Saint Pius V and the miracle of the Crucifix

On 1 May 1572, Pope Pius V died of natural causes in Rome, even though his enemies had tried to assassinate him a few years earlier. The inquisitor general for all Christendom, Michele Ghislieri's surprise election to the papacy in December 1565, instead of Cardinal Borromeo (the future Saint Charles deemed himself too young and redirected the college of cardinal to vote for Ghislieri), worried many people, both in Rome and abroad. Pius V's courageous rigour, when it came to imposing the urgent reforms decided by the Council of Trent on the Church, earned him the hatred of those in the clergy who profited from simony and nepotism. This hatred was reinforced by the judgements he handed down in the course of his inquisitorial duties, his fight against Protestantism, heresies and deviations from the Catholic faith, the enmity of Queen Elizabeth of England, the mistrust of the Ottoman Empire, which saw in him the ultimate obstacle to its expansionist dreams in Europe, and the discontent of the Roman people, who feared that this stern Dominican wanted to deprive them of their amusements. He had a number of enemies, some of whom - for it was a violent and unscrupulous period - had intentions to kill him. The Pope was aware of this but did not deviate from his course, relying on Heaven to protect him. He was right to do so, since Christ himself intervened to protect him from an attempted poisoning.

Unsplash, Laura Allen.

Les raisons d'y croire :

In the convent of Santa Sabina, on the Aventine, the general house of the Dominicans in Rome, in addition to the cell occupied by Brother Michele Ghislieri when he was a religious there, you can see a magnificent ivory crucifix that once belonged to him. The care taken to preserve this object since the death of Pius V and the guarantee given by Saint Pius X bear witness to the miracle that Pius V received, at some undetermined date, in the early days of his pontificate, in which this crucifix was involved.

No one is unaware of the extreme piety of this Supreme Pontiff who, despite his very heavy responsibilities, did not diminish his life of prayer and mortification. It is well known that Pius V praticed rigorous fasts and refused to drink more than was reasonable, which led to a serious kidney disease from which he later died. In these conditions, it was difficult for his enemies to use poison, the preferred Italian method of the time, to kill him. In the absence of a banquet where one could reach the pope's glass or plate, they had to resort to more complex methods.

The talent of the poisoners of the time is no legend. They were capable of impregnating gloves or a shirt with a venom that, on contact with the skin, spread through the body and killed the man, with no possible cure. An example is cited of a guest who, suspicious, would only touch food offered to him if his host shared it with him, and who died after eating half an apple cut in half in front of him, with only one side of the knife blade poisoned... The procedure chosen to kill the Pope was therefore not unthinkable at the time.

A few miracles were attributed to Pius V during his lifetime: one day, he offered the Polish ambassador a handkerchief containing some earth collected in St Peter's Square as martyrs' relics, and told him that it was soaked in the blood of the first Christians martyred in the Vatican circus. Dismayed, the diplomat unfolded the cloth and was surprised to find it stained with fresh blood... However, it is not this scene that is depicted every time artists wanted to evoke Pius V, but the "miracle of the crucifix" which he personally experienced and benefitted from - a sign that it was a well-known miracle.

In the papal flats, which were as bare as his former monastic cell, there was only one object that we know for certain he touched every day: a beautiful ivory crucifix, the only valuable object in his possession, before which he spent much time in prayer. Everyone in the Pope's entourage knew that at the end of his prayers, Pius V respectfully kissed the feet of the crucified Lord.

This is precisely what he was about to do, as usual, the morning of the miracle, but wasn't able to, because the moment his lips were about to touch the feet of the crucifix, the image came to life and Jesus withdrew from the kiss.

Pius V was very clear-sighted, with much distrust for alleged mystical phenomena, which, as a good inquisitor, he feared could be generated by the devil. A deeply humble man, he sincerely believed himself unworthy of the office he held and could not imagine deserving the slightest heavenly favour, so sinful did he consider himself to be.

In fact, his first reaction was that of anyone confronted with an unbelievable fact: he let out a shout that sent everyone running to him. This is not the reaction of a mythomaniac or a liar, psychological traits that are completely foreign to Pius V.

After composing himself, the Pope began to suspect divine intervention, but for this reason alone: to prevent the holy image from being used as an instrument of a sacrilegious crime. He concluded that the reason he had been unable to kiss Christ's feet as usual was that they were coated in poison.

He then asked that the crucifix be carefully wiped with breadcrumbs, which were then fed to a dog - the only counter-proof available at the time to detect the presence of poison. A few minutes after eating the bread, the animal died.

