Pope Benedict XIII

Born Pietro Francesco Orsini in 1649, he became a Dominican friar and took the name Vincenzo Maria. He rose to head the Catholic Church on 29 May 1724, but governance held little interest for him — he wanted to tend souls, not administrations. That inattention proved costly: he leaned on his secretary, Cardinal Niccolò Coscia, whose financial corruption gutted the papal treasury and damaged the Church in Rome. Benedict XIII died in February 1730. His cause for canonization opened in 1755, closed shortly after, reopened in 1931, closed again in 1940, then opened a third time in 2004 — the forma…