August 2, 2010 – 10:15 am
On 2 August 1552, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V granted religious freedom to his Lutheran subjects – ending thirty years of civil war in his domain.
While Charles V had hoped to unify the Holy Roman Empire under the Catholic faith, he was unable to overcome the strength of the German Protestant alliance with the Kingdom of France. Therefore, he chose to grant religious freedom to his Lutheran subjects and bring an end to the Thirty Years War. These freedoms would be confirmed at the Peace of Augsburg in September 1555.
The Peace of Passau and later Peace of Augsburg would only grant religious freedom to Catholics and Lutherans in the Holy Roman Empire, as Calvinism spreads into the Empire and replaces Lutheranism as the dominant Protestant faith religious conflict will again erupt.
On 1 August 1800, the Parliament of Ireland approved the Act of Union which, in conjunction with the earlier approval of union by the Parliament of Great Britain on 2 July 1800, united Ireland with Great Britain and established the United Kingdom of Britain and Ireland on 1 January 1801.
While Ireland and Great Britain had been united in a personal union under the monarch of Great Britain and Ireland since 1603, political union would come much later.
The Parliament of Great Britain sought closer union with Ireland after the French Revolution of 1789 and the Irish Rebellion of 1798. It was fearful that the majority Roman Catholic population obtained the right to elect Catholics into the Irish Parliament that such a Catholic Parliament would attempt to break away from Britain and turn toward France. A united kingdom would prevent any attempt by Ireland to abandon its connection to England and Scotland.
Indeed, in order to get Irish Catholic support for Union which would abolish the separate Irish Parliament for a united Parliament in Britain, the Catholics were promised Emancipation which would allow Roman Catholic members of Parliament. However, after the passing of Union King George III refused to permit Catholic Emancipation on the grounds that it would be a violation of his oath to defend the Church of England. So, Irish Catholics could elect members of Parliament but no Irish Catholic could take a seat in the Parliament.
Catholic Emancipation would not be achieved until 1829.
On 31 July 1901, Leonid Feodorov entered into the Catholic Church at the Jesuit Church of the Gesù in Rome.
Leonid was born into the Orthodox Church in Russia and had even contemplated becoming an Orthodox priest, but after becoming acquainted with Western literature grew interested in Roman Catholicism.
After his conversion, he entered into a seminary of the Society of Jesus under a pseudonym to keep himself hidden from the Russian Secret Police. In the seminary he would decide not to become a Latin Rite priest, instead choosing to remain in the Eastern Rite so as to better serve the Russian people. He was ordained on 25 March 1911.
After returning to Russia, he was immediately exiled to Siberia by the Russian government, but was freed after the February 1917 revolution and appointed Exarch of the Russian Catholic Church and secretly consecrated as bishop.
After the Bolshevik Revolution, Fedorov would be tried in 1923 for counter-revolutionary activities and was sentenced to three years at the infamous Butyrka prison in Moscow and then to exile at the Solovki prison camp.
While at Solovki, Fedorov would offer the Divine Liturgy in secret.
He was released on 6 August 1929 and would die on 7 March 1935.
He was beatified by Pope John Paul II on 27 June 2001.
The Life of Blessed Feodorov
On 30 July 1419, a Hussite mob attacked the Prague town hall, throwing several town officials from the hall where they fell to their deaths or were killed by other members of the mob below.
The Hussite violence came in reaction to the execution of Jan Hus at the Council of Constance on 6 July 1415. A priest sympathetic to the ideas of Hus, Jan Želivský, led his congregation to the Prague town hall to protest the imprisonment of some fellow Hussites. Želivský was deeply influenced by the ideas of Jan Hus and John Wycliffe. He condemned what he believed was corruption within the Catholic Church.
During the demonstration, some townspeople opposed to the Hussites threw stones at at Želivský from the window of the town hall. This infuriated the mob, who stormed the town hall and threw the judge, the burgomaster, and some thirteen members of the town council out of the window and into the street to their deaths.
The violence in Prague will contribute to the outbreak of the Hussite Wars in 1420.
A second defenestration in Prague in 1618 will introduce the word defenestration into the lexicon meaning “the act of throwing something or someone out of a window”.
On 29 July 1030, King Olaf Haraldsson [Olaf II] was defeated and slain at the Battle of Stiklestad.
King Olaf had been briefly exiled to Novgorod [in modern day Russia] by the Danes and returned in 1030 to reclaim his throne. Thus, the Battle of Stiklestad between King Olaf against a large army of Norwegian farmers involved both politics and religion as Olaf desired to unite Norway under his rule and to Christianize his subjects. Indeed the battle cry of Olaf’s army was reportedly, Fram! Fram! Kristmenn, Krossmenn, kongsmenn or “Forward, forward, Christ’s men, Cross men, king’s men!”
After Olaf’s death, his body was buried in secret and moved to St. Klement’s Church in Trondheim one year later. When his body was unburied, it was discovered to be incorrupt. This was perceived even by Olaf’s enemies as a miracle and contributed both to Olaf’s reputation for holiness and to the further Christianization of the Norwegians.
Olaf would eventually become the patron saint of Norway, the Rex Perpertuus Norvegiae, and on the site of his death was constructed a church. The Nidaros Cathedral was constructed on the site of his burial and is now the location of his body.
