1641
Rene Descartes publishes Meditations of Philosophy.

The Holy Office condemned the Chief d’ oeuvre of Jansenius.

The Good Shepherd Sisters are founded in France.

Martyrdom of Blessed William Ward, a priest.

Martyrdom of Blessed Ambrose Edward Barlow, a Benedictine priest.

1642
Death of Cardinal Richelieu in France. Pope Urban VIII said: “If there be a God, that the Cardinal will have a lot to answer for; if not, he lived a successful life.”

Death of Galileo. His tomb is enshrined at a Catholic Church in Italy. Excommunicnats are denied a Church burial, once again, he was never excommunicated and Arcetri is near Florence.

Death of Marie De Medicis, former Queen Regent of France.

Pope Urban VIII confirmed the condemnation of Jansenius.

Martyrdom of Blessed Thomas Reynolds and Blessed Alban Roe. They were hung for their priesthood.

Martyrdom of Blessed Thomas Holland.

1642-1649
The Martyrs of North America. These Martyrs were killed by Indians.

1643
Death of King Louis XIII. Louis XIV, at the age of four, ascends to the French Throne. His mother, Queen Ann of Austria, reigns as Queen Regent.

1644
Innocent X becomes Pope. He was Cardinal Giambattista Pamfili.

Catholics and Protestants involved in the Thirty Years War sent representatives to a Peace conference. It took them four years to achieve their objective.

Martyrdom of Blessed John Duckett and Ralph Corby.

1645
Martyrdom of Blessed Henry Morse, priest.

Pope Innocent X approves the Decree of Propaganda, condemning the Chinese rituals in the Mission field.

Bishop Benedetto Odescalchi is elevated to the College of Cardinals. He is the future Pope Blessed Innocent XI.

1646
Father Issac Jogues, S.J., is killed at the hands of the Mohawk Indians.

Martyrdom of Blessed Philip Powell, a Benedictine priest.

1647
Birth of St. Margret Mary Alacoque. She was the daughter of Claude Alacoque and Philiberte Lamyn.

Naples revolts against Spain.

1647-1690
The life span of St. Margret Mary Alacoque. She received apparitions from Our Blessed Lord at the Visitation convent of Paray-le-Monial, France.

1648
The Thirty Years War comes to an end with the Peace of Westphalia. Protestantism was saved in Northern Europe, due largely to Cardinal Richelieu’s treason to the Church. Blessed Gregory Barbarigo was chosen by the officials of Venice to represent them in Muenster, Germany at the signing of the Treaty.

The Quakers are founded by George Fox.

Martyrdom of Blessed Francis Ferdinand De Capillas. He was the first of the Martyrs of China to be Beatified.

Spain refused to recognize John IV of Braganza as King of Portugal.

1649
King Charles I was executed and Oliver Cromwell became dictator of England. Oliver Cromwell, the nephew of Thomas Cromwell, crushed an Irish revolt against England and took many political rights away from Irish Catholics.

The Tolerarion Act is passed in Maryland. This act granted religious freedom to all Christians.

1649-1653
The Long Parliament Rules England.

1650
Pope Innocent X celebrastes the Holy Year Junbilee.

Death of Rene Descates.

The Sisters of St. Joseph were founded in France.

1651
Martyrdom of Blessed Pere Wright, a Jesuit priest.

Pope Innocent X appoints a special commission to examine five propositions extracted from Cornelius Jansen’s writings.

Bishop Fabio Chigi is made Secretary of State by Pope Innocent X.

1652
Bishop Fabio Chigi, was elevated to the College of Cardinals by Pope Innocent X. He is the future Pope Alexander VII.

1653
Oliver Cromwell becomes King of England.

1654
Pope Innocent X condemns Jansenism.

Martyrdom of Blessed John Southworth. He was one of the English Martyrs in Westminster.

The conversion of Queen Christina of Sweden. He was the daughter of Gustavus Adolphus. She abdicated her Throne to her cousin and moved to Rome.

Blaise Pascal becomes a Jansenist.

1655
St. Margaret Mary Alocoque, at the age of nine, receives her first Holy Communion. She practiced in secret. severe corporal mortifications until paralysis confined her to bed for four years. At the end of this period, she made a vow to the Blessed Virgin Mary to consecrate herself to the Religious life, she was instantly restored to health. After the death of her father, St. Margaret found her consolation in the Blessed Sacrament, and Christ made her sensible of His presence and protection. He usually appeared to her as the Crucified or Ecce Homo.

