We are glad to share this report from Dr Emily Meixner on the Schola Cantorum Program for young people which she directs at the Shrine of St Martin of Tours in Louisville, Kentucky.
The Shrine of St. Martin of Tours in downtown Louisville, Kentucky is known for its historic architecture, 24-hour perpetual adoration chapel, and for the two early Christian martyrs enshrined beneath its side altars. It is also known for its dedication to beautiful liturgy and sacred music. Mindful of the teachings of Sacrosanctum Concilium (Paragraphs 112-115), the Shrine founded the Schola Cantorum program in the fall of 2016 as a means of preserving and fostering the Church’s vast treasury of sacred music in the local Catholic community. In its first year the Schola program was small but mighty, comprising 7 students; since that time, it has thrived and grown, filling the choir loft, and currently boasting 27 students ranging in age from 7 to 15.
The Schola program primarily assists the liturgical needs of the Shrine, meeting weekly on Wednesday afternoons during the school year to learn healthy singing techniques and a variety of forms of sacred music, ranging from Gregorian Chant to Anglican Chant, as well as traditional hymnody and polyphonic motets. The Schola primarily sings for Sunday Mass and Vespers at the Shrine multiple times a year (roughly three events in the fall and three in the spring), as well as occasional events outside of the Shrine, including a recital of organ music and Gregorian chant co-sponsored by the Louisville Chapter of the American Guild of Organists in October 2024, and a fall concert for the residents at the Wesley Manor Retirement Home in 2019. The Schola also has an annual tradition of chanting Compline at the historic Cave Hill Cemetery during the month of November, a time when the Church encourages the faithful to pray for the souls in Purgatory.
In 2022, the program was expanded to include an advanced Schola, which meets for rehearsals on Saturdays in addition to Wednesdays. The advanced students are those within the broader Schola program who have progressed in their singing and reading abilities to be able to sing more complex Gregorian chants and polyphonic motets, with the expectation that this will better prepare them to eventually join the ranks of the Choir of St. Martin’s. The advanced students prepare and sing for additional liturgical events at the Shrine, particularly monthly Vespers. Recent accomplishments include singing Maurice Duruflé’s Ubi Caritas, Elizabeth Poston’s Jesus Christ the Apple Tree, and Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Magnificat from The Short Service in C.
Fall of 2026 will mark the 10 year anniversary of the Schola Program’s founding. In the past nine years, the program has served 70 children and 32 families in the Louisville area. Upcoming events include singing for the Vigil Mass on Christmas Eve, Vespers for the Feast of the Annunciation, and their debut singing a Missa Cantata at the Sunday celebration of the Extraordinary Form Mass.
Nobis quoque peccatóribus fámulis tuis, de multitúdine miseratiónum tuárum sperántibus, partem áliquam et societátem donáre dignéris, cum tuis sanctis Apóstolis et Martýribus: cum Joanne, Stéphano, Matthía, Bárnaba, Ignatio, Alexandro, Marcellíno, Petro, Felicitáte, Perpetua, Agatha, Lucia, Agnéte, Caecilia, Anastasia, et ómnibus Sanctis tuis: intra quorum nos consortium, non aestimátor mériti, sed veniae, quaesumus, largítor admitte. Per Christum Dóminum nostrum.
Which I translate as:
To us sinners as well, Thy servants hoping in the multitude of Thy mercies, deign to grant some part and fellowship with Thy holy Apostles and Martyrs: with John, Stephen, Matthias, Barnabas, Ignatius, Alexander, Marcellinus, Peter, Felicity, Perpetua, Agatha, Lucy, Agnes, Cecilia, Anastasia, and with all Thy Saints, into whose company, we beseech, admit us, not as an Assessor of merit but as a generous Bestower of pardon. Through Christ our Lord.
