Innocent V Blessed

▪ pope

original name  Pierre De Tarentaise  

born c. 1224, Tarentaise, Savoy (France)

died June 22, 1276, Rome; beatified March 13, 1898; feast day June 22

      pope during 1276, the first Dominican pontiff. He collaborated with SS. Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas in drafting a rule of studies for the Dominican order.

      Innocent V became a Dominican (c. 1240) and studied at the University of Paris (1255–59), where he taught from 1259 to 1264 and from 1267 to 1269. After administering the French province of the Dominicans (c. 1264–67 and 1269–72), he was appointed archbishop of Lyon in 1272 by Pope Gregory X, who made him cardinal bishop of Ostia Antica, Papal States (c. 1273), and whom he succeeded as pope on Jan. 21, 1276.

      During his short pontificate, Innocent V continued Gregory's efforts to initiate a crusade, reunite the Greek and Roman churches, and pacify Italy's warring states. Among his most important writings is his commentary on the Sentences by the 12th-century theologian Peter Lombard. He established the papal custom of wearing a white cassock, the habit of the Dominicans.

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