Alexander VII becomes Pope. He was Cardinal Fabio Chigi. He firmly refused to enter into discussions with heretics and objected to Treaties that were injurious to the Catholic Church.

1655-1665
The Venerable Sister Mary of Jesus of Agreda wrote her Mystical City of God. This four volume set:

1). The Conception
2). The Incarnation
3). The Transfixion
4). The Coronation

was made known to her by private revelation of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

1656
Pope Alexander VII persuaded the City of Venice to allow the return of the Jesuits. They had been expelled during the conflict with Pope Paul V.

1657
Death of the Venerable John J. Olier, Founder of the Sulpician Fathers.

Martyrdom of St. Andrew Bobola. He was a Polish Jesuit priest. He refused to renounce his Faith and was beaten and beheaded by the Cossacks near Janow, Poland. His mutilated body was cast on a dungheap.

1658
The Vatican received the Library of Urbino, founded by Duke Fererigo, for accession to the Vatican Library.

Death of Oliver Cromwell.

Richard Cromwell becomes King of England. He was the third son of Oliver Cromwell. His father trained him to be his successor.

1659
Pope Alexander VII relieved native Chinese Clergy of the duty of Reading the Holy Office in Latin.

1660
Death of St. Vincent De Paul, Apostle of Organized Charity in Parishes.

The English Parliament restores the Monarchy to England. Charles Stuart II becomes King of England. He was the eldest son of the executed, King Charles I.

1661
Venerable Francis De Sales is Beatified by Pope Alexander VII. The Pontiff, meditated daily on the writings of St. Francis De Sales.

1662
Death of Blaise Pascal.

1663
Death of St. Joseph of Copertino.

1664
Pope Alexander VII strongly decrees against the Jansenists.

1665
Venerable Sister Mary of Jesus of Agreda, after completing her documentation of the revelations given to her by the Blessed Virgin Mary, passed lovingly away.

1666
Sister Mary of Jesus of Agreda is Venerated as a Servant of God.

The Great Fire of London. King Charles II and his Brother, James II, Duke of York, worked physically with all their might during the Disaster.

Father Jacques Marquette landed in Quebec, in the New World.

St. Paul’s Cathedral suffers damage due to the Great Fire.

1667
English poet, John Milton publishes his epic, Paradise Lost.

Clement IX becomes Pope. He was Cardinal Giulio Rospigliosi. He studied liberal arts in Rome with the Jesuits and Theology and Law in Pisa. He was made a Cardinal by Pope Alexander VII in 1657. Much of Pope Clement IX’s reign was spent resolving already existing tensions.

1668
Pope Clement IX played a key role in the negotiations that ended the War of Revolution between Spain and France.

Father Jacques Marquette founds a Mission at Sault Sainte Marie, in what is now the State of Michigan.

1669
Death of Pope Clement IX, December 9.

Father Jacques Marquette begins serving at La Point, in what is now the State of Wisconsin. He spent two years there.

1670
Clement X becomes Pope. He was Cardinal Emilio Altieri. He was seventy-nine years old when he was elected. He Canonized numerous Saints.

The Treaty of Dover. This was a secret compact between Charles II of England and his cousin Louis XIV of France. The Treaty was signed on May 22.

Ann Hyde becomes a Catholic. She was the wife of James II, Duke of York. She had thought about and studied the Faith from 1667-1669.

1671
Death of Ann Hyde. Her husband, James II publicly announced his conversion to the Catholic Faith.

Father Jacques Marquette arrives in Michigan, carrying the Faith to the Indians.

1672
William of Orange invades the Netherlands. The Dutch chose him to be their Leader.

1673
St. Margaret Mary Alocoque receives the Twelve Promises from Our Lord.

French explorer Louis Jolliet invites Father Marquette to accompany his party on the exploration of the Mississippi River. The party of seven set sail in May.

1674
Whiggery is established in England.

Father Marquette spent the winter on the present site of Chicago, Illinois.

John III Sobieski becomes King of Poland.

1675
Pope Clement X celebrates the Holy Year Jubilee.

1676
Blessed Innocent XI becomes Pope. He was Cardinal Benedetto Odescalchi. He studied with the Jesuits in Comom. He entered Papal service under Pope Urban VIII. He was made a Cardinal by Pope Innocent the X in 1645.

Theodore III becomes Czar of Russia.

1677
On Ash Wednesday, Titus Oates, the Protestant minister who had been expelled from several colleges for scholastic reasons, was received into the Catholic Church. He admitted that he was a sham Catholic.

William of Orange marries his cousin, the Duke of York’s, James II’s, daughter Mary. This marriage destroyed the House of Stuart.

