Pius

The Latin name Pius, meaning pious or dutiful, has been borne by many Christian figures, most prominently by twelve bishops of Rome and by several other saints and blesseds. Because the subject is identified only as Pius, without a numeral, surname, religious name, or see, no single life can be assigned with certainty, and specific years of birth, places, offices, and patronages cannot be attached to one individual. What follows therefore distinguishes the principal, historically attested bearers of the name rather than conflating them.

The earliest papal namesake is Pius I, traditionally counted as the tenth bishop of Rome and placed by the oldest papal catalogues in the mid-second century, in the reigns of Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius. The Liber Pontificalis, a later and often legendary compilation, states that he was born at Aquileia, the son of a man named Rufinus, and that he died a martyr; modern historians treat both the birthplace and the martyrdom as unverified. Later tradition associates his pontificate with opposition to Valentinian Gnosticism and with the presence of Justin Martyr in Rome, and some ancient notices make him the brother of Hermas, author of the Shepherd. Contemporary evidence for his acts remains extremely thin. In the Roman calendar his feast has been kept on 11 July.

A far better documented saint is Michele Ghislieri, who reigned as Pope Pius V from 1566 until his death in 1572. He was born in 1504 at Bosco (now Bosco Marengo in Piedmont, then in the Duchy of Milan), entered the Dominican Order, and served as inquisitor before his election in the wake of the Council of Trent. As pope he enforced Tridentine reform, issued the Roman Catechism, the reformed Roman Breviary, and the Roman Missal of 1570 (Quo primum), excommunicated Elizabeth I of England in 1570 (Regnans in Excelsis), and promoted the Holy League whose fleet defeated the Ottomans at Lepanto in 1571. He died in Rome in 1572, was beatified in 1672 and canonized in 1712 by Clement XI, and is commemorated on 30 April. He is invoked in connection with the Dominican Order and with several Italian localities.

Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto, Pope Pius X (1903–1914), was born in 1835 at Riese in the then Austrian Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia (now Riese Pio X in the Veneto). A parish priest, bishop of Mantua, and patriarch of Venice before his election, he is remembered for the anti-Modernist syllabus Lamentabili and encyclical Pascendi (1907), for lowering the age of First Communion, and for the motu proprio Tra le sollecitudini on sacred music. He died in Rome in August 1914 at the outbreak of the First World War, was beatified in 1951 and canonized in 1954 by Pius XII, and is commemorated on 21 August; he is widely invoked as a patron of first communicants. Other well-known bearers of the name include Francesco Forgione, known as Pius of Pietrelcina or Padre Pio (1887–1968), a Capuchin of Pietrelcina in Campania, famous for the reported stigmata and canonized in 2002, whose feast is 23 September; and Giovanni Maria Mastai-Ferretti, Pope Pius IX (reigned 1846–1878), who defined the Immaculate Conception and convened the First Vatican Council and who was beatified in 2000 but has not been canonized. Without a more precise identification, none of these lives can be treated as that of the subject.