Pope Pius VII - Early Life

Early Life

Chiaramonti was born at Cesena, the son of Count Scipione Chiaramonti; his mother, Giovanna, was the daughter of the Marquess Ghini and was related to the Braschi family. He joined the Benedictine Order in 1756 at the Abbey of St Maria del Monte of Cesena, where he received the monastic name Gregory. He then became a teacher at Benedictine colleges in Parma and Rome. He was ordained to the priesthood on 21 September 1765.

His career became a series of promotions following the election of his relative, Giovanni Angelo Braschi, as Pope Pius VI (1775–99). In 1776 Pius VI appointed the 34-year-old Dom Gregory, who had been teaching at the Monastery of Sant'Anselmo in Rome, as honorary abbot in commendam of his monastery. Though this was an ancient practice, this drew complaints from the monks of the community, as monastic communities generally felt it was not in keeping with the Rule of St. Benedict. In December 1782 the pope appointed Dom Gregory as the Bishop of Tivoli, near Rome. Pius VI soon named him, in February 1785, simultaneously both as a Cardinal-Priest, with his titular church being the Basilica of St. Callistus, and as the Bishop of Imola, an office he held until 1816.

When the French Revolutionary Army invaded Italy in 1797, Cardinal Chiaramonti cautioned temperance and submission to the Cisalpine Republic they established. In his Christmas homily that year, he asserted that there was no opposition between a democratic form of government and being a good Catholic: "Christian virtue makes men good democrats.... Equality is not an idea of philosophers but of Christ...and do not believe that the Catholic religion is against democracy," said the bishop.