Having prayed for all other members of the Church Militant and the Church Suffering, the priest prays lastly for himself and for the other liturgical ministers, the servants of God’s house (famuli). [1] The 2011 ICEL translation renders the opening words “To us, also, your servants, who, though sinners…” but the Latin places the primary emphasis on their status as sinners: “To us sinners also, your servants…” The only time that the priest breaks the silence of the Canon besides the ending per omnia saecula saeculorum is to utter aloud the words nobis quoque peccatoribus as he strikes his breast. The historical reason for this anomaly is that the subdeacon formerly remained bowed down during the Canon; at the words nobis quoque peccatoribus, he straightened up and prepared for the fraction rite. When the Canon came to be recited silently, these three words needed to remain audible so that subdeacon could hear his prompt. [2]
But as with so many other elements of the Roman Rite, the historical or literal cause of a thing providentially yields a rich symbolic or allegorical meaning. In this case, the elevated volume and contrite gesture amplify and elucidate the prayer’s meaning. As with his Confiteor at the beginning of Mass, the priest leads his flock, in part, by public contrition. The medieval liturgist William Durandus sees even more. The elevated voice, he opines, calls to mind the confession of the centurion at the foot of the Cross (“Truly this was the Son of God”) as well as the contrition and confession of the Good Thief who was crucified at the same time as Our Lord. [3]
The Nobis quoque peccatoribus marks the second time in the Canon that a group of Saints is listed. In the Communicantes (which is also preceded by a Memento prayer), the Saints are organized in such a way as to stress the hierarchical nature of the Church, beginning with the Blessed Virgin Mary and descending from there according to ecclesiastical rank. In the Nobis quoque peccatoribus, the Saints are organized in such a way as to stress the charismatic nature of the Church, beginning with St. John the Baptist, who never held an ecclesiastical position but certainly had a charism as the prophet of the Most High, and continuing with seven male and seven female martyrs. [4]
The numbering is also significant. The Communicantes begins with the Blessed Virgin Mary and, before the insertion of St. Joseph’s name in 1962, continues with twelve Apostles and twelve martyrs, i.e., 1 + 12 + 12. The Nobis quoque peccatoribus begins with St. John the Baptist, followed by seven male martyrs and seven female, i.e., 1 + 7 + 7. [5] And, as Fr. Neil Roy observes, the placement of the Theotokos and the Precursor of the Lord at the head of each list (and on either side of the Consecration) creates a literary “deesis,” a triptych that depicts Christ flanked by His mother and His cousin. [6]
Deesis, Hagia Sophia
There are other differences as well. In the Communicantes, the priest describes “all here present” (omnes circumstantes) as communicating with (communicantes) the Saints before asking that their merits and prayers bring the help of God’s protection. In the Nobis quoque peccatoribus, the priest asks for communion with the Saints: first he asks for “some part and fellowship” with them, and then for their “company.” Some translations render communicantes in the first prayer as “in union with,” but if we are already in union with the Saints, why do we ask for fellowship with them here? (Unless, perhaps, it is another example of the liturgical stammer). I suspect, however, that the first prayer merely states that we are in touch with the Saints through our prayers, and that the second asks that we may enjoy their company for all eternity. But a note of humility and unworthiness pervades the petition. As Fr. Pius Parsch notes, in asking for “some part” of their company, the prayer essentially asks for “some obscure place in the realm of glory.” [7] The scene is redolent of the Publican who strikes his breast saying, “O God, be merciful to me a sinner.” (Luke 18, 9-14)
As for the order of the Saints, the male martyrs are organized according to rank while the women are organized according to vocation and region. For the men, the Apostles Stephen, Matthias, and Barnabas are followed by Ignatius the bishop, Alexander (who was a bishop or priest), Marcellinus the priest, and Peter the exorcist. For the women, Felicity was a Roman matron; she is not to be confused with the handmaid of Perpetua, the North African matron who follows her on the list. The next five are virgin martyrs (the same number as the five wise virgins in the Parable, Matthew 25, 1-13) Agatha and Lucy are from Sicily while Agnes, Cecilia, and Anastasia are from Rome. The Roman Rite, as we have seen before, is steeped in the history of the Eternal City, but it is not insular, and so it honors Saints outside its borders.
In preconciliar hand Missals, as in the 2011 ICEL translation, the clause non aestimator meriti, sed veniae, quaesumus, largitor is usually translated with verbs, e.g., “not weighing our merits but granting us your pardon.” The Latin, however, uses two nouns, aestimator and largitor (a liberal giver). The difference is between doing and being. In this prayer, the priest goes further than petitioning God to do or not do something; he asks Him not to be the kind of Person who measures our value (which we know is wanting) and instead to be the kind of Person who is generous to a fault. And we already know that God is a Liberal Giver of Pardon because elsewhere we address Him with that title [8] along with “Liberal Giver of all goods” (omnium largitor bonorum) [9] and “Liberal Giver of indulgences” (largitor indulgentiae) [10]
Notes
[1] As Fr. Josef Jungmann explains, it was common for the clergy to designate themselves as sinners. They even signed their signatures in this manner. See The Mass of the Roman Rite: Its Origins and Development, vol. 2 (New York: Benzinger Brothers, 1951), pp. 249-50.
[2] See Jungmann, vol. 1, p. 72.
[3] See William Durandus, Rationale Divinorum Officionorum IV.35.11, IV.46.1, resp.
[4] See Rev. Neil J. Roy, “The Roman Canon: deëis in euchological form,” in Benedict XVI and the Sacred Liturgy, eds. Neil J. Roy and Janet E. Rutherford (Four Courts Press, 2008), pp. 181-199.
[5] Pius Parsch, The Liturgy of the Mass, trans. Frederic C. Eckhoff (St. Louis, Missouri: Herder, 1940), p. 187.
[6] See Roy. pp. 191-92.
[7] See Parsch, pp. 249-50.
[8] The Collect Deus, veniae largitor et humanae salutis amator for All Souls’ Day, Office of Prime, and in the Office for the Dead.
[9] See the Collects for St. Bibiana (December 2) and St. Rose of Lima (August 30).
[10] The Lauds hymn Rex gloriose Martyrum for Several Martyrs.
