Pope Innocent XI (Latin: Innocentius XI; Italian: Innocenzo XI; 16 May 1611 – 12 August 1689), born Benedetto Odescalchi, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 21 September 1676 until his death on 12 August 1689.
Political and religious tensions with Louis XIV of France were a constant preoccupation for Innocent XI. Within the Papal States, he lowered taxes, produced a surplus in the papal budget and repudiated nepotism within the Church. Innocent XI was frugal in his governance of the Papal States, his methods evident in matters ranging from his manner of dress to a wide range of standards of personal behaviour consistent with his conception of Christian values. Once he was elected to the papacy, he applied himself to moral and administrative reform of the Roman Curia. He abolished sinecures and pushed for greater simplicity in preaching as well as greater reverence in worship, requesting this of both the clergy and faithful. In consideration of his diplomatic and financial support for efforts to free Hungary from Turkish domination, he is still widely referred to in the country as the "Saviour of Hungary".
After a difficult cause for canonization, starting in 1791, which caused considerable controversy over the years and which was stopped on several occasions, he was beatified in 1956 by Pope Pius XII.
Benedetto Odescalchi was born in Como on 16 May 1611, the son of a nobleman of Como, Livio Odescalchi, who died in 1626, and his wife Paola Castelli-Giovanelli from Gandino, who died of the plague in 1630. The child's siblings were Carlo Odescalchi (1609 - 1673), married to Beatrice Cusani of the Marquesses of Chignolo (parents of Giovanna Odescalchi (1651 - 14 July 1679), married in Milan on 27 May 1677 as his first wife to Carlo Borromeo-Arese, 6th Marquess of Angera, 11th Count of Arona, with issue), Lucrezia Odescalchi (9 October 1605 - ?), married on 4 February 1621 to Alessandro Erba (6 November 1599 - 31 August 1670), son of Gerolamo Erba and wife Vittoria Olgiati, ancestors of the Erba-Odescalchi, Giulio Maria Odescalchi, Costantino Odescalchi, Nicola Odescalchi and Paolo Odescalchi. He also had several collateral descendants of note through his sister: her grandson Cardinal Benedetto Erba Odescalchi and Cardinal Carlo Odescalchi - Servant of God.
The Odescalchi, a family of minor nobility, were determined entrepreneurs. In 1619, Benedetto's brother founded in Genoa with his three uncles a bank which quickly grew into a successful money-lending business. After completing his studies in grammar and letters, the 15-year-old Benedetto moved to Genoa to take part in the family business as an apprentice. Lucrative economic transactions were established with clients in the major Italian and European cities, such as Nuremberg, Milan, Kraków, and Rome.
In 1626, Benedetto's father died, and he began schooling in the humanities taught by the Jesuits at his local college, before transferring to Genoa. In 1630, he narrowly survived an outbreak of plague, which killed his mother.
Some time between 1632 and 1636, Benedetto decided to move to Rome and then Naples to study civil law. This led to his securing the offices of protonotary apostolic, the president of the Apostolic Camera, commissary of the Marco di Roma, and governor of Macerata. On 6 March 1645, Pope Innocent X (1644–55) made him Cardinal-Deacon with the deaconry of Santi Cosma e Damiano. He subsequently became legate to Ferrara. When he was sent to Ferrara in order to assist the people stricken with a severe famine, the Pope introduced him to the people of Ferrara as the "father of the poor".
In 1650, Odescalchi became bishop of Novara in which capacity he spent all of the revenues of his see to relieve the poor and sick in his diocese. He participated in the 1655 conclave. In 1656, with the pope's permission, he resigned as Bishop of Novara in favour of his brother Giulio and moved to Rome. While there, he took a prominent part in the consultations of the various congregations of which he was a member. He participated in the 1669–70 conclave.
Odescalchi was a strong papal candidate after the death of Clement IX (1667–69) in 1669, but the French government rejected him (using the now-abolished veto). After Pope Clement X (1670–76) died, Louis XIV of France (1643–1715) again intended to use his royal influence against Odescalchi's election. Instead, believing that the cardinals as well as the Roman people were of one mind in their desire to have Odescalchi as their Pope, Louis reluctantly instructed the French party cardinals to acquiesce in his candidacy.
On 21 September 1676, Odescalchi was chosen to be Clement X's successor and took the name of Innocent XI. He chose that name in honour of Innocent X, who made him a cardinal in 1645. He was formally crowned as pontiff on 4 October 1676 by the protodeacon, Cardinal Francesco Maidalchini.
Reforming administration of papacy
Immediately upon his accession, Innocent XI turned all his efforts towards reducing the expenses of the Curia. He passed strict ordinances against nepotism among the cardinals. He lived frugally and exhorted the cardinals to do the same. In this manner, he ended the annual deficit, which at his accession had reached the sum of 170,000 scudi, and within a few years, the papal income was even in excess of the expenditures. He lost no time in declaring and practically manifesting his zeal as a reformer of manners and a corrector of administrative abuses. Beginning with the clergy, he sought to raise the laity also to a higher moral standard of living. He closed all of the theatres in Rome (considered to be centres of vice and immorality) and famously brought a temporary halt to the flourishing traditions of Roman opera.
In 1679, he publicly condemned sixty-five propositions, taken chiefly from the writings of Antonio Escobar y Mendoza, Francisco Suarez and other casuists (mostly Jesuit casuists, who had been heavily attacked by Pascal in his Provincial Letters) as propositiones laxorum moralistarum and forbade anyone to teach them under penalty of excommunication. He condemned in particular the most radical form of mental reservation (stricte mentalis) which authorised deception without an outright lie.
Personally not unfriendly to Miguel de Molinos, Innocent XI nevertheless yielded to the enormous pressure brought to bear upon him to confirm in 1687 the judgement of the inquisitors by which sixty-eight Quietist propositions of Molinos were condemned as blasphemous and heretical.
Innocent XI showed a degree of sensitivity in his dealings with the Jews within the Italian states. He compelled the Republic of Venice to release the Jewish prisoners taken by Francesco Morosini in 1685. He also discouraged compulsory baptisms, which accordingly became less frequent under his pontificate, but he could not abolish the old practice altogether.
More controversially, on 30 October 1682, he issued an edict by which all the money-lending activities carried out by the Roman Jews were to cease. Such a move would incidentally have financially benefited his own brothers, who played a dominant role in European money-lending. However, ultimately convinced that such a measure would cause much misery in destroying livelihoods, the enforcement of the edict was twice delayed.
Innocent XI was an enthusiastic initiator of the Holy League, which brought together the states of the Holy Roman Empire and King John III Sobieski of Poland-Lithuania who in 1683 hastened to the relief of the Battle of Vienna, which was being besieged by the Turks. After the siege was raised, Innocent XI again spared no efforts to induce the Christian princes to lend a helping hand for the expulsion of the Turks from Ottoman Hungary. He contributed millions of scudi to the Turkish war fund in Austria and Hungary and had the satisfaction of hearing of the capture of Belgrade on 6 September 1688.
During England's Exclusion Crisis (1679–1681), when Parliament sought to exclude the Catholic Duke of York from gaining the throne, the radical Protestants of London's Green Ribbon Club regularly held mass processions culminating with burning "The Pope" in effigy. Evidently, the organisers of these events were unaware that the actual Pope in Rome was involved in a deep conflict with the King of France and therefore was far from supporting the drive to get the Duke of York crowned, which would serve Louis XIV's political ambitions.