Blessed Innocent XI

Benedetto Odescalchi · 1676 – 1689

A rigorous reformer who opposed Louis XIV's Gallicanism, condemned moral laxism, and helped organize the relief of Vienna from the Ottoman siege.

Benedetto Odescalchi was elected pope in 1676 after initially refusing the office. He was an ascetic who cut papal spending, reformed the Curia, and lived with conspicuous personal simplicity. His most dramatic moment came in 1683, when Ottoman forces besieged Vienna. Innocent helped finance and organize the relief army led by Jan Sobieski of Poland, whose charge on September 12 broke the siege and turned back the Ottoman advance into Europe. Innocent fought Louis XIV's claims to control the French Church through Gallicanism, a struggle that poisoned Franco-papal relations for years. He also condemned sixty-five laxist moral propositions, tightening Catholic ethical teaching against theologians who had been finding ever-more-creative excuses for bad behavior. He was beatified in 1956.

Vienna Saved

When the Ottomans besieged Vienna in 1683, Innocent worked behind the scenes to assemble the coalition that saved the city. He provided money, diplomacy, and moral authority. Sobieski led the charge, but Innocent made it possible. Europe's map would look very different if Vienna had fallen.

No More Excuses

Some moral theologians of the seventeenth century had developed elaborate systems for justifying practically anything. Innocent shut it down, condemning sixty-five propositions that had stretched Catholic moral reasoning past the breaking point. He demanded that ethics actually mean something.