Our long-time friend and contributor, and photographer extraordinaire Fr Lawrence Lew, is currently with a group of pilgrims in Italy, and was able to say the Dominican Mass yesterday at the tomb of St Dominic in the Order’s church in Bologna. (This is an important liturgical week for the Dominicans: November 12th is the traditional date for the feast of All Dominican Saints, although in the post-Conciliar Rite, it has been moved to November 7th. Today is the feast which honors St Thomas Aquinas as the patronage of all Catholic schools, and on Saturday is the feast of St Albert the Great.) The arc of St Dominic was original commissioned from the sculptor Nicola Pisano in 1264, 30 years after Dominic’s canonization, and completed in 3 years, but new sculptures were added to on more than one occasion, including three by the young Michelangelo in the later 1490s. It has stood in its current location since 1411, but the decorations of the chapel have been reworked very considerably since then. The basilica is currently undergoing a major renovation, but worked halted long enough for Fr Lew and his group to have Mass and venerate the relic of St Dominic in the very beautiful Gothic reliquary, which is accessed from behind the altar, as seen below. It’s very nice to see the red drapes on the columns, a custom which was once very popular in Italy and is making something of a comeback.
The fresco in the apse of the chapel of St Dominic in the glory of heaven was painted by a native of Bologna, and one of the greats of the Italian Baroque, Guido Reni (1575-1642).
The Catholic Institute of Sacred Music is delighted to announce the 2026 launch of its summer-based 36-credit Master of Sacred Music degree, and two 20-credit Post-Baccalaureate Certificates in Gregorian Chant and Sacred Choral Music, pending approval from WSCUC. Applications open November 18th, 2025.
The MSM and Certificates are completable over three to five summers, depending on how many weeks you can be on campus during the summer. During the regular fall and spring semesters, you’ll work with a voice teacher in your area, and take a 1-hour online (live via Zoom) colloquium with other graduate students.
Our affordable tuition ($250 per credit hour) and compact format mean that you can keep your job at a parish or school while completing graduate studies.
Courses will also remain open to students wishing just to take a graduate class or two, without matriculating into a degree/certificate program.
Our curriculum prepares you with the theological, philosophical, and historical knowledge—as well as the practical skills (singing, playing, conducting, teaching, composing, organizing, fundraising)—necessary to build excellent sacred music programs in parishes and schools.
Our world-class faculty of dedicated Catholic scholars and practitioners delivers a curriculum that is robust, and focused on musical excellence and fidelity to the Catholic faith and tradition. Summer classes are buttressed by an horarium that allows time for sung daily Mass and vespers, access to confessions, and time for private prayer, study, relaxation, and fellowship.
Interested in learning more?
I realized this morning that I had forgotten to post the last set of photos from Mt Athos which a friend very kindly shared with me. The first four parts were published in late September and October, from the monasteries of Simonos Petra, Koutloumousiou, the church of the Dormition in Karyes, the administrative center of the Monastic Republic, and the Skete of St Andrew. This final set was taken at Iviron Monastery, the third in the Athonite hierarchy, which was founded in the 980s by monks from Georgia. (The name derives from “Iberia”, the Greek word for the Caucasus.) Iviron was very influential in the development of Georgian language and liturgy, but the community waned over the centuries, and the last Georgian monk died in 1955. The photos below include views of the original, very beautiful cosmatesque floor and marble panels on the walls, very little of which survives on Athos, and some pictures of liturgical items in the museum.
These first two photos were taken on the feast of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary (which falls on September 21 on the Gregorian Calendar), during the All-night Vigil, the concatenation of Great Vespers, Orthros (Matins and Lauds) and the First Hour. The term “all-night vigil” is something of a rhetorical exaggeration, but on Athos, not by much; the service began at 8 p.m., and ended at 2 a.m.
This plate with three candles attached at the back is used for the ceremony called the Litia. There are five loaves of bread on the plate, and in the three cups below them, wine, oil, and some grains of wheat. These are blessed towards the end of Vespers; during Orthros, the bread is distributed to the clergy and faithful, tinged with the wine, and a cross of the oil is painted on each person’s forehead, a symbol that the feast has now formally begun.
A view of the main church, called the “Katholikon” in Greek, from the central plaza.
A document dated to March of 1312 attests that an Italian cardinal named Gentile Partino, a member of the Franciscan Order, commissioned a chapel to be added to the lower basilica of St Francis in Assisi, dedicated to St Martin of Tours, whose feast is kept today. Later that spring, His Eminence was in Siena, and commissioned the painter Simone Martini, a native of that city, to go to Assisi and decorate the chapel with a series of frescos of the titular Saint’s life. The cardinal himself died in October of that year; Martini would complete his work in the chapel in three phases, ending in 1318. Martin is one of the very first confessors to be widely venerated in the West, partly because of a biography of him written by a contemporary and friend named Sulpicius Severus. The stories presented here are partly based on it, but also on traditional legends which are not in Sulpicius’ work.