1678
The Popish Plot. The Catholics in England were put under pressure to conform to the Church of England. Titus Oates and Israel Tonge placed before Parliament the false charges that the Catholics were plotting to assassinate King Charles II, and bring about a Jesuit dominated Monarchy headed by James II, the Duke of York. Oates and Tonge took pleasure in their scheme padding it with forty-three trumped-up charges. Many Catholics were executed, including St. Oliver Plunkett, the Archbishop of Armagh. This plot was conceived by Oates and Tonge and formatted by the Whigs in the House of Commons. This plot was the deathblow to the Catholic Church in England.

1678-1680
The Martyrs of the Oates Plot. Blessed Edward Coleman was the first Martyr of the Oates Plot or Popish Plot. Many priests and Religious were beheaded as a direct result of this fraud.

1679
Martyrdom of Blessed John Kemble.

Martyrdom of Blessed John Wall, a Franciscan priest.

Martyrdom of Blessed David Lewis. He was a Protestant member of a Catholic recusant family. Blessed David converted to the Faith and became a Jesuit priest. His was a direct result of the Popish Plot.

Martyrdom of Blessed Charles Mahony, an Irish Franciscan.

Pope Blessed Innocent XI condemns Laxism. Laxism seems to quite common in our present day. It is a moral system whereby one seeks a right or at least an informed conscience, is permitted to follow opinion or evidence that favors or inclines toward liberty, that is to evade the acceptance of an obligation even though the opinion is open to doubt and question. Laxism leads to judging sinful practices as lawful.

1680
Death of the pious Mohawk Maiden, Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha.

1681
St. John Baptist De La Salle founds the Christian Brothers Order.

Martyrdom of St. Oliver Plunkett, Archbishop of Armagh. He was the first of the Irish Martyrs to be Beatified. He met his death as a direct result from the cruel and evil scheme authored by Oates and Tinge, the Popish Plot.

1682
Death of Alexis I, the Second Czar of Russia. He was succeeded by his two sons. Peter the Great and his half brother, Ivan V become co-Czars of Russia. Both of them were children. Their sister, Sophia, ruled as Regent of Russia.

1683
Poland, under John III Sobieski, defeated the Turks at the gates of Vienna.

1684
The Popish Plot is exposed as a fraud! This was a Whig production designed to deliver the crushing death blow to the Catholic Church in England. It literally uprooted the faith from the English soil. There has remained however; a large Catholic minority.Titus Oates was sent to prison.

1685
King Louis XIV of France revokes the Edict of Nantes.

The Holy Office of the Inquisition arrested the author of a Spiritual Guide, Miguel de Molinos; for heresy.

A Jesuit Catholic school is established in New York City.

Titus Oates was guilty of perjury in his involvement with the Popish Plot and was sent to prison for life.

James II a Catholic convert, due to his Catholic wife, Ann Hyde, becomes King of England following the death of his brother, King Charles II. King Charles II embraced the Catholic Faith on his death bed. James II was the Duke of York. New York City is named after him.

1686
Pope Blessed Innocent XI issues a Breve permitting the publication of the Venerable

Sister Mary of Jesus of Agreda’s Mystical City of God.

1687
Pope Blessed Innocent XI condemns Qietism. This was a heresy originating with the teaching of Miguel de Molinos. Its doctrine declared that man’s highest perfection consists in a sort of psychical self annihilation and a consequent absorption of the soul into the Divine Essence even during this present life. The condemnation came in the Papal Bull, Coelestis Pastor.

Pope Blessed Innocent XI, refused to receive the new French Ambassador.

1688
The Glorious Revolution in England. This ended the reign of James II. The King was exiled to France. His Protestant daughter, Mary, and her husband William III of Orange, Ruler of the Netherlands, becomes joint Rulers of England after the so-called glorious revolution; established the reign of William and Mary. The revolution completed the uprooting of Catholic Faith from England. After his usurpation of the Throne, King William III released Titus Oates from prison and granted him a large pension for the rest of his life. It was later reduced a bit.

1689
Parliament passed the English Bill of Rights.

Peter the Great’s followers in Russia forced Sophia to resign as Regent.

The Grand Alliance coalition was formed against King Louis XIV of France. This coalition aimed at enforcing the provisions of the Peace of Westphalia and the Peace of the Pyrenees. The members of the coalition were Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I, the Netherlands, England, Spain, Savoy, Sweden, and a number of German states.

