Gregory XIII
Gregory XIII (Latin: Gregorius XIII), secular name Ugo Buoncompagni (Bologna, January 7, 1502-Rome, April 10, 1585), was Pope n.º 226 of the Catholic Church from 1572 to 1585.
Origins and formation
Born Ugo Buoncompagni, he studied jurisprudence at the University of Bologna and after receiving his doctorate in canon and civil law in 1530, from 1531 he worked as a professor, counting among his students important figures such as Carlos Borromeo, Alejandro Farnese and Reginald Pole.
Ecclesiastical career
In 1539, he was claimed in Rome by Cardinal Parisio, after which he acted for Pope Paul III as judge of the capital, papal abbreviator and authenticator of the Supreme Court of the Apostolic Signature until, in 1546, he was sent as auditor to the Council of Trent. While in Bologna he had an illegitimate son, named Giacomo Boncompagni, with an unmarried woman.
On his return to Rome he held various positions in the Roman Curia under Julius III, who also appointed him apostolic legate in Campania in 1555. In 1558, Paul IV appointed him Bishop of Vieste and in 1561, Pius IV sent him again to the Council of Trent where he would remain until its closure in 1563 as advisor to the pontifical legate, Cardinal Simonetta.
After his return to Rome, on March 12, 1565, he was named cardinal presbyter of San Sixto and sent as apostolic legate to Spain to intervene in the inquisitorial process initiated against the cardinal of Toledo, Bartolomé Carranza. His stay in Spain will allow him to meet King Felipe II and attract his sympathy, a fact that will be decisive in his election as pope.
Pontificate
Choice
After the death of Pius V, the College of Cardinals gathered in a conclave elected Cardinal Buoncompagni as the new pope in a single day thanks to the influence exercised by the King of Spain, Philip II.
He adopted the name of Gregory XIII as a tribute to the great Pope Gregory the Great, and despite the advanced age at which he was elected, seventy years old, he will demonstrate an inflexible energy and will in the regeneration of the Church, continuing the work begun by his predecessor Pius V.
Church reform
Engaged in the moral renewal of the Church, already in his first consistory he communicated to the cardinals his intention to strictly enforce the canons approved at the Council of Trent, also showing himself inflexible in the obligation of bishops to reside in their respective headquarters.
He encouraged the creation of colleges and seminaries in which future priests and missionaries would be formed, culturally and morally. At the head of these centers he put the Society of Jesus, which became one of the main pillars of his reforming work, which meant that the order was favored with the granting of numerous benefits, highlighting among them the support that the Pope lent to the Roman College that had been founded by Ignatius of Loyola in 1551 and that, in 1584, would be expanded and would change its headquarters and name to the Pontifical Gregorian University in honor of its patron, the Pope.
The English College was founded on May 1, 1579 and endowed with an annual subsidy for its operation.
In 1580 he united the German College founded during the pontificate of Julius III with the Collegium Hungaricum (Hungarian College) founded two years earlier, forming the current Collegium Germanicum et Hungaricum. In this same year, the creation of the Tomística University of the Kingdom of New Granada in the New World is attributed to him by means of a papal bull, today known under the title of Santo Tomás University.
In these schools numerous missionaries were prepared for the different countries where Protestantism had been declared the state religion and for missions in China, India and Japan. Thus, Gregory XIII restored the old faith, at least partially, in England and in the countries of northern Europe, provided the Catholics of those countries with the necessary priests, and introduced Christianity to the countries of East Asia.
In 1575 he approved the Congregation of the Oratory, founded a few years earlier by Saint Philip Neri.
In 1577, the pontiff founded the College of Neophytes, an institute for converts from Judaism and Islam.
He designated one day each week for a public hearing during which everyone had access to it.
So that only the most worthy people would be invested with ecclesiastical dignities, he kept a list of recommendable men inside and outside of Rome, in which he wrote down their virtues and defects that he came to know. He exercised the same care in the appointment of cardinals.
