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| St Elizabeth of Portugal, by Francisco de Zurbarán (1598-1664), ca. 1635. Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons. |
The 1969 new General Calendar observes the feast of Saint Elizabeth of Portugal on July 4, but in the U.S. it is transferred to July 5, as if the celebration of this great Catholic monarch, whom we shall meet momentarily, were a distraction from our exuberance over American democracy. Instead, the Proper Calendar for the dioceses of the United States of America lists July 4 as “Independence Day.” Whatever one’s views of the American Founding, surely it is a stretch to consider it a liturgically significant event, like the victorious death of a saint or a mystery in the life of Christ. There is nothing wrong with celebrating a secular holiday or offering up a Mass for one’s country, but it is certainly weird for a Church to spend half her time demoting the sacred to the level of the secular (as we see with flattened, happy-clappy celebrations of the Mass) and the other half elevating the secular to the level of the sacred.
Fortunately, there is an alternative. As Saint Augustine once famously observed, the point at which the City of God intersects with the earthly city is in their common desire for peace. American Catholics can be grateful to their country for the temporal peace they enjoy, and they in turn can contribute to their country’s welfare by sharing and acting on the peace that only Christ can give. Peace is also a theme that unites a remarkable series of feast days, mostly from the traditional universal calendar, that begin on July 4 and end on July 9. It is by reflecting on this week of saints that we can gain valuable lessons in the Catholic engagement of the body politic.
Ghent Altapiece
Commemoration of All Holy Popes, July 4
A little-known feast day that never made it to the universal calendar, but was allowed to be observed in some places prior to the Second Vatican Council, was the Commemoration of All Holy Popes. Fittingly, this commemoration fell within what was once the Octave of Saints Peter and Paul which, before it was suppressed in 1955, began on June 29 and ended on July 6. Of the 266 Vicars of Christ that the Catholic Church has had so far, around 80 are canonized saints – a fairly impressive percentile given some of the notoriously corrupt Pontiffs that history has produced. And if we interpret today’s commemoration to include all holy popes and not simply those who have been canonized, we may also reverently call to mind Venerable Pius XII (reigned 1939-58), Blessed Pius IX (reigned 1846-78), and God knows who else – which we do not mean flippantly but literally. There is even a saint who was an anti-pope, Saint Hippolytus of Rome (anti-reigned 217-236), though I suppose we should not number him among those honored today.
One of the duties of a Pope is to keep peace within the household of God by promoting mutual charity and, if necessary, excommunicating various wolves in sheep’s clothing such as heretics and schismatics. But the papacy has also assumed an important role in promoting civic peace, and it is fascinating to reflect on the diversity of papal policies used over the centuries to that end.
The Meeting of Pope Leo the Great and Attila the Hun, by Francisco Solimena, early 18th c.
Saint Leo the Great faced Attila the Hun unarmed and out in the open to protect the city of Rome, while Venerable Pius XII and Saint John XXIII used their diplomatic skills behind the scenes to save countless Jews from Hitler’s death camps and to end the Cuban Missile Crisis, respectively. [1] Saint John Paul II used both methods, openly supporting the Solidarity Movement in Poland and secretly collaborating with President Ronald Reagan and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher to end the Cold War and bring about the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
President Ronald Reagan Meeting with Pope John Paul II at The Fairbanks Airport in Alaska, 5/2/1984
Other holy Popes did not shrink from the sober truth that peace often comes at the cost of war. Blessed Urban II called for the First Crusade in response to an appeal from the Byzantine Emperor to protect Christians in the Middle East, while Saint Pius V assembled the Holy League and personally recruited its heroic leader, Don John of Austria, to defeat a mighty Turkish navy at the Battle of Lepanto. Finally, some holy Pontiffs promoted peace by temporarily disturbing it, generating political strife by publicly chastising Christian rulers such as Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV and Queen Elizabeth I of England: the latter was excommunicated by Pius V, and the former was excommunicated three times by Gregory VII (d. 1085).
Saint Maria Goretti, July 6
Maria Goretti (1890-1902) is sometimes called the “Saint Agnes of the Twentieth Century” because like her fourth-century counterpart, Maria was a holy youth who chose chastity over life. After the death of her father, Maria’s impoverished family moved in with the Serenelli family. Though illiterate, Maria had great piety: she prayed a rosary for the repose of her father’s soul every night and visited the shrine of Our Lady of Graces as often as she could.
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| The only known photograph of St Maria Goretti, taken in 1902. (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.) |
One of the Serenellis was a twenty year-old man named Alessandro. Alessandro was a virgin, but as he recounted later in his life, he fell under the influence of “print, mass-media, and bad examples which are followed by the majority of young people without even thinking.” [2] Despite his friendship with Maria, he decided to seduce her, and after she rebuffed him twice, he resolved to kill her if she resisted again.