The cycle begins with the most famous story of Martin’s life, that when he was a young soldier serving near Amiens, and still only a catechumen, he met a half-naked beggar, and having nothing else to share with him, cut his own cloak in two and gave the beggar one of the halves.
That night, Christ appeared to him in a dream holding the piece of the cloak, saying “Martin, while still a catechumen, covered me with this garment.” This direct quote from Sulpicius’ biography is the first antiphon of Matins of St Martin.
Although it may seem like a folk-etymology, it is actually true that the word “chapel” derives from the Latin word for cloak, “cappa”, in reference to the relic of St Martin’s cloak. As explained by the Catholic Encyclopedia, “This cape, or its representative, was afterwards preserved as a relic and accompanied the Frankish kings in their wars, and the tent which sheltered it became known also as cappella or capella. In this tent Mass was celebrated by the military chaplains (capellani). When at rest in the palace the relic likewise gave its name to the oratory where it was kept, and subsequently any oratory where Mass and Divine service were celebrated was called capella (in Latin), chapelle (in French), chapel.”
Sulpicius then says that Martin continued to served as a soldier for two years. His military service is anachronistically represented here by the medieval rite of the investiture of a knight.
As the barbarians invade Gaul, Martin renounces his military service before the emperor Julian the Apostate, in order to dedicate his life to serving Christ.
The cycle now jumps over the years when Martin lived as a monk to his episcopacy, which began in 371. The story shown here, which is in the Golden Legend, but not in Sulpicius, tells that Martin had a request to make of the emperor Valentinian, something which the emperor did not wish to grant, and therefore forbade Martin entrance to the palace on two occasions. After a week of fasting and wearing of a hairshirt, Martin was told by an angel to return, and he was able to gain access to the throne room. The emperor was at first greatly angered by this, but then his throne was engulfed in flames, and his majesty singed on his hind parts. He offered Martin everything he intended to ask for, but in the Golden Legend’s telling, Martin inexplicably refuses it.
Martin raises a man from the dead; the first responsory at Matins refers to the tradition that he such a miracle three times. However, the Roman version of the lessons does not include a passage found in many others, that he himself said that he had not received such great grace in the episcopacy as he had before it, since he raised two men from the dead before he became a bishop, but only one after.
As he celebrates Mass, a globe of fire appears over him. Commenting on the liturgical texts for his feast day, William Durandus writes (Rat. Div. Off. VII, 37), “He is called ‘equal to the Apostles’, not, as some people think, because he raised people from the dead, since many other martyrs and confessors have done the same; nor because of the multitude of his miracles, but especially because of one particular miracle... (while he was celebrating Mass) a globe of fire appeared over his head, by which it was shown that the Holy Spirit had descended upon him… as He came upon the Apostles at Pentecost. Whence he is rightly called ‘equal to the Apostles,’ and is indeed equal to them in the liturgy.”
A famous legend of St Ambrose tells that he once fell into a deep sleep for several hours during services in church, and on waking, told his clergy that he had been present for the funeral of St Martin in the city of Tours. (St Martin actually died in the same year as St Ambrose, but 7 months later.)
The death of St Martin...
and his burial; at top, his soul is accompanied to heaven by angels.
This last part of the fresco cycle represents Cardinal Partino kneeling before St Martin as a sign that he is offering the chapel to him.
The large arch that leads into the chapel is decorated with eight portraits of Saints: Anthony of Padua and Francis...
Clare and Elizabeth of Hungary
Louis IX, the king of France, and Louis of Toulouse
And how parents and teachers can work together in this formation.
Here is my article on the supernatural end of Catholic education, recently published by Gravissimum: The Catholic Classical Education Journal. I was invited to contribute to the edition that commemorates the 60th anniversary of the promulgation of Gravissimum Educationis.
Summary: Both the Second Vatican Council’s Gravissimum Educationis and Pope Pius XI’s Divini Illius Magistri of 1929 state that the mission of Catholic education is to cooperate with divine grace in forming individuals whose lives are oriented toward eternal union with God. Their emphasis is on an education that transcends mere intellectual or civic development, aiming to form individuals who live a supernatural life in Christ. Central to achieving this mission is a formation that fosters right worship through liturgical participation and the family, recognized as the primary educator, especially in the context of the domestic church.
Union with God – theosis – is the end of the Christian life, and we sometimes forget that not only as educators, but sometimes even as Catholics!
Since today is the anniversary of the death of Pope St Leo I in 461, and his feast day in the post-Conciliar Rite, it seems like a good day for the seventh and final installment of this series on the thirteen papal namesakes of our new Holy Father Leo XIV; click these links to read part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, and part 6.
Before the reign of Bl. Pius IX (1846-78), nine among the successors of St Peter (numbering 254 at that point) had reigned for more than 20 years, but none had ever reached the 25 years traditionally ascribed to Peter himself. For many centuries, therefore, it had been part of the papal coronation ritual that as soon as the cardinal archbishop of Ostia placed the crown on a new pope’s head, he would say to him, “Numquam videbis annos Petri. – Thou shalt never see the years of Peter”: a way of reminding him, amid the glories of the Church’s highest office, that like all popes, he is the steward of Another.