As only a household member with unrestricted access to the Pope's bedroom could have deposited the poison on the crucifix, it would have been normal to seek out the culprit, get him to confess and condemn him. But Pius V, even though he had his suspicions, refused to order an investigation and forgave the person who had tried to poison him.

As word of the miracle spread throughout Rome, along with the rumour of the Pope's magnanimity, no further attempt to kill him was made, and Pius V later died of an illness, which lends credence to the miracle.

In modern times, if there had been any doubt about the miracle, it would have been easy to let the object and its history sink into oblivion; this was absolutely not the case, which allows us to conclude that the event did occur.

Synthèse :

When he was born on 17 January 1504 in Bosco, near Mondovi in the diocese of Alessandria (Piedmont), Ghislieri was given the name of the saint of the day, Antonio, as was often the custom. When he joined the Dominicans in 1518, he took the religious name Fra Michele. A brilliant intellectual and theologian, he was ordained a priest in 1528 and later became prior of the convent of Alba. His mission was to stem the tide of Protestantism, which in the 1550s was spreading in the Como region, where the bishop was on the verge of abandoning the Catholic faith.

A true son of Saint Dominic, Fra Michele wanted to triumph over the heresy by preaching, the persuasiveness of his arguments and the help of the Virgin Mary. Reviving Marian devotion was often enough to bring people back to their ancestral faith. Fra Michele so excelled at this that when Cardinal Carafa, head of the Inquisition, became Pope Paul IV, he appointed Fra Michele to succeed him. He made him a bishop, then a cardinal, to the great displeasure of this humble monk who, even as pope, kept his white Dominican robe, the origin of the white vestment of the sovereign pontiffs.

It was Saint Charles Borromeo, nephew of Pius IV, who, in December 1565, on the point of being elected, judging himself too young for the papal tiara at the age of twenty-eight, diverted the votes to Ghislieri and had him elected.

This man, who was said never to have laughed or smiled, had the gift of tears and wept profusely for his sins and those of the Church.

Convinced that he was not up to the task, he entrusted himself to God, constantly setting an example of piety, devotion and penitence, walking the streets of Rome, rosary in hand, as a worthy Dominican, honouring recitation and firmly applying the decisions of the Council: obligation for bishops, on pain of imprisonment, to reside in their diocese; respect for the sanctity of churches, too often desecrated; introduction of the Forty Hours prayer in reparation for the excesses of Carnival (which he was powerless, on pain of popular revolt, to prohibit, just as he was powerless to prohibit prostitution in Rome); the end of nepotism, which made the leadership of the Church and its states the preserve of a few large families; and the obligation for Christian princes to receive and implement the conciliar directives, on pain of excommunication. While Pius V made mistakes in the political sphere, some of which, such as the ghettoisation of Rome's Jews, were harshly criticised, the same could not be said of his spiritual policies. In the six years of his pontificate, Pius V, although he did not see it through to the end, nevertheless managed to implement most of the Tridentine programme: reform of ecclesiastical morals, establishment of seminaries, which would finally train pious and educated priests, publication of the missal known as the "missal of Saint Pius V", the new breviary, the new catechism and the entire Summa Theologica by Saint Thomas Aquinas.

In 1570, as Ottoman pressure on the Mediterranean, the Adriatic and the Italian peninsula had become a worrying matter, Pius V succeeded in bringing together a coalition against the Turks that had previously been considered impossible, leading to the triumphant victory of Lepanto on 7 October 1571. Pius V attributed the credit to the admiral of the Holy League fleet, John of Austria, and above all to the Blessed Virgin, whom he had asked to pray for the Catholic success. The feast of Our Lady of the Rosary was established in gratitude for this miraculous success.

Pius V died on 1 May 1572, after weeks of agony, of an attack of nephritis.

Anne Bernet is a Church History specialist, postulator of a cause for beatification, and journalist for a number of Catholic media. She is the author of over forty books, most of them devoted to sanctity.

Aller plus loin :

Saint Pius V: The Legendary Pope Who Excommunicated Queen Elizabeth I, Standardized the Mass, and Defeated the Ottoman Empire by Professor Roberto De Mattei, Sophia Institute Press (May 25, 2021)

En savoir plus :

The Sword of Saint Michael: Pope Saint Pius V by Lillian Browne-Olf, Cluny (March 16, 2023)
Saint Pius V : pope of the holy rosary With a preface by the Very Rev. Monsignor Benson. With four illustrations by C. M. Antony, Generic (January 1, 2019)
The inspirational Life of Saint Pius V: Champion of the Faith and Reformer of the Church by Stone Dawn, Independently published (March 24, 2025)