Pope Bl. Gregory X

When Pope Clement IV died in November 1268, the cardinals meeting at Viterbo split into a French camp and an Italian camp, and neither could reach the two-thirds majority needed to elect a pope. The see stayed empty for almost three years. In 1270 the town's leaders shut the cardinals inside the bishop's palace and later cut their food. In the end six cardinals were delegated to choose, and on September 1, 1271 they picked Teobaldo Visconti of Piacenza. He was archdeacon of Liège, not a cardinal and not even a priest, and he was on pilgrimage in Acre in the Holy Land at the time.

He came home, took the name Gregory X, was ordained a priest in Rome in March 1272 and then consecrated pope. He worked for peace between Christian rulers and between the warring Guelph and Ghibelline factions in Italy. He also worked to reform the lives of clergy and laity, to heal the split with the Greek Church and to help the Holy Land. He called the Second Council of Lyon, which opened on May 7, 1274. There the Byzantine emperor's envoys accepted union with Rome, though the union, made for political reasons, did not last. On his way back he died at Arezzo on January 10, 1276. Because of his virtues he was honoured as a saint in Rome, Arezzo, Piacenza and Lausanne.

The Church formally confirmed the long-standing local veneration of Pope Gregory X in 1713.

Beatification allows public veneration, usually in a particular region or religious family. Canonization extends it to the whole Church.