Alexander VIII becomes Pope. He was Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni. He was a brilliant student at Padua. He graduate Doctor of Laws at the age of seventeen. He entered Curial Service at the age of twenty. He served as Governor in the Papal State from 1683-1641; and Judge of Rota from 1643-1652. He was famous for his judicial decisions. He was made a Cardinal in 1652, and served as Pope Blessed Innocent XI’s collaborator, who appointed him Grand Inquisitor of Rome.

Death of Christina, former Queen of Sweden and daughter of Gustavus Adolphus. At some time before her death, her Library, the Bibliotheca Alexabdria Collection,was added to the Vatican Library. The collection amounted to 2,291 manuscripts.

Bishop Fenelon tutors the King’s grandson, Louis duc de Bourgogne.

1690
Gallican liberties written. These false teachings were condemned by Pope Alexander VIII. The term Gallicanism, is used to designate a certain group of religious opinions for some time peculiar to theological schools of that country. These opinions, in opposition to the ideas which were called in France, Ultramontane, tended chiefly to a restraint of the Pope’s authority in the Church in favor of that of the Bishops and the temporal ruler. The warmest and most accredited partisans of Gallican ideas never contested the Pope’s Primacy in the Church, and never claimed for their ideas the force of articles of faith. They aimed only at making it clear that their was of regarding the authority of the Pope seemed to them more in conformity with Holy Scripture and tradition. At the same time, their theory did not, as they regarded it, transgress the limits of free opinions, which it is allowable for any theological school to choose for itself provided that the Catholic Symbol be duly noted.

William of Orange defeated James II and a French and Irish army at the Battle of Boyne in Ireland. The Protestants of Ulster, Ireland; backed William and they are still known today as the Orangmen.

Reverend Eusebius Kino, S.J., arrived in Arizona.

1691
Innocent XII becomes Pope. He was Cardinal Antonio Pignatelli. He was devout and charitable.

1692
Death of the Quietist heretic founder, Miguel de Molinos.

1693
Martyrdom of St. John De Britto, a Jesuit priest who was beheaded in India for not honoring the false Hindu gods.

King Louis XIV wrote to Pope Innocent XII letting the Pontiff know that the French government disavowed everything concerning Galicanism, in regards to Pontifical authority, that had been established with the decree of 1682.

1694
Pope Innocent XII founds the Congregation for the Discipline and Reform Regulars.

On June 1, the Holy Shroud was placed in the Turin Cathedral in a sumptuous Chapel designed by the Abbot, Guarino Guarini. This is where the Sacred Relic rests today, high above the Altar on the back was in a silver casket behind iron bars. It is from this day on that the Holy Shroud is now the Holy Shroud of Turin.

1695
Pope Innocent XII prohibited the practice, common in Germany, of electoral chapters nominating to Bishoprics and Monasteries.

1696
The establishment of a Feast honoring the Sacred Heart of Jesus was refused.

Death of Ivan V, co-Czar of Russia. Peter the Great came into full power.

1697
Peace of Ryswick. King Louis XIV restored part of the territory of which he had robbed the Holy Roman Empire.

Austria, by the brilliant victory of Zenta, drove the Ottoman Turks completely out of Hungary and Transylvania.

Death of Blessed Gregory Barbarigo.

1698
Bishop Michelangelo Dei Conti becomes Papal Nuncio of Portugal. He is the future Pope Innocent XIII.

Death of Lodowicke Muggleton. He was the co-founder of the Muggletonians, another heretical sect. He and his partner, John Reeve, obscure journeymen tailors, who claimed to have received the gift of prophesy, propagated their erroneous views in London about the year 1651, and launched this sect. These heretics denied the Holy Trinity; therefore they were not Christians, claimed the devil became incarnate with Eve, and humanized the Deity; (this is what the Mormons believe).

1699
Pietro Francesco Orsini renounced his inheritance and was professed in the Dominican Order. He is the future Pope Benedict XIII. He was related to Popes Celestine III and Nicholas III.

Bishop Fenelon is exiled to his Diocese by King Louis XIV for his Telemaque.

1700
Pope Innocent XII celebrates the Holy Year Jubilee.

Death of Pope Innocent XII, September 27.

Death of the last Spanish Haspburg, Bourbon King Philip IV of Anjou. He left no heir. As a result, Emperor Leopold I claimed some of his territories for Joseph I. This led to the Spanish Succession War that began the following year.

Clement XI becomes Pope on November 23. He was made a Cardinal in 1690, but was not ordained a priest until September of this year. The forty-six day conclave finally agreed upon a candidate with the Church’s interest at heart and a non-political Pope. His elevation was enthusiastically received even in the Protestant countries.