PEOPLE KNOWN FOR: Roman Catholicism
Holy Roman emperor [747?–814]
Charlemagne was the king of the Franks (768–814), king of the Lombards (774–814), and first emperor (800–814) of the Romans and of what was later called the Holy Roman Empire. Around the time of the birth...
pope
St. Gregory the Great ; Western feast day, September 3 [formerly March 12, still observed in the East]) was the pope from 590 to 604, a reformer and excellent administrator, “founder” of the medieval papacy,...
pope
St. John XXIII ; beatified September 3, 2000; canonized April 27, 2014; feast day October 11) was the pope, the leader of the Roman Catholic Church, from 1958 to 1963. He was one of the most popular popes...
king of France
Henry IV was the king of Navarre (as Henry III, 1572–89) and the first Bourbon king of France (1589–1610), who, at the end of the Wars of Religion, abjured Protestantism and converted to Roman Catholicism...
Italian saint
St. Francis of Assisi ; canonized July 16, 1228; feast day October 4) was the founder of the Franciscan orders of the Friars Minor (Ordo Fratrum Minorum), the women’s Order of St. Clare (the Poor Clares;...
Italian preacher
Girolamo Savonarola was an Italian Christian preacher, reformer, and martyr, renowned for his clash with tyrannical rulers and corrupt clergy. After the overthrow of the Medici in 1494, Savonarola was...
Bohemian religious leader
Jan Hus was the most important 15th-century Czech religious reformer, whose work was transitional between the medieval and the Reformation periods and anticipated the Lutheran Reformation by a full century....
British theologian
St. John Henry Newman ; canonized October 13, 2019; feast day October 9) was an influential churchman and man of letters of the 19th century, who led the Oxford movement in the Church of England and later...
king of England, Scotland, and Ireland
James II was the king of England, Scotland, and Ireland from 1685 to 1688, and the last Stuart monarch in the direct male line. He was deposed in the Glorious Revolution (1688–89) and replaced by William...
queen of Scotland
Mary was the queen of Scotland (1542–67) and queen consort of France (1559–60). Her unwise marital and political actions provoked rebellion among the Scottish nobles, forcing her to flee to England, where...
English theologian
John Wycliffe was an English theologian, philosopher, church reformer, and promoter of the first complete translation of the Bible into English. He was one of the forerunners of the Protestant Reformation....
Merovingian king
Clovis I was the king of the Franks and ruler of much of Gaul from 481 to 511, a key period during the transformation of the Roman Empire into Europe. His dynasty, the Merovingians, survived more than...
regent of The Netherlands
Alessandro Farnese was the duke of Parma and Piacenza and the regent of the Netherlands (1578–92) for Philip II, the Habsburg king of Spain. He was primarily responsible for maintaining Spanish control...
pope
Innocent IV was one of the great pontiffs of the Middle Ages (reigned 1243–54), whose clash with Holy Roman emperor Frederick II formed an important chapter in the conflict between papacy and empire. His...
Flemish theologian
Cornelius Otto Jansen was a Flemish leader of the Roman Catholic reform movement known as Jansenism. He wrote biblical commentaries and pamphlets against the Protestants. His major work was Augustinus,...
pope
St. Leo IX ; feast day April 19) was the head of the medieval Latin church (1049–54), during whose reign the papacy became the focal point of western Europe and the great East-West Schism of 1054 became...
pope
Leo XIV is the pope, the leader of the Roman Catholic Church. He was elected to the papacy on May 8, 2025, succeeding Pope Francis and becoming the first American pope in history. An Augustinian priest...
Byzantine emperor
Michael VIII Palaeologus was the Nicaean emperor (1259–61) and then Byzantine emperor (1261–82), who in 1261 restored the Byzantine Empire to the Greeks after 57 years of Latin occupation and who founded...
Italian cardinal
St. Peter Damian ; feast day February 21) was a cardinal and doctor of the church, an original leader, and a forceful figure in the Gregorian Reform movement, whose personal example and many writings exercised...
pope
Saint Pius V ; canonized May 22, 1712; feast day April 30) was an Italian ascetic, reformer, and relentless persecutor of heretics, whose papacy (1566–72) marked one of the most austere periods in Roman...
queen of England
Mary I was the first queen to rule England (1553–58) in her own right. She was known as Bloody Mary for her persecution of Protestants in a vain attempt to restore Roman Catholicism in England. The daughter...
pope
Urban II was the head of the Roman Catholic Church (1088–99) who developed ecclesiastical reforms begun by Pope Gregory VII, launched the Crusade movement, and strengthened the papacy as a political entity....
king of Poland and grand duke of Lithuania
Władysław II Jagiełło was the grand duke of Lithuania (as Jogaila, 1377–1401) and king of Poland (1386–1434), who joined two states that became the leading power of eastern Europe. He was the founder of...
French mystic
Jeanne-Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon was a French Roman Catholic mystic and writer, a central figure in the theological debates of 17th-century France through her advocacy of Quietism, an extreme passivity...
