Pope Gregory XVI
Pope Gregory XVI (Latin: Gregorius XVI; 18 September 1765 – 1 June 1846), born Bartolomeo Alberto Cappellari EC, reigned as Pope from 2 February 1831 to his death in 1846. He had adopted the name Mauro upon entering the religious order of the Camaldolese.
Strongly conservative and traditionalist, he opposed democratic and modernising reforms in the Papal States and throughout Europe, seeing them as fronts for revolutionary leftism. Against these trends he sought to strengthen the religious and political authority of the papacy (see ultramontanism). He encouraged missionary activity abroad to increase the Church's international influence, but his harsh repression, financial extravagance and neglectfulness left him deeply unpopular domestically.
He remains the last pope to take the pontifical name "Gregory", and the last non-bishop to become pope.
Biography
Early life
Bartolomeo Alberto Cappellari was born at Belluno in the republic of Venice, on 18 September 1765, to an Italian lower noble family. His parents were from a small village named Pesariis, in Friuli. His father was a lawyer. At the age of eighteen Bartolomeo Cappellari joined the order of the Camaldolese (part of the Benedictine monastic family) and entered the Monastery of San Michele in Murano, near Venice. He was ordained priest in 1787. As a Camaldolese monk, Cappellari rapidly gained distinction for his theological and linguistic skills, was assigned to teach philosophy and theology at San. Michele.
