Blessed Pope Urban V was a dynamic and charismatic leader of the Church during the tumultuous fourteenth century. He was the sixth of the seven legitimate popes who were based in Avignon rather than in Rome.

Pope Urban was born as Guillaume de Grimoard in 1310, in a southern province of France—Languedoc—to a noble family.

In 1327, when he was only seventeen, Guillaume entered the Benedictines at their small priory of Chirac, which was a daughter community of the well-established and highly revered Abbey of St. Victor near Marseille, where he later became abbot.

Guillaume was monumentally well-educated and received degrees from universities in Montpellier and Toulouse. He was a renowned canon law expert and taught at Montpelier, the University of Paris, and the university at Avignon.

In 1352, Pope Clement VI asked for Abbot Guillaume’s assistance in managing the many conflicts in Italy that were plaguing the papacy. Guillaume later transferred this expertise in managing conflict into his work as Papal Nuncio to Italy.

Guillaume was still stationed in Italy as Papal Nuncio when Clement’s successor, Pope Innocent VI, died in September of 1362. Guillaume and twenty other cardinals flocked to Avignon to participate in the conclave. Guillaume, however, arrived at the conclave late, delayed in the journey from Italy to Avignon.

In the meantime, while he was still on the way, the conclave had decided that Abbot Cardinal Guillaume would be the best choice for successor.

Guillaume, elected pope before he even arrived at the conclave, was informed of the decision upon his arrival. He humbly accepted the position and took the name Urban V, citing the saintliness of his predecessors who had taken that name.

As pope, Urban V continued to adhere to his Benedictine lifestyle and lived a simple life of stability and poverty. Urban V sponsored the renewal of Monte Cassino, the storied Benedictine Abbey in southern Italy.

He also contributed a great deal to education. He gave papal consent in 1364 to the university in Kraków that Polish King Casimir III the Great founded, which is commonly known as Jagiellonian University. One of Jagiellonian University’s many renowned students was the future Pope John Paul II, Karol Wojtyła.

Urged by many public and holy figures to return to Rome, Urban V arrived at the Eternal City in October of 1367, the first Bishop of Rome in sixty years to set foot in his own diocese.

His reign in Rome was short-lived. The French Cardinals begged him to return to France, and in September 1370, Urban V returned to Avignon. In December of 1370, Urban V died at the home of his brother, Cardinal Angelic de Grimoard, surrounded by those he loved.

Pope Gregory XI, his successor, opened the cause for his beatification. An antipope, Clement VII, halted the process, and the divisions in the Church, which had caused so much unrest in Urban V’s lifetime continued to disrupt his story after his death. Urban V was finally beatified on March 10, 1870, by Pope Pius IX. He is a patron of the Benedictines and a patron saint of missionaries and educators.

Blessed Pope Urban V, who sailed the Barque of Peter through stormy seas and turbulent times—pray for us!