Lucrative economic transactions were established with clients in the major Italian and European cities, such as Nuremberg, Milan, Kraków, and Rome.

He closed all of the theaters in Rome (considered to be centers of vice and immorality) and famously brought a temporary halt to the flourishing traditions of Roman opera.

After the siege was raised, Innocent XI again spared no efforts to induce the Christian princes to lend a helping hand for the expulsion of the Turks from Ottoman Hungary.

[10] During England's Exclusion Crisis (1679–1681), when Parliament sought to exclude the Catholic Duke of York from gaining the throne, the radical Protestants of London's Green Ribbon Club regularly held mass processions culminating with burning "The Pope" in effigy.

Evidently, the organizers of these events were unaware that the actual Pope in Rome was involved in a deep conflict with the King of France – and therefore, far from supporting the drive to get the Duke of York crowned, which served Louis XIV's political ambitions.

The pontificate of Innocent XI was marked by the struggle between the absolutism and hegemonic intentions of Louis XIV, and the primacy of the Catholic Church.

As early as 1673, Louis had by his own power extended the right of the régale over the provinces of Languedoc, Guyenne, Provence, and Dauphiné, where it had previously not been exercised.

Innocent XI irritated the King still more that same year by abolishing the much abused right of asylum, by which foreign ambassadors in Rome had been able to harbor in embassies any criminal wanted by the papal court of justice.

Innocent XI treated him as excommunicated and on 24 December 1687 placed under interdict the Church of St. Louis at Rome where Lavardin attended services.

[10] In January 1688, Innocent XI received the diplomatic mission which had been dispatched to France and the Holy See by Narai, the King of Siam, under Guy Tachard and Ok-khun Chamnan in order to establish relations.

The two candidates for the see were Cardinal Wilhelm Egon von Fürstenberg, then Bishop of Strasbourg, and Joseph Clemens, a brother of Max Emanuel, Elector of Bavaria.

The former was a willing tool in the hands of Louis XIV and his appointment as Archbishop and Prince-elector of Cologne would have implied French preponderance in north-western Germany.

The subsequent fall of James II in England destroyed French preponderance in Europe and soon after Innocent XI's death the struggle between Louis XIV and the papacy was settled in favour of the Church.

He also repeatedly expressed his displeasure at the support which James II gave to the autocratic King Louis XIV in his measures against the Church.

Innocent XI issued the papal bull Sanctissimus Dominus in 1679 to condemn 65 propositions that favored a liberal approach to doctrine which included two that related to abortion.

He also condemned proposition 35, which stated: "It seems probable that the fetus (as long as it is in the uterus) lacks a rational soul and begins first to have one when it is born; and consequently it must be said that no abortion is a homicide.

[4] On 4 March 1679, he condemned the proposition that "the precept of keeping Holy Days is not obligatory under pain of mortal sin, aside from scandal, if contempt is absent".

[15] Innocent XI was hostile towards the book Varia Opuscula Theologica (Various Theological Brochures) that the Spanish Jesuit Francisco Suárez published.

[17] Innocent XI died on 12 August 1689 at 22:00 (Rome time) Following his death, he was buried in St Peter's Basilica beneath his funeral monument near the Clementine Chapel, which his nephew, Prince Livio Odescalchi, commissioned.

[18][19] The monument, which was designed and sculpted by Pierre-Étienne Monnot, features the pope seated upon the throne above a sarcophagus with a base-relief showing the liberation of Vienna from the Turks by John III Sobieski, flanked by two allegorical figures representing Faith and Fortitude.

In the 20th century, it was reintroduced; his writings were approved by theologians on 24 March 1945,[23] and Pope Pius XII proclaimed him venerable on 15 November 1955 and blessed on 7 October 1956.

[24] Following his beatification, his sarcophagus was placed under the Altar of St. Sebastian in the basilica's Chapel of St. Sebastian, where it remained until 8 April 2011 when it was moved to make way for the remains of Pope John Paul II to be relocated to the basilica from the grotto beneath St. Peter's in honor of his beatification and in order to make his resting place more accessible to the public.

[25] Innocent's body was transferred to the basilica's Altar of Transfiguration, which is located near the Clementine Chapel and the entombed remains of Pope Gregory the Great (590–604).

Popular revelations made in the novel Imprimatur damaged Innocent XI's reputation and thus the planned canonisation of Benedetto Odescalchi was suspended indefinitely.