He also created a commission to update and expand the Index Librorum Prohibitorum
The Gregorian calendar
The reform of the Julian calendar, used since Julius Caesar established it in the year 46 B.C. C., to give way to the current Gregorian calendar, to which his name is linked, has made him a character of popular notoriety.
Introduced on October 4, 1582, the new calendar came to solve the problem posed by the fact that the Julian year had 11 minutes and 14 seconds more than the solar year, which had caused the accumulated difference to make The spring equinox will be brought forward by ten days.
Gregorio XIII, advised by the Jesuit astronomer Christopher Clavius promulgated, on February 24, 1582, the bull Inter Gravissimas in which he established that after Thursday, October 4, 1582, Friday the 15th would follow October 1582.
With the elimination of these ten days, the gap with the solar year disappeared, and so that it would not occur again, three leap years were eliminated in the new calendar every four centuries.
Thus, the Gregorian calendar is its most valuable and recognized legacy for Humanity.
Foreign Policy
Two traditional problems were still in force and both had to do with the expansion of two separate powers from the church he headed: the growing Turkish power and the no less active Protestant.
After the battle of Lepanto, the Holy League only lasted for two years, breaking up in 1573, which meant that Venice resumed its commercial relations with the Ottoman Empire, and that Spain sealed a truce with the sultan in 1580 to turn to European affairs.
The pope failed to engage either France or Germany in his planned expedition against the Turks, so he was unable to enjoy the satisfaction of his predecessor, Pius V, of seeing the cross shine on the crescent.
The Night of Saint Bartholomew
In France, the Huguenots, led by Gaspar de Coligny, were reaching levels of power that were worrying for the Catholic monarchy. The concentration in Paris of numerous figures of this political-religious party on the occasion of the wedding of Henry of Navarre, the future Henry IV, with Marguerite de Valois gave the Queen Mother Catherine de' Medici the opportunity to order, with the consent of Charles IX, the assassination of the Huguenot leaders.
The massacre that began in Paris and immediately spread to the rest of the French towns caught its victims unaware and defenseless, among whom there was no shortage of women and children, so that during the night of August 24, 1572, the one that has gone down in history as Saint Bartholomew's Night, the massacre could reach up to 10,000 sacrificed.
It seems likely that Gregory XIII took no direct part in this event (in spite of the Holy See's constant funding of the French religious wars). However, there was a celebration in Rome and a solemn "Te Deum" was sung in Saint Peter's Basilica, an antiphon of thanksgiving from the Church to God, in moments of great importance. The pontiff had a commemorative medal engraved with his own effigy on one side and on the other an angel with drawn sword killing Huguenots under the motto "Ugonotiorum strages" (Destruction of the Huguenots). Vasari represented the fortunate event with the same title in one of his frescoes commissioned by the pope. On the other hand, it is also pointed out that both he and his nuncio in Paris were unaware of the planned massacre, already aware, he probably had no knowledge of the Parisian horrors that, like other European rulers, had been informed that the Huguenots conspired to kill the king and his family, punishing himself for his treason, and thus avoiding a religious-political rebellion, (including his contemporary the writer Beautome in his "Vie de M. l'Amiral de Chastillon", and the non-Catholic historian Gregorio Leti in his "Vita di Sisto V", declare that said pope, when he was informed of everything, disapproved and hated that act).
England
England was another of his focuses of attention, and dethroning the heretic and bastard Elizabeth I by any means was one of his greatest obsessions. Against her he used the gold from the church coffers, the weapons of those who he was willing to offer them and even hired assassins by Rome. [citation needed]All attempts were unsuccessful.
