Saint Pius V: The Legendary Pope Who Excommunicated Queen Elizabeth I, Standardized the Mass, and Defeated the Ottoman Empire

Few Catholic writers have been as prolific as University of Rome Professor Roberto de Mattei. Over decades he has produced a wealth of incisive analyses about the Catholic world’s collapse and charted an authoritative path back to health and sanity.

He has now written an exceedingly compelling and powerful biography of Pope Pius V, widely recognized as one of the boldest and most courageous popes of the past millennium, who decisively defeated the Ottoman Turks at the Battle of Lepanto and fought head-on the Protestant Reformation, which had assailed the Church.

The life of every Christian is a battle, and St. Pius V offers us a luminous example of leadership in a time of trial. In these pages, you’ll learn:

• How the “Revolution of Luther” was met with a papal shrug ― that is, until Pius V became pope
• The inside story of how Pope Pius V led the Counter-Reformation on multiple fronts
• How the devastating Sack of Rome in 1527 forever changed the Holy See and had deadly consequences for clergy and religious alike
• Why St. Pius V’s no-compromise approach toward both the Renaissance and Humanist corruption preserved the Church to this day
• The behind-the-scenes story of the Council of Trent ― the most dramatic conclave in the history of the Church
• The role inquisitions played in the time of Pope Pius V and what they enabled him to accomplish
• How St. Pius V dealt with stray bishops and how his rebukes and mandates led to meaningful reform of both their lives and the Church
• How St. Pius V dealt with rebellious Catholics in France and England and what led to the excommunication of Queen Elizabeth

You’ll also learn of Pope Pius V’s remarkable spiritual life and regimen, his foresight and prudence in dealing with the iconoclastic fury of the Huguenots in France, and the way he handled the trials of excommunicated heretics and reformed the rotting religious orders of his day.

Professor de Mattei makes clear that Pope Pius V was so effective and so holy that no pontificate can be judged accurately without measuring it against his. In page after fascinating page, he shows contemporary Catholics what it means to be “a great pope” or “a saintly bishop.” Here, at last, is the complete life and times of one of the Church’s greatest prelates by one of her finest historians.

Roberto de Mattei is a Catholic historian who has taught in several Italian universities. Between 2003 and 2011, he served as vice president of the National Research Council, the highest Italian scientific institution. He is president of the Lepanto Foundation and is the editor of the magazine Radici Cristiane and the news agency Corrispondenza Romana. He is the author of thirty-five books, including The Second Vatican Council: An Unwritten Story (2011), translated into eight languages, and Love for the Papacy & Filial Resistance to the Pope in the History of the Church (2019). He has received many awards, including membership in the Order of St. Gregory the Great from the Holy See for his service to the Roman Catholic Church. He is married with five children.