But Pius IX did in fact live to see the years of Peter, surpassing the 25-year mark in 1871, and living for more than 6½ years beyond that. This custom was then removed from the coronation rite, and his successor, Leo XIII, reigned for exactly 25 years and 4 months. (St John Paul II, who beatified Pius IX in 2003, also surpassed it, reigning for a bit less than 26½ years.) Pope Leo was over 93 at the time of his death, and had been in the service of the Church since he was in his 20s, making any attempt at a convenient summary of his career a difficult prospect.
He was born Vincenzo Gioacchino Pecci on March 2, 1810, the sixth of seven children, in a small town called Carpineto, about 40 miles to the southeast of Rome. He was usually called by his middle name, which is Italian for “Joachim”. His mother’s name was Anna; as pope, Leo would raise the grade of the feasts of both of Our Lady’s parents. When he was eight, he and the brother right before him, Giuseppe, were sent to the Jesuit school in Viterbo, where he excelled especially in Latin; throughout his life, he was known for the high quality of his compositions in both prose and poetry in that language. Like most educated Italians of his era, he was also deeply interested in the works of Dante Alighieri. Giuseppe would go on to enter the Jesuit order, and become a well-respected theology professor; at his brother’s first consistory, in May of 1879, he was elevated to the cardinalate, the last man to receive that honor from a member of his immediate family.
A photograph of Cardinal Giuseppe Pecci taken in 1887.
Gioacchino completed a doctorate in theology in 1832, after which he entered the diplomatic academy, and studied canon and civil law at the University of Rome. His evident talents brought him to the attention of officials in the Curia, leading to his appointment in 1837 to various offices. Now on the track for greater promotions still, he was ordained at the very end of the year to the subdeaconate, deaconate and priesthood, all with a fortnight.
Fr Pecci’s first major responsibility was as delegate to Benevento, an exclave of the Papal State within the territory of the kingdom of Naples. The Napoleonic wars had left the south of Italy in a very disturbed state, but Fr Pecci proved himself a skilled administrator, particularly in dealing with the problem of the gangs of brigands, many of them former soldiers, who plagued the area. In the wake of this success, he was transferred to Perugia, and he did equally well there, despite strong revolutionary sentiment against the papal government. In January of 1843, he was made nuncio to Belgium, then a very new state, (founded in 1830, but only generally recognized since 1839; Pecci was only the third nuncio), where the Catholic majority was ruled by a Lutheran monarch who strongly favored the policies of the anti-Catholic Liberal party. After receiving episcopal consecration, he went to Brussels, and over the following three years, was highly effective in defending the Catholic interest, even earning the king’s good will, despite their strong political differences.
Three years later, however, on the death of the bishop of Perugia, Pope Gregory XVI, at the request of the populace, decided to appoint Mgr. Pecci as his successor. He arrived in Rome very shortly before the pope’s death on June 1, 1846, and took possession of his see, where he would remain for the next 32 years, about two months later.
The church of St Constantius (‘Costanzo’ in Italian), the first bishop of Perugia, traditionally said to have died as a martyr in the persecution of Marcus Aurelius, ca. 170. The construction was begun by Bp Pecci, but the decoration was not concluded until some time after his papal election. (Image from Wikimedia Commons by Lumen roma, CC BY-SA 3.0)
The diocese of Perugia flourished under his long episcopacy, despite the many difficulties visited upon it by the anti-clericalism and thievery of the Italian government during the so-called Risorgimento. He took close interest in his seminary, occasionally teaching and examining there in person, and in the other educational institutions under his jurisdiction, and built more than fifty new churches. Although he did not waver in his support of the Holy See and the Papal State, he managed to do so with great tact, and was not disturbed in the possession of his see by the government, even after Perugia was occupied in 1859. (For comparison, the much more important see of Bologna, once the second city of the Papal State, remained vacant for three years after the city was occupied by the anticlerical government.)
Pius IX had made Pecci a cardinal in 1853; in 1877, he appointed him chamberlain of the Apostolic See, a position which required him to live in Rome. Pius died less than five months later, on February 7, and Cardinal Pecci, now close to 68, was elected pope on February 20, taking the name Leo XIII partly in honor of Leo XII, who had been pope when he was beginning his ecclesiastical career.
The cheaper and more facile sorts of histories that abound in our era, and especially within the Church, have been wont to cast Pius IX as a hopeless reactionary, determined to keep the Church stuck in a world that had passed away, and Leo XIII as the forward-thinking progressive who finally embraced the modern world in all its glory. Even Italian Wikipedia, which is generally quite good on Church history, says that Leo’s choice of name was intended as a deliberate sign of change, without mentioning that it had long been customary for popes to not repeat the name of their predecessors (only six have done so in the last 1000 years), and that if there was ever a modern pope who deserved the title of reactionary, it was Leo XII.
A contemporary engraving of the moment of Leo XIII’s papal coronation. (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.)
