August 30, 2010 – 11:00 am
On 30 August 257, under the rule of Roman Emperor Valerian, St. Cyprian of Carthage was brought before the Roman proconsul Aspasius Paternus to defend his faith.
As bishop of Carthage, Cyprian had strongly urged his fellow Christians to prepare for martyrdom in his De exhortatione martyrii. Before the proconsul, Cyprian will be ordered to offer sacrifice to the Roman gods and to inform the Roman authorities of the names of other Christian priests. In both cases, Cyprian will refuse. Instead, he will proclaim his faith in Christ and his loyalty to the Roman emperor.
I am a Christian and a bishop. I know no other gods beside the one, true God who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them. This is the God we Christians serve, to this God we pray day and night for you and for all mankind, and for the well-being of the emperors themselves.
Cyprian was banished to the city of Curubis and after spending a long period in exile and in prison was martyred on 14 September 258.
August 29, 2010 – 8:11 pm
Abraham Abufalia believed God wanted him to convert Pope Nicholas III to Judaism and help bring about the coming of the Messiah. Perhaps not surprisingly, the Franciscans were also involved.
Links:
Earlier CUTH podcast on Joachim of Fiore and the Francisans
An important source for this episode was Harvey James’ Like Angels on Jacob’s Ladder: Abraham Abulafia, the Franciscans, and Joachimism
Photo of Pope Nicholas III’s palace at Soriano by NicFer
Be sure to check out the CUTH blog for more on the history of the Catholic Church
Also check out the other great podcasts at the Starquest Production Network
Send e-mail questions and comments to catholicunderthehood@gmail.com or leave voice mail at 1 740 936 4354
To listen, just click on the link below:
#243 – Converting a Pope
August 29, 2010 – 2:33 pm
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.
August 28, 2010 – 4:27 pm
On 28 August 1794, Pope Pius VI issued the bull Auctorem Fidei condemning the acts of the Synod of Pistoia in 1786.
Auctorem Fidei defended the authority of the pope against those who wished to limit papal authority and wished remove bishops from papal jurisdiction. Auctorem Fidei also condemned certain liturgical canons that the Synod of Pistoia had supported such as calling for churches to have only one altar, celebrating the liturgy in the vernacular and celebrating only one Mass on Sundays. The Synod of Pistoia also wanted to abolish all religious orders except for the Benedictines.
With Auctorem Fidei, Jansenism recieved one of its strongest condemnations.
Auctorem Fidei
August 27, 2010 – 1:44 pm
On 27 August 410, Alaric and the Visigoths completed their three-day sack of the city of Rome which began on 24 August.
The Visigoths did relatively little damage to the city and the churches, however they did take much of the movable wealth. The Visigoths were Arians and treated the Romans as fellow Christians. Still, the sack of the city was traumatic to much of Christendom because it was the first time the city had been conquered by a non-Roman in 800 years.
St. Jerome wrote of the event, “My voice sticks in my throat; and, as I dictate, sobs choke my utterance. The City which had taken the whole world was itself taken.” St. Augustine will be inspired to write his work City of God to explain the sack of Rome against the arguments of many of the pagan Romans who blamed the fate of their city on the abandonment of the pagan gods. St. Augustine argued that all earthly cities were subject to falling as Rome did, only the heavenly city was eternal.
August 26, 2010 – 8:15 am
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.”
August 25, 2010 – 10:03 am
On 25 August 450, Emperor Marcian was crowned by Patriarch Anatolius of Constantinople. This was the first time in history that a secular authority was crowned by a religious figure. It will serve as an example and model for the establishment of the Christian coronation ceremony used both in the East and the West. It would also demonstrate the growing ties between church and state.
Marcian’s reign will include the important Council of Chalcedon, at which he supported the position of Pope St. Leo I. Moreover, Marcian will be considered one of the good Emperors and will later be canonized by the Orthodox Church.
August 24, 2010 – 11:58 am
On 24 August 1562, St. Teresa of Avila established her first monastery in Avila in response to advice she received from St. Peter of Alcantara marking the beginning of the Carmelite reform with four novices. The monastery was dedicated to St. Joseph.
The beginnings of the Carmelite reform, or the Discalced [Barefoot] Carmelites, was initially me with much opposition because St. Teresa placed her community under the authority of the local bishop and not under the prioress of the Incarnation monastery where Teresa had been attached. Later, however, the prioress of the Incarnation monastery will support her and her call for a more austere Carmelite life.
There was also opposition from the townspeople of Avila. They were concerned that religious houses were springing up faster than they could be supported. But after Teresa was able to convince the local people that her monastery was self sufficient, they would support her.
August 23, 2010 – 9:28 am
On 23 August 1153, Mass was held at St. Nicholas Cole Abbey in London. This was the first Mass permitted in England since the Reformation. While Catholic liturgies had been forbidden under the reigns of Henry VIII and his son Edward VI. Under Queen Mary I, Catholicism was again to be the official religion of the Kingdom of England.
Diarist Henry Machyn described the event in these words, ‘Mass at St. Nicholas Cole Abbey goodly sung in Latin, tapers set on the altar and a cross, and all this not by commandment but by the people’s devotion.’
When Elizabeth I ascended to the English throne in 1558, she would rescind Mary’s decree making Catholicism the established church of the kingdom.
August 22, 2010 – 1:38 pm
In his life of St. Columba of Iona, St. Adomnan recounts how on the 22 August 565, “a certain water beast was driven away by the power of the blessed man’s [St. Columba] prayer”.
According to St. Adomnan, St. Columba encountered the burial of a man who had been attacked and killed by a savage beast at the River Ness. Despite knowing this, St. Columba ordered one of his followers to swim across the Ness, a command that was immediately obeyed. The follower of St .Columba was attacked by a monster in the river. But before the beast could injure his follower, St. Columba made the sign of the cross in the air and said, “You will go no further. Do not touch the man; turn back speedily”. This caused the monster to swim away and caused those who witnessed what St. Columba had done to glorify God.
This account was written around 690, over a century after St. Columba’s death, and is the first recorded reference to a monster in Loch Ness. The account has been used both as a support for the existence of the Loch Ness Monster by some and viewed with great skepticism by others. Stories of saints encountering strange and terrifying beasts are common in early literature and are intended not to present historical events as we would understand them today but to show the power of God over forces which appear frightening or threatening.
St. Adomnan’s account of St. Columba and the Loch Ness Monster
The St. Columba Western Rite Orthodox Church has an icon of St. Columba confronting the Loch Ness Monster
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