David Bentley Hart mentioned St. Celestine V in his comments on the disgusting garb favored by the neo-fascist-neo-integralists who have made bearing false witness against Pope Francis their purpose in life. Celestine is someone who, if the majority of Americans had ever heard of him, apparently, it's through that bearer of false witness, Dan Brown and his absurd bull shit that so many of our bearers of college credentials mistake as history.
In looking him up, I found out that today is the anniversary of his resignation, so I thought I'd go into him a bit. Just for fun.
I'd like it if more were known about Celestine who had long ago fascinated me, a hermetic monk who was, against his will, selected as Pope when the Cardinals who were making the next Pope deadlocked for two years - his big mistake was sending them a letter saying if they didn't choose a new Pope, God would smite them - whereupon the oldest of the Cardinals proclaimed him Pope. Unfortunately, a lot of what he did as Pope has been lost as his successor immediately suppressed much of it.
The poor guy, on hearing he was fingered, tried to go doggo, but he was forced to be Pope whereupon the princes of the church found he, as St. Francis would, took the Gospel, the Epistles and the Prophets more seriously than suited their worldly lifestyle. The unhappy Pope's every word was ignored and, after his resignation about five months later - the last papal resignation before Benedict XVI's - so he could go back to his hermetic life of prayer and penitence, was again hunted down by his successor and imprisoned to prevent him being set up as an anti-Pope in opposition to him. It's a gripping tale:
When the report spread that Celestine contemplated resigning, the excitement in Naples was intense. King Charles, whose arbitrary course had brought things to this crisis, organized a determined opposition. A huge procession of the clergy and monks surrounded the castle, and with tears and prayers implored the pope to continue his rule. Celestine, whose mind was not yet clear on the subject, returned an evasive answer, whereupon the multitude chanted the Te Deum and withdrew. A week later (13 December) Celestine's resolution was irrevocably fixed; summoning the cardinals on that day, he read the constitution mentioned by Boniface in the "Liber Sextus", announced his resignation, and proclaimed the cardinals free to proceed to a new election. After the lapse of the nine days enjoined by the legislation of Gregory X, the cardinals entered the conclave, and the next day Benedetto Gaetani was proclaimed Pope as Boniface VIII. After revoking many of the provisions made by Celestine, Boniface brought his predecessor, now in the dress of a humble hermit, with him on the road to Rome. He was forced to retain him in custody, lest an inimical use should be made of the simple old man. Celestine yearned for his cell in the Abruzzi, managed to effect his escape at San Germano, and to the great joy of his monks reappeared among them at Majella. Boniface ordered his arrest; but Celestine evaded his pursuers for several months by wandering through the woods and mountains. Finally, he attempted to cross the Adriatic to Greece; but, driven back by a tempest, and captured at the foot of Mt. Gargano, he was delivered into the hands of Boniface, who confined him closely in a narrow room in the tower of the castle of Fumone near Anagni (Analecta Bollandiana, 1897, XVI, 429-30). Here, after nine months passed in fasting and prayer, closely watched but attended by two of his own religious, though rudely treated by the guards, he ended his extraordinary career in his eighty-first year. That Boniface treated him harshly, and finally cruelly murdered him, is a calumny. Some years after his canonization by Clement V in 1313, his remains were transferred from Ferentino to the church of his order at Aquila, where they are still the object of great veneration. His feast is celebrated on 19 May.
I remember reading the account in the popular anti-Catholic classic, The Bad Popes about his imprisonment, which, as I recall many decades after having read it, he, a live long self-denying hermit, fared better than his fellow prisoners. His successor, Boniface VIII, who had played such a decisive role, AS A CANNON LAWYER, in confirming Celestine's abdication, was as corruptly worldly a Pope as any in the roll of bad Popes. His bio is interesting because it's similar to the kind of neo-barque degeneracy that the fan-boys of the cross-dressing Burke and its like would like the papacy to return to, the Pope being a tool of billionaire oligarchy.
It is mentioned elsewhere that when Pope Paul VI visited Celestine's tomb in 1966, it was rumored that he was considering resignation from the Papacy. I'm not sure it would have been a good thing, though it might have avoided some problems if someone more resolute in pushing through the reforms of Vatican II had become Pope, as it was his successor, the saintly (and I wouldn't be surprised, martyr?) St. John Paul I had an even shorter papacy before the awful, as seen in the awful Anthony Quinn movie, John Paul II usurped his name and tried to put a stop to as much of the reform as he could, to be followed by his major henchman as Benedict XVI, who also made a visit to Celestine's tomb before he faced the fact that he just wasn't Pope material. So maybe the Saint pulled off that miracle, too. I wish Burke would visit it.
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