One of my teachers, the late Fr Reginald Foster OCD, who worked as a Latin secretary in the Vatican for 41 years, was a great admirer of his fellow Latinist Leo XIII, and one of his favorite anecdotes about him perfectly illustrates this classic misrepresentation of him. The title of Leo’s famous encyclical on the condition of laborers, “Rerum novarum”, seems to mean “of new things”, until, as Fr Foster would say, “you look in your dictionary and see that ‘res novae’ means ‘revolution’. Then you need to look at the words that follow, ‘semel excitata cupidine’, and what you have there means, ‘Once the lust for revolution has been stirred up...’ He wasn’t in favor of it, my friends!”
Despite the many successes of Pius’ reign, when Leo XIII took the throne, anti-clericalism was very much on the ascendant throughout the formerly Catholic world, not just in Italy. In 1870, the kingdom of Italy had seized the remains of the Papal State, where it continued its policy of stealing from the Church as much as it dared. Pius IX had withdrawn into the Vatican and refused to cooperate with the existence of this government of brigands by setting foot on the soil which it illegally occupied. Like him, Leo XIII would remain a “prisoner in the Vatican” for the rest of his life, as would Pius X and Benedict XV after him. He is buried in the Lateran basilica, in fact, because he was the first pope in centuries who was never able to visit the building, his own cathedral, as pope.
He also continued Pius IX’s policy of prohibiting Catholics from participating in the political life of the Italian state, an extension of this standing protest. This policy ultimately failed, and was gradually walked back by his successors; I make note of it here because it gives the lie to the overly simplistic view of his papacy as a drastic volte face from that of Pius.
The heart of European anti-clericalism was in France; Leo’s attempts to persuade the Catholic monarchists to accept the Republic fell flat, but the crisis which led to yet another wave of persecution, and concomitant massive theft of the Church’s property, did not hit until early in the reign of Pius X. In Germany, the ludicrous spectacle of Bismark’s Kulturkampf fell apart under its own weight, the position of Catholics became much more favorable, and the pope received the Lutheran Kaiser Wilhelm II in the Vatican three times, on very cordial terms. Concordats were established with various states that protected the interests of Catholics and the Church.
Leo took great interest in the Eastern Catholic Churches, and is remembered as a good friend to them, and as the pope who initiated the process by which their rites and customs were purged of Romanizations. A schism among the Armenian Catholics was ended, and a college for them was established in Rome, along with another for the Ruthenians. Unfortunately, if there was ever a monarch who could be called a reactionary, it was the Russian Tsar Alexander III, who came to the throne in 1881. The barbaric persecution of Ruthenian Catholics in the Russian Empire worsened, and diplomatic relations with the Holy See were not restored until shortly before the Alexander’s death in 1894. The first impetus towards the foundation of a Russian Catholic Church began in Leo’s reign, led by the philosopher Volodymyr Soloviov.
The famous portrait of Cardinal Newman made in 1881 by Sir John Everett Millais. (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons)
Catholicism continued to grow during Leo’s papacy in both England and the United States, both of which also were of special interest to him. As Pius IX had restored the Catholic hierarchy in England, so Leo did in Scotland in the very first year of his papacy, and established it in British India in 1886. At his very first consistory, held in 1879, he made St John Henry Newman, the most prominent convert in England, a cardinal. The building of Westminster Cathedral was begun, and the church was opened for services very shortly before his death. Leo also issued the encyclical Apostolic Curae, recognizing the non-validity of Anglican sacramental orders.
In 1886, he made the archbishop of Baltimore, James Gibbons, a cardinal, only the second American to receive that honor. (Over 25 years and four months, Leo held 27 consistories, at which a total of 147 cardinals were appointed. The number of cardinals was then fixed at 70, which means he fully remade the College twice.) Cardinal Gibbons would later receive the letter Testem Benevolentiae against “Americanism”, one expression among many of the idea that the conditions of modern life required changes to the deposit of Faith, anticipating the general condemnation of modernism later made by Pius X.
Over the course of his 25-year papacy, he issued 85 encyclicals. Comparing this to Pius IX’s 36, issued over 31 years, it is fair to see here an overinflation, and consequent devalution, of the papal magisterium, not the first in its long history. This is balanced somewhat by their comparative brevity; all 11 of his encyclicals on the Rosary together are shorter than St John Paul II’s one. Among the most notable of these, apart from those previously mentioned, are Aeterni Patris, which reestablished the preeminence of Scholastic and Thomistic philosophy, and Providentissimus Deus, on Biblical studies.
There are many anecdotes one could tell about such a long pontificate; I include here one which I had the pleasure of sharing with the late Fr John Hunwicke, himself also a great scholar of classical languages and literature. On one occasion, Pope Leo woke up in the middle of the night, and began ringing the bell for his servants, shouting “Il piede! Il piede!”, Italian for “foot.” They assumed he had hurt his foot and wanted a doctor, but what he wanted was pen and paper. He had just solved, in his sleep (as one does) the problem of a metrical foot in a poem he was working on, and waking up with the solution in his head, he wanted to jot it down before he forgot it.
