INNOCENT XII, Pope. - Antonio Pignatelli, b. 13 March 1615 near Spinazzola, of a princely Neapolitan family, d. in Rome on 27 Sept. 1700. He did his studies at the Roman College of the Jesuits. He entered the Roman prelature under Urban VIII and was vice-legate of Urbino. Innocent X appointed him inquisitor at Malta, where he remained from 1646 to 1649. He was then governor of Viterbo, and in 1652 he received the nunciature of Tuscany, which was followed in 1660 by that of Poland and in 1668 by that of Vienna. Having fallen into disfavor with Clement X, the latter removed him from Rome by giving him the bishopric of Lecce. Recalled to Rome in 1673, he was appointed secretary of the Congregation of Bishops and Regulars and then master of the Chamber. Innocent XI, who held him in great esteem, appointed him cardinal on 1 Sept. 1681, and bishop of Faenza and legate of Bologna. On the death of Card. Caracciolo he assigned him the archbishopric of Naples, where he distinguished himself by his very extensive beneficence. On 12 July 1691 he was elected pope.
A priest of most pure morals and inexhaustible charity, Innocent devoted every care to the moral and material improvement of his people: he gave great development to the Hospice of St. Michael at Ripa Grande, where poor youths were received and instructed, and assigned the Lateran Palace to those invalided from work. He reorganized the administration, putting a check on the abuse of the sale of offices, and offset the loss to the treasury by reducing court expenses. Through judicial reform he set out to secure for his subjects impartial and honest justice, and, to facilitate the functioning of the tribunals, he united them all in the Curia Innocenziana (Palazzo di Montecitorio). With the bull Romanum decet Pontificem of 22 June 1692 he forbade pontiffs to enrich their nephews and set a limit on the income of a relative of the pope who was appointed cardinal. He devoted assiduous care to the improvement of the clergy: in 1694 he founded the Congregation for the Discipline and Reform of Regulars; in 1695 he prohibited electoral capitulations for the assignment of bishoprics and monasteries (used especially in Germany). He promoted the development of Propaganda in America, Persia and China.
In relations with the Gallican Church, Innocent was able to reach an agreement with Louis XIV. The latter revoked the decree that imposed on bishops the obligation to teach the 4 articles, and the bishops sent letters of apology to the Pope. Although the retraction was only generic, Innocent had obtained a moral victory and avoided a schism. He also had to intervene in the Jansenist disputes of Belgium. By a brief of 1694 he forbade bishops to make any addition to the formulary of Alexander VII and to discuss further the 5 propositions. And since the Jansenists availed themselves of this to declare the book of Jansenius not subject to censure, Innocent confirmed the decisions of Alexander VII, ordering the bishops to proceed canonically against those who contravened by external acts, but forbidding any investigation of intentions. To Innocent's judgment was furthermore referred the question of French quietism, prompted by the mysticism of the widow Guyon (v.). Since Guyon had had the approval of Fénelon, there arose from this a long bitter conflict between the latter and Bossuet, which ended with the condemnation by the Pope of a good part of the propositions formulated by Fénelon (1699).
As regards the international relations of the Holy See, Leopold I, although the Pope had largely subsidized him in the Turkish war, proved suspicious and hostile, so that Innocent was driven to more cordial understandings with France. At his suggestion Louis XIV imposed in the Peace of Ryswick the clause that in all restored countries the Catholic religion must remain in the state in which it found itself at the moment of delivery. This clause brought scant advantages to Catholicism, because the king of France, in acceding to the Pope's desire, aimed above all at rekindling religious clashes in Germany, and skillfully exploited the persistent tension in relations between Rome and Vienna. The first testament of the king of Spain, Charles II, was approved by Innocent; but after the death of the archduke Joseph Ferdinand, the designated heir, Innocent acceded to the Spanish proposal to give the throne to Philip of Anjou, as the one he judged most consonant with the interests of the Church.
Bibliography
Roberto Palmarocchi