The Battle of Stiklestad is seen by historians as marking the end of the Viking period and the beginning of the medieval period of Norway. Each year the pageant Spelet om Helag Olav is performed during the week leading up to St Olaf’s day on July 29. This pageant attracts about 20,000 visitors.
Wikipedia article on St. Olaf – also contains the propers for the Mass of the Feast of St. Olaf
On 28 July 754, Pope Stephen II anointed Pepin the Short as King of the Franks and Patricius Romanorum [Patrician of the Romans] in the Basilica of Saint Denis in Paris. Pope Stephen would also anoint Pepin’s sons Carloman and Charles – later known as Charlemagne.
This anointing ceremony would become part of the ceremony for the crowning of French Kings until the French Revolution in 1789.
The title of Patricius had originally belonged to the representative of the Byzantine Empire in the West. However, the Byzantines were no longer able to protect Rome from the invading barbarians, so Pope Stephen looked to the rising power of the Franks for help.
When Pepin pledged to protect the Pope from the power of the Lombards who were moving against Rome, a thankful Stephen traveled to France to anoint Pepin. In 756 Pepin would attack the Lombards and the land he captured from them would be given to Pope Stephen as the “Donation of Pepin” beginning the Papal States and the temporal authority of the papacy.
The crowning of Pepin would strengthen Pepin’s claim to the French throne against the rival Merovingians and begin a long history of close links between the French throne and the papacy. The crowning will also show the turn of Rome to the West and mark the growing split between East and West eventually leading to the schism of 1054.
On 27 July 1214, the forces of Otto IV of the Holy Roman Empire, King John I of of England, and Count Ferrand of Flanders were defeated by the forces of Philip II Augustus of France at the Battle of Bouvines.
Otto IV had come into conflict with Pope Innocent III over whether the right of conferring the crown of the Holy Roman Empire belonged to the pope alone. Innocent III claimed that the pope had the authority to decide whether a candidate chosen by the German princes to become Emperor was worthy of that dignity. While Innocent had initially supported Otto, they became opponents in 1210 after Otto decided to restore Imperial power in Italy. Innocent was greatly upset at this, believing that a Holy Roman Empire with the addition of Italian territories would be a threat to the Papal States. Innocent would excommunicate Otto and give his support to Frederick II Hohenstaufen as a rival claimant to the title of Holy Roman Emperor.
While the forces of John I and Otto IV [25,000] outnumbered those of Philip II [15,000], the French forces were more experienced – having fought in the Crusades. the three hour battle saw around 2,000 casualties and about 9,000 captured. Philip II was nearly killed in the battle after being de-horsed several times.
After the Battle of Bouvines, Otto IV would be forced to resign and Frederick II would become the new emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. John I would also be forced to sign the Magna Carta by his nobles.
On Sunday 26 July 1942, the Dutch Bishops publically condemned the deportation of Jews by the Nazis in the Netherlands.
In retaliation, the Reichskomissar of the Netherlands, Arthur Seyss-Inquart, ordered that all Jewish converts to Catholicism in the Netherlands be arrested. Among the two hundred converts arrested would be St. Edith Stein and her sister Rosa – both of whom were executed in Auschwitz.
There is some evidence that the arrest and deportation of the Jewish converts would contribute to Pius XII’s decision to refrain from an action similar to that of the Dutch bishops, that is a public condemnation of the Nazis. Indeed, the Protestant churches of the Netherlands had initially also wished to issue similar strong condemnations but Seyss-Inquart’s threat to take action against Jewish converts to Protestantism kept these churches silent.
Arthur Seyss-Inquart will be charged with crimes against humanity for his actions during WWII and will be executed at Nuremburg on 16 October 1946. Before he died he returned to the Catholic faith of his youth, receiving the Sacrament of Penance from Father Bruno Spitzl.
On 25 July 1593, Henry IV of France converted to Catholicism.
Henry was raised as a member of the Huguenot or Calvinist faith in France at a time in which there was much conflict between Catholics and Protestants. Just six days after his wedding in Paris in 1572, the Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre took place during which several thousand Protestants who had come to Paris for the wedding were killed. Henry saved his own life by converting to Catholicism, but would return to Protestantism after he escaped Paris in 1576.
In 1584, he became the heir to the French throne. While Henry was given aid by Elizabeth I in his quest to claim the throne from his Catholic opponents, Henry decided that adoption of Catholicism was the best way to gain the support of the French population. Legend purports him claiming, “Paris is well worth a Mass”. He would proclaim his conversion at the Church of Saint Denis.
While his conversion earned him the hostility of England, it did give him the support he needed to become king and he was crowned King of France on 27 February 1594. Still, he did not forget his Protestant roots and would later issue the Edict of Nantes which gave limited toleration to the Huguenots in France and bring an end to the French Wars of Religion.
On 24 July 1904, Solanus Casey was ordained to the priesthood by Archbishop Sebastian Messmer at the St. Francis of Assisi Church in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He will be ordained a “sacerdotus simplex” or “Mass Priest” which prevented him from hearing confessions or preaching doctrinal sermons because of a judgment that he had not performed sufficiently well in his seminary classes. Indeed, Fr. Casey had great difficulty in seminary as most of the classes were in German, with which he was not very familiar.
Throughout his life as a member of the Capuchin Franciscans, Fr. Casey will acquire a reputation for holiness. 20,000 people would visit his coffin just prior to his burial. He was been declared venerable by Pope John Paul II.
About Fr. Solanus Casey
catholicunderthehood.com 