John of Austria was one of those commissioned by the pope to carry out a military action against the British queen in 1578; Niccolo Ormanetto, his holiness's nuncio in Spain, had the mission of convincing Philip II to organize the invasion of England from Flanders or, where appropriate, provide the means to send two thousand soldiers to Ireland. None of this could be done; In the end, Don Juan received fifty thousand gold escudos from Gregory XIII and the mandate to try to free María Estuardo, but the pressing pecuniary needs in the companies in Flanders determined him to divert those funds to these operations and the English expedition was not carried out. cape.
William Allen and other English exiles residing in Rome conceived of invading England with a military force that would be commanded by Thomas Stukley, another compatriot who had fought in Lepanto, and they proposed it to the Pope. This, who was always in a position to accept any plan whose purpose was the overthrow of Queen Elizabeth and the return of his subjects to the ecclesiastical fold, welcomed it with enthusiasm.
Gregorio XIII wanted to involve Felipe II in the company through his ambassador to the Holy See, Juan de Zúñiga. The king was also favorable to the project. Stukley embarked at Porto Ercole for Ireland with 800 infantry calling at Lisbon, where other contingents were to join them; As the reinforcements were made to wait, it must have seemed to the English adventurer that it would be more profitable for him to join the Portuguese King Sebastián I in his African forays, even if it was with abandonment of the papal mission, and the projected maneuver did not take place this time either.
The following year, in 1579, the pontiff organized a new expedition to Ireland, this time entrusted to James Fitzmaurice Fitzgerald, which was yet another failure.
In 1583 a maneuver was hatched in Paris to penetrate England through Scotland; It was plotted by the Duke of Guise, the Spanish ambassador in France and the apostolic nuncio, together with English exiles. Pope Gregory had promised a substantial financial aid of 400,000 gold ducats, but he did not get the backing of Philip II so far and the plan could not be carried out..
The only thing left to do was attempt the assassination of the queen, a papal interest shared by the brothers Enrique and Carlos, dukes of Guise and Mayenne respectively; the plot was unsuccessful and Elizabeth I, the reincarnation of the Biblical Jezebel, remained on her throne despite all attempts by Gregory XIII to destroy her.
Sweden
Gregory XIII spared no effort to restore the Catholic faith in countries that had become Protestant. In 1574 he sent the Polish Jesuit Warsiewicz to John III of Sweden to try to convert him to Catholicism. Since he did not succeed, in 1576 he sent another Jesuit, the Norwegian Lorenzo Nielssen, who managed to convert the king on May 6, 1578. John III educated his son Sigismund III Vasa in the Catholic religion.
Japan
On March 22, 1585, four Japanese ambassadors arrived, sent by the converted daimyo of Bungo, Arima, and Omura, to thank the pope for the Jesuit missionaries he was sending.
Works in Rome
In Rome he built the Gregorian chapel in St. Peter's Basilica and the Quirinal Palace.
Death
This fervor to carry out the company of England without regard to expense left the coffers of the Holy See's treasury exhausted. Funds had to be raised for the cause by seeking new ways of financing. The pope, in an effort to collect money from him, paid attention to the fiefs and baronies that the church had ceded to the Romagnolo nobles and the little benefit that, in his opinion, was extracted from those territories.
It was proposed to confiscate those assets whose assignees were not up to date with payments and those that were in the possession of non-legitimate heirs. The aristocracy reacted to what they interpreted as a declaration of war and there was looting, riots and outright killings. A climate of disorder was created in which all kinds of outlaws and outlaws proliferated, sowing the Romagna with daily acts of banditry.
Gregorio XIII did not have the capacity to stop that epidemic nor the time to try, since he died on April 10, 1585, leaving the papal states in full turbulence.
Canonizations
During his pontificate, Gregory XIII canonized Norbert of Magdeburg (1582).
In literature
The prophecies of Saint Malachy refer to this pope as Medium corpus pilarum (The body in the middle of the columns), a quote that refers to the fact that half a dragon's body appears on his coat of arms and to the fact that the coat of arms of the pope who named him a cardinal, Pius IV, contained two columns.