He also has the interesting distinction of being not just the first pope to be filmed, but the earliest born person to be filmed, and the first pope to have his voice recorded. In this video, the sound recording, made in 1903, of the Pope singing the Ave, Maria, is imposed on the film made in 1896.
At the time of his election, he seemed to many to be in rather poor health. Like Leo XII, he predicted at the time of his election that his own reign would be brief; unlike Leo XII’s, his prediction proved false. Not only did he become the second pope in a row to surpass the years of Peter, as noted at the beginning of this article; at 93, he died as the oldest pope in all of history. (This should be qualified by noting that Pope St Agatho, who died in 681, is traditionally said to have been 107 at the time of his decease, but this cannot be verified. Benedict XVI was 95 at the time of his death, but, of course, not pope.) In the later years of his papacy, there was a popular joke in Italy that the cardinals had tried to elect a Holy Father, but had elected an Eternal Father instead.
In honor of the dedication feast of the cathedral of Rome, the Archbasilica of the Most Holy Savior, popularly known as St John in the Lateran, here are some interesting thoughts from the medieval liturgical commentator William Durandus on the Office and Mass of the dedication of a church. (Rationale Divinorum Officiorum 7, 48) The version of the Office which Durandus knows is slightly different from the version in the Breviary of St Pius V, as will be noted in the text itself.
The high altar of St John in the Lateran. (Photo by Fr Kevin Kimtis.)
The feast (of a church’s dedication) is solemnly celebrated by the Church, concerning which it is written in John’s Gospel (10, 22 and 23) “It was the ‘renewal’ ”, that is, the feast of the dedication in Jerusalem, “and Jesus walked in the temple, in Solomon’s porch” in order to confirm that festival. It is called Solomon’s porch, because He was wont to pray there, and did so on the day of the dedication. (In many medieval Uses, such as that of Sarum, this Gospel, John 10, 22-38, was read on the octave of a dedication.)
This feast also took place in the Old Testament, whence we read in the book of Maccabees (1 Macc. 4, 42-43), “Judah Maccabee chose priests without blemish, and they cleansed the holy places.” Now the Church Militant can be cleansed, but not the Church Triumphant… * the Church on earth is built in baptism (i.e. washing), and in teaching, and in penance; here are heard (the noise of) the axe and every sort of metal tool, which are the many kinds of penances and disciplines in the Church Militant, … but the temple of Solomon signifies the Church Triumphant, in which these things are not heard.
The Jews celebrated the dedication for eight days, whence it seems that we likewise ought to solemnly keep the feast of the dedication for eight days. But it is strange that they celebrated it for eight days, when they kept Passover and Pentecost for only seven. The reason for this is that this festivity especially signifies the eternal dedication, in which the Church, that is, the holy soul, will be dedicated to God, that is, will be so joined to him that it cannot be transferred to other uses. And this will take place on the octave of resurrection, and therefore, in the New Testament, this feast has an octave. (In Durandus’ original text, this paragraph is actually where the red star is marked above, interrupting his allegorical passage about cleansing the Church.)
In the Office of Matins are said those Psalms in which there is a mention of doors, which represent fear and love, as in the Psalm “The earth is the Lord’s”, where it says “Lift up your gates, o ye princes” (23); those in which there is mention of an altar, as in the Psalm, “Judge me, o God, etc.” (42, not in the Roman Use); those in which there is mention of a city, such as “Our God is a refuge” and “Great is the Lord” (45 and 47); those in which there is mention of atria and gates, such as “How lovely are thy tabernacles” and “Her foundations are in the holy mountains.” (83 and 86)
Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz during the consecration of the seminary chapel of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the FSSP Seminary in Denton, Nebraska. After sprinkling the outside of the church with holy water, the bishop knocks on the door three times with his crozier, saying the words of Psalm 23, “Lift up your gates, o ye princes, and be lifted up, ye everlasting doors, and the king of glory shall come in.” From within, the deacon answers from the same psalm, “Who is this king of glory?”, and the bishop replies “the Lord of hosts, he is the king of Glory!” A porter then opens the door, and the bishop blesses the threshold, saying “Behold the sign of the Cross, let all phantasms flee,” then, as he enters, “Peace to this house” to which the deacon replies “Upon thy entrance. Amen.”
But the question arises, why is the Psalm “O Lord, God of my salvation” (87) said? To this, some say that it is because burials are mentioned in it, but this reason is not correct, since the Psalm does not speak of such burials as those in which the bodies of the faithful dwell, or are buried in a church, but rather of the burials of the wicked. Wherefore, we say that that Psalm is said because it is a penitential Psalm, and treats especially of prayer, which is to take place in a church; whence it is said therein, “Let my prayer come in before thee.” And the Lord says of the Church, “My house shall be called a house of prayer.”
But the eighth Psalm (seventh in the Roman Use) is “He that dwelleth in the aid of the Most High” (90), that is, in the Church, in which it is said, “thou hast made the most High thy refuge,” because the Church is founded above all, on the height of the mountains.