French archbishop
Marcel Lefebvre was a Roman Catholic archbishop who opposed the liberalizing changes begun by the Second Vatican Council (1962–65; also called Vatican II). He was excommunicated in 1988 for consecrating...
Roman Catholic nun
Mother Teresa ; canonized September 4, 2016; feast day September 5) was the founder of the Order of the Missionaries of Charity, a Roman Catholic congregation of women dedicated to the poor, particularly...
Spanish theologian
Michael Servetus was a Spanish physician and theologian whose unorthodox teachings led to his condemnation as a heretic by both Protestants and Roman Catholics and to his execution by Calvinists from Geneva....
French noble
Henri I de Lorraine, 3e duc de Guise was a popular duke of Guise, the acknowledged chief of the Catholic party and the Holy League during the French Wars of Religion. Henri de Lorraine was 13 years old...
English saint
Saint Wilfrid ; feast day October 12) was one of the greatest English saints, a monk and bishop who was outstanding in bringing about close relations between the Anglo-Saxon Church and the papacy. He devoted...
French cardinal
Humbert of Silva Candida was a cardinal, papal legate, and theologian whose ideas advanced the 11th-century ecclesiastical reform of Popes Leo IX and Gregory VII. His doctrinal intransigence, however,...
archbishop of Canterbury
Reginald Pole was an English prelate who broke with King Henry VIII over Henry’s antipapal policies and later became a cardinal and a powerful figure in the government of the Roman Catholic queen Mary...
English bishop and statesman
Stephen Gardiner was an English bishop and statesman, a leading exponent of conservatism in the first generation of the English Reformation. Although he supported the antipapal policies of King Henry VIII...
French priest
Félicité Lamennais was a French priest and philosophical and political writer who attempted to combine political liberalism with Roman Catholicism after the French Revolution. A brilliant writer, he was...
American priest and poet
Daniel Berrigan was an American writer, Roman Catholic priest, and antiwar activist whose poems and essays reflect his deep commitment to social, political, and economic change in American society. Berrigan,...
German nun
Edith Stein ; canonized October 11, 1998; feast day August 9) was a Roman Catholic convert from Judaism, Carmelite nun, philosopher, and spiritual writer who was executed by the Nazis because of her Jewish...
French theologian
Berengar Of Tours was a theologian principally remembered for his leadership of the losing side in the crucial eucharistic controversy of the 11th century. Having studied under the celebrated Fulbert at...
Czech philosopher
Jerome of Prague was a Czech philosopher and theologian whose advocacy of sweeping religious reform in the Western church made him one of the first Reformation leaders in central Europe. A student at the...
Irish archbishop
St. Malachy ; canonized 1190; feast day November 3) was a celebrated archbishop and papal legate who became a dominant figure of church reform in 12th-century Ireland. A fraudulent prophecy concerning...
French politician and historian
Charlest, count de Montalember was an orator, politician, and historian who was a leader in the struggle against absolutism in church and state in France during the 19th century. Born in London during...
American prelate
Bernard Cardinal Law was an American prelate who was head (1984–2002) of the Roman Catholic archdiocese of Boston before he resigned in disgrace after it was revealed that he had protected sexually abusive...
pope
Honorius I was a pope from 625 to 638 whose posthumous condemnation as a heretic subsequently caused extensive controversy on the question of papal infallibility. Nothing is known of his life before he...
English priest
Saint John Fisher ; canonized May 19, 1935; feast day July 9) was an English humanist, martyr, and prelate, who, devoted to the pope and to the Roman Catholic church, resisted King Henry VIII of England...
French theologian
Alfred Firmin Loisy was a French biblical scholar, linguist, and philosopher of religion, generally credited as the founder of Modernism, a movement within the Roman Catholic Church aimed at revising its...
Bohemian theologian
John Milíč was a theologian, orator, and reformer, considered to be the founder of the national Bohemian religious reform movement. Milíč was educated at Prague and ordained about 1350, entering the imperial...
Italian religious reformer
Arnold of Brescia, was a radical religious reformer noted for his outspoken criticism of clerical wealth and corruption and for his strenuous opposition to the temporal power of the popes. He was prior...
Scottish conspirator
George Gordon, 1st marquess and 6th earl of Huntly was a Scottish Roman Catholic conspirator who provoked personal wars in 16th-century Scotland but was saved by his friendship with James VI (James I of...
British architect and author
A.W.N. Pugin was an English architect, designer, author, theorist, and leading figure in the English Roman Catholic and Gothic revivals. Pugin was the son of the architect Augustus Charles Pugin, who gave...
French theologian
Nicholas Of Clémanges was a theologian, humanist, and educator who denounced the corruption of institutional Christianity, advocated general ecclesiastical reform, and attempted to mediate the Western...
French bishop
François de Montmorency Laval was the first Roman Catholic bishop in Canada, who laid the foundations of church organization in France’s North American possessions. Born into one of the greatest families...
Greek Orthodox patriarch
Isidore Of Kiev was a Greek Orthodox patriarch of Russia, Roman cardinal, Humanist, and theologian who strove for reunion of Greek and Latin Christendom but was forced into exile because of concerted opposition,...
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