provence and Dauphiné. However any extension of levels had been prohibited in 1274 by the Concile of Lyon. With the call of certain French, Innocent bishops XI address three briefs of protest in Louis XIV. This one reacts by convening assembled clergy which take make and cause for the king, publishing even four articles posing the bases of the Gallicanisme. In 1687, Innocent XI condemns by a rescrit the conclusions of the assemblies. To avoid a frontal rupture, Louis XIV must dissolve these last.

Things enveniment still with the “quarrel of the district”: the May 7th 1685, Innocent XI limit the exterritoriality from which the embassies in Rome profit. The marquis de Lavardin, new French ambassador, refuses to give up his privilege and, in 1687, takes possession of his station by the weapons, in spite of the pontifical opposition. In answer, Innocent XI fulminates the bubble In cœna Domini and places under interdict the church Saint-Louis-of-French, parish of the French of Rome.

The confrontation with Louis XIV fact of failing the policy of union of Christendom. In fact, when a catholic coalition gains the Bataille of Kahlenberg, the September 12th 1683, with the doors of Vienna, it includes/understands neither France, nor the République of Venice.

Spirituality

On the religious level, Innocent XI is confronted with the vogue of the Quiétisme, doctrines preaching the passivity of the heart vis-a-vis the divinity, whose Spaniard Miguel de Molinos, author of the spiritual Guide (1675), is the burning defender. The pope initially has for him a certain sympathy, considering even to him, seems it, a cardinal's hat. However, in 1685, Molinos is stopped, without one including/understanding the reason of the pontifical reversal well. The following year, however, it raises with crimson cardinalice Matteo Petrucci, suspected of quietism. The November 20th 1687, finally, the apostolic Constitution Cœlestis pastor condemns the quietism.

In parallel, it must give an opinion in the quarrel on the grace which continues to agitate the Church. The March 2nd 1679, it condemns by the bubble Sanctissimus Dominus 65 judged proposals for a moral theology laxists. It is on the basis of this bubble that the posterity could reproach him tendencies Jansenists, because of the standpoint of Blaise Pascal and of the Jansenists against the Laxisme in Provincial the . The Laxisme was related to a sometimes excessive application of the Casuistique by some Jésuite S in first half of the 17th century.

Innocent XI dies in 1689. In 1714 Clément XI introduces his cause in Béatification. Continued by Clement XII, it is delayed by the charge of Jansénisme and by the opposition of France. In fact, it leads only the October 7th 1956, under the pontificate of Pie XII.

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