The last antiphon, that of the Magnificat at Vespers, is “Eternal peace,” since the dedication is celebrated for this reason, that we may dedicated, and have that eternal peace.
(This antiphon, incorrectly labelled in the video as the Salve regina, is found in the Dedication Office in most medieval Uses, with a number of minor textual variations. Note the long melisma on the O of the last ‘domui.’ “Pax aeterna ab Aeterno huic domui; pax perennis Verbum Patris sit pax huic domui; pacem pius Consolator praestet huic domui. - Eternal peace this house from the Eternal One; may the Word of the Father be everlasting peace to this house; may the Holy Comforter grant peace to this house.”)
… To this feast certainly belongs Jacob’s vision of the ladder, and the angels ascending and descending, which is to say, he saw the whole Church in one vision, and raised up a stone, that is, Christ, who is the cap-stone, and the corner-stone, and foundation, who supports all the rest. He raised it up as a title of proclamation, of memory, of triumph, pouring oil upon it. For Jacob, who signifies the bishop, poured oil upon the stone, that is, on Christ, to show forth His anointings, and prophesied the same, saying, “How terrible is this place! this is no other but the house of God, and the gate of heaven. Indeed the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not.” (Gen. 28, 17 and 16)
For the Church is terrible to demons, because of the likeness which it has to God, and therefore this is the Introit at the Mass, “Terrible is this place.” There follows “and it will be called the court of God.” The blessed Gregory added these words of his own initiative, since God is ready to hear us therein, as the Lord said to Solomon, “I have heard thy prayer etc.” But why it is terrible is shown in the verse, “The Lord hath reigned, he is clothed with beauty,” that is, in His members, and therefore the Church is terrible to demons. …
The Gradual “This place”, that is, the material church, “is holy”, because it is sanctified for this purpose, that the Lord may hear payers in it, and therefore it gives holiness to those praying. For Solomon prayed that the Lord might hear those who pray there, and the Lord said to him, “Thy prayer is heard.”
From the Breviary according to the use of the Roman Curia, 1529, the end of the sermon for the second day in the Octave of All Saints.
We believe that this day’s festivity also belongs to the priests of Christ, to the doctors, levites and other confessors and monks; in whose hearts virtue flourished, because the world had faded away. Because the will of the flesh was mortified, true charity was fervent in them, and because they were dead to the world, they lived within in it as the Saints live in Heaven. For the more a man takes delight in this world below, the more is he separated from the love of the things of Heaven. Therefore, these holy men, fleeing the world that passes and the corrupting passions of the soul, had God before them and the Angels at their sides, and so merited to be brought by the Angels into the kingdom of Heaven.
Scenes from the Lives of the Holy Hermits, or “Thebaid”, by Paolo Uccello, 1460s; now in the Academia Gallery in Florence. (Public domainimage from Wikimedia Commons.)
From the Breviary of St Pius V, 1568, a passage from the fifth sermon on the feast of All Saints by St. Bernard of Clairvaux, Abbot and Doctor of the Church, read on November 6th. (In the painting above, St Bernard is represented in the lower left hand corner as the Virgin Mary appears to him.)
What does it profit the Saints that we should praise them or glorify them? What does this solemnity of ours benefit them? What are earthly honors to them whom, according to faithful promise of the Son, the heavenly Father honors? What are our commendations to them? They are full. It is indeed so, dearly beloved; the Saints have no need of our goods, and our devotion gives them nothing. It is for our sake, and not for theirs, that we honor their memory. … It is commonly said, “Out of sight, out of mind”. (literally “What the eye sees not, the heart does not long for.”) The memory is a kind of sight, and to think of the Saints, is to see them in a certain way. Such is our portion in the land of the living; no small portion, indeed, if love accompany remembrance as it ought. And so I say, our dwelling is in heaven, though in manner very different from theirs. For they are truly there, where we long to be; they are there in presence, we only in thought.
The Glory of All the Saints, by the Tuscan painter Giovanni da San Giovanni, 1630; fresco in the apse of the church of the Four Crowned Martyrs, Rome; the titular Saints of this church share their feast day with the octave of All Saints.
For many years now, the Fraternity of St Peter’s church in Rome, Santissima Trinità dei Pellegrini, has had the custom of exposing all its relics for the veneration of the faithful on All Saints’ day. In the evening, before Vespers, each reliquary is presented before the congregation, and the name of the Saint or Saints whose relics in it are read out. On the side altar of St Matthew, St Phillip Neri, who founded the confraternity that built the church, is given special prominence. (The bronze reliquary seen to the left side of the altar here is also of St Phillip, but is not held up before the faithful, since it is incredibly heavy.) Our thanks once again for the pictures to Don Elvir Tabaković, a former professional photographer from Croatia who is now in religious life, and using his skills to celebrate the beauty of the liturgy.
The sacristan returns one of the relics to its place on the altar.
Relics on the high altar.
At the end, the church’s piece of the True Cross is processed down and up the central aisle, before the faithful are blessed with it.
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