On 29 August 1294, Pietro da Morrone was crowned as Pope Celestine V. Pietro had been living an austere life as a hermit and had written a letter to the cardinals warning them that a great tragedy would befall them if they did not quickly elect a successor to Nicholas IV. So, when the cardinals received Pietro’s letter, they immediately chose him. It was a responsibility he did not want and indeed tried to flee the cardinals who had elected him but was eventually persuaded to accept his election.

Celestine was deeply sympathetic to the Franciscan friars who wished to live a more strict poverty and defended the right of the Pope to abdicate the papacy. Celestine was also the first pope to offer the opportunity to receive a plenary indulgence without visiting the holy land.

Celestine V would only serve as pope for five months and eight days before resigning due to “the desire for humility, for a purer life, for a stainless conscience, the deficiencies of his own physical strength, his ignorance, the perverseness of the people, his longing for the tranquility of his former life”. Some suspected that his resignation was encouraged by his successor as pope – Boniface VIII. Boniface VIII, fearing that Celestine might seek to return to the papacy would have Celestine imprisoned for ten months before Celestine died. Some historians suspect that Boniface may have had Celestine murdered. Philip IV persuaded Pope Clement V to canonize Celestine in 1313 in order to cause shame to the memory of Boniface VIII.

Celestine’s importance for today is primarily centered on his decision to abdicate the papacy. On 28 April 2009, Pope Benedict XVI left the pallium he wore at his papal inauguration as a gift to the church where Celestine is buried. He would proclaim the Celestine year which would last from 28 August 2009 to 29 August 2010 in honor of the 800th birthday of the saint.

More on St. Celestine and Benedict XVI’s visit to his relics.

On 26 August 1978, Patriarch Albino Luciani of Venice was elected to the papacy after four ballots. He will take the name of Pope John Paul I in honor of his two predecessors – John XXIII and Paul VI.

Luciani was chosen as a compromise candidate and when he was asked whether he would accept the papacy, he is said to have responded, “May God forgive you for what you have done”, before accepting his election.

This conclave was important as the first conclave since 1721 at which three future pontiffs would participate – Luciani and Cardinals Wojtyła [Pope John Paul II] and Ratzinger [Benedict XVI].

Since it the conclave took place in the summer, it became very hot. Cardinal John Cody of Chicago took three showers in one night to cool himself.

After the conclave, one of the cardinals asked the newly elected pope for permission to smoke. While this was against protocol, the new pope gave his approval on the condition that the “smoke was white.”

On 13 August 1099, Pachal II began his papacy, succeeding Pope Urban II.

Paschal’s major concern during his papacy was in upholding the right of the Pope to invest bishops with their authority. Several European rulers sought to place their own supporters in power as bishops so as to ensure that the bishop’s loyalty would be with the secular ruler than with the pope. In this area, Paschal II found himself in conflict with the Holy Roman Emperor Henry V and English king Henry I.

Paschal II tried to end the problem of lay investiture by forbidding all bishops from accepting any land or privileges from a secular authority and instead to depend upon alms for their livelihood. However, many bishops enjoyed their estates and rulers like Henry V wanted control over the bishops. Henry V would hold Paschal II in prison for two months until he forced him to grant the emperor the power to invest bishops. Paschal’s concession would in turn lead to great outrage from church reformers and a council held in 1112 would hold that any concessions granted by Paschal II were void because they had been by means of violence. As for Paschal, he felt obliged to keep his promise to Henry. As such the matter of investiture would remain unresolved during Paschal’s papacy.

Paschal II also ordered the rebuilding of the basilica of Santi Quattro Coronati after it had been destroyed by the Normans in 1084 and appointed the first bishop of North America – Erik Gnupsson to the province of Greenland and Vinland [Newfoundland].

Pascal II’s attempt to require bishops to live without secular privileges

On 9 August 1483, vespers were celebrated in the Sistine Chapel by Pope Sixtus IV, whose name would become associated with the chapel. One week later on the 15th of August, Pope Sixtus IV celebrated the first Mass in the chapel on the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Sixtus IV restored and dedicated the chapel to the Assumption. The restored chapel was intended for private liturgies of the pope and included artwork by Pietro Perugino, Sandro Botticelli, and Domenico Ghirlandaio. The original chapel had existed since 1368 and had fallen into ruin.

It is in the Sistine Chapel that the conclaves for the elections of new popes take place. Other important religious services also take place here.

While the chapel is perhaps best known for Michelangelo’s paintings, these only appeared in 1512 during the papacy of Julius II.

On 4 August 1879, Pope Leo XIII issued the encyclical Aeterni Patris [Of the Eternal Father] which addressed the importance of authentically Christian philosophy and called for a increased attention to the works of St. Thomas Aquinas.

Leo believed that secular philosophy failed to lead people to the fullness of the truth – either by denying truth or at least by being unable to the highest truths which were known only by faith. Leo did not believe that faith and reason were opposed to one another but that reason needed and should lead one to faith. Authentic theology should, in turn, be based on philosophy.

While Leo noted the authentic relationship between faith and reason as expressed in the history of the Catholic Church, the foremost example of how theology should be done was reflected in the work of St. Thomas Aquinas. For this reason, Leo called for a return to a study of the scholastic theologians, especially Aquinas. It should, however, also be noted that Leo did not intend for philosophers or theologians to imitate Aquinas if, “there be anything that ill agrees with the discoveries of a later age, or, in a word, improbable in whatever way”.

Leo’s support of Aquinas contributed to the revival of Thomism at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century and would influence the work of such philosophers and theologians as Karl Rahner, Bernard Lonergan, Jacques Maritain and Étienne Gilson.

One year later, on 4 August 1880, Leo would designate Aquinas the patron of all Catholic colleges, schools and universitis throughout the world.

Aeterni Patris