Pope Pius VII

Barnaba Chiaramonti was a Benedictine monk and theologian who rose to bishop, then cardinal, before his election as pope in 1800 after Pius VI died in French captivity. He tried diplomacy first: the Concordat of 1801 restored Catholic rights in France, and in 1804 he attended Napoleon's coronation in Paris. But in 1809 Napoleon invaded the Papal States, and Pius answered with excommunication. He was arrested, hauled to France, and held prisoner until 1814. When the empire collapsed he walked back into Italy to crowds that called him a defender of the faith. He spent his last years building the Church in America, establishing new dioceses across a young republic, and died in 1823 at eighty-one. Benedict XVI opened his cause for sainthood nearly two centuries later.