Pope Pius VII

By Bob Lord and Penny Lord

As we research the lives of Saints and Other Powerful Men and Women in the Church, we sometimes wonder if they were ever given a job description of what was expected of them in their positions, and if they had been given the opportunity to say “Aye” or “Nay”. Did they, and do we really have a choice to say “Aye” or “Nay” to the Lord when He calls us into Ministry? Our daughter has an expression which pretty well answers the question. She says “You can go kicking and screaming in the night, but when the Lord wants you to do something, He will have His way.” One other observation we’d like to leave you with on this subject is a quote from Mother Angelica, foundress of EWTN Global Television Network. When we were writing her biography for our book, Saints and Other Powerful Women in the Church, we asked the question. “Mother, aren’t you ever frightened when you make these multi-million dollar purchases with only $200 in the bank?” She answered: “There’s only one thing I fear, and that is on Judgment day if the Lord should say to me, ‘Angelica, I gave you a job to do and you didn’t do it.’ I could not bear disappointing the Lord. That’s what I fear.”

• Language: English
• Publisher: Journeys of Faith
• Release date: Sep 28, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465922236

Bob Lord

Bob and Penny Lord renowned Catholic Authors and hosts on EWTN. They are best known for their media on Miracles of the Eucharist and Many Faces of Mary. They have been dubbed experts on the Catholic Saints. They produced over 200 television programs for EWTN global television network and wrote over 25 books and hundreds of ebooks.

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Pope Pius VII

Bob and Penny Lord

Published by Bob and Penny Lord at Smashwords

Copyright 2011 Bob and Penny Lord

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Pope Pius VII

He Came up against the Powers of Hell

As we research the lives of Saints and Other Powerful Men and Women in the Church, we sometimes wonder if they were ever given a job description of what was expected of them in their positions, and if they had been given the opportunity to say Aye or Nay. Did they, and do we really have a choice to say Aye or Nay to the Lord when He calls us into Ministry? Our daughter has an expression which pretty well answers the question. She says You can go kicking and screaming in the night, but when the Lord wants you to do something, He will have His way. One other observation we’d like to leave you with on this subject is a quote from Mother Angelica, foundress of EWTN Global Television Network. When we were writing her biography for our book, Saints and Other Powerful Women in the Church, we asked the question. Mother, aren’t you ever frightened when you make these multi-million dollar purchases with only $200 in the bank? She answered: There’s only one thing I fear, and that is on Judgment day if the Lord should say to me, ‘Angelica, I gave you a job to do and you didn’t do it.’ I could not bear disappointing the Lord. That’s what I fear.

We don’t believe that Count Barnaba Niccolo Maria Luigi Chiaramonti, later known as Pope Pius VII, ever had a clue, when he was ordained a priest, or then a Bishop, a Cardinal, and ultimately, Pope, that he would be doing battle against one of the most powerful men in the history of Europe, Napoleon Bonaparte, or that, he would be thrown in jail by him, or that eventually, he would outlast Napoleon and outlive him. We believe that, as in the case of Mother Angelica, the Lord asked Barnaba to do a thing, in this case, defend the Church against its greatest enemy of the time, and he just couldn’t disappoint the Lord.

We chose to write about Pope Pius VII because of the battle he fought on two fronts, the heresies and liberal agenda inside the Church, and the volatile world of rebellion, genocide, and wholesale attacks on the members of the Church from the secular world, in this instance, the French Revolution and subsequent rule of Napoleon Bonaparte. Our hero in this account had to fight the heresies of Jansenism from the time he was in the seminary, all through his priesthood as a professor, bishop and cardinal which infected the Church from the inside, and also the secular world in Italy prior to the atrocities of the French Revolution.

So before we begin our account on this most powerful man in the Church, we want to take a walk down memory lane to the battles which were waiting for him as priest and pope. We will examine the world and the Church prior to the papacy of Pius VII.

Jansenism

When we wrote about Jansenism in our book, Tragedy of the Reformation, we summarized what happened with the following:

"One man wrote a controversial paper;

Although it was condemned, a second man used it;

Not waiting upon the decision of the Church, a third man published what the second man had written;

Then a fourth man used what the third man had published;

And because of the pride of these men who put themselves above the wisdom of the Church, a splinter broke off the Cross of Salvation, dividing and killing, shattering Jesus’ Cross in many parts."

The net result was a heresy which shattered the Church and the state for over a hundred years.

Let us explain, again using our book, Tragedy of the Reformation.

One man, Michel de Bay (1513-1589) wrote a heretical paper on Original Sin, erroneously interpreting St. Augustine. It was condemned by Pope St. Pius V in 1567, and again by Pope Gregory XIII in 1579.

Although condemned, in 1627, the second man, Bishop Cornelius Jansen used this as reference for the book he was writing, Augustinus, allegedly based on St. Augustine’s teaching on Grace.

In 1640 a third man, Abbé St. Cyran, a follower and fervent believer in Bishop Jansen, published Augustinus in Paris. This was two