La Bataille d’ Austerlitz 1805© Marshal Enterprises

France’s great painter, Jacques-Louis David, great work in 1805 was his rendering of Pope Pius VII as a thank you for the Pope’s participation in the Coronation of Napoleon in the previous year. The painting currently is on display at the Louvre.

Pope Pius VII by Jacques-Louis David The man who would be Pius VII was born Barnaba Niccolo Maria Luigi Chiaramonti on August 14, 1742 in Cesena. In 1756 he joined the Benedictine Order and took the name Gregory, eventually becoming a teacher in Parma and later in Rome. Throughout his pontificate, Pius VII canonized a total of five saints. On 24 May 1807, Pius VII canonized Angela Merici, Benedict the Moor, Colette Boylet, Francis Caracciolo and Hyacintha Mariscotti. He beatified a total of 27 individuals including Joseph Oriol, Berardo dei Marsi, Giuseppe Maria Tomasi and Crispin of Viterbo. On the United States' undertaking of the First Barbary War to suppress the Muslim Barbary pirates along the southern Mediterranean coast, ending their kidnapping of Europeans for ransom and slavery, Pius VII declared that the United States "had done more for the cause of Christianity than the most powerful nations of Christendom have done for ages." [14] For the United States, he established several new dioceses in 1808 for Boston, New York City, Philadelphia and Bardstown. In 1821, he also established the dioceses of Charleston, Richmond and Cincinnati.

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