Two Soldiers Advance to Sainthood

The Dicastery for the Causes of Saints issued a decree today recognizing the “offering of life” of two men who served in the military of their respective nations, the American Army chaplain Fr Emil Kapaun (1916-51), and an Italian carabiniere named Salvo D’Acquisto (1920-43. The carabinieri are a national police force similar to the FBI, but are part of the Italian army.) The term “offering of life” is used in reference to Saints who did not die for the Faith in the strict sense, that is, they were not killed out of hatred of the Faith, nor in defense of it, but who met their deaths heroically and as an act of Christian charity. (The most famous example in our era would certainly be St Maximilian Kolbe.) They should now be formally known with the title “Venerable”. 

Left: The Venerable Fr Emil Kapaun, chaplain of the United States Army and captain, awarded the Medal of Honor and the Bronze Star. Photograph taken in 1950, shortly before his departure for Korea.

Right: The Venerable Salvo D’Acquisto, Vice-brigadier of the Italian carabinieri; photographed ca. 1939, age 19.

Fr Kapaun was born in 1916 to a Kansas farming family of German-Bohemian descent, and entered seminary formation at Conception Abbey in Conception, Missouri in 1930; he studied theology at Kenrick Seminary in St Louis, and was ordained a priest for his home diocese in 1940. After being appointed by his bishop as an assistant chaplain at a local Army base during World War II, he felt called to enter the military chaplaincy full-time, and was granted permission to do so in July of 1944. He finished his training in March of the following year, and was sent to the Asian theater, serving in Burma and India as the war was coming to an end. In recognition of his service, he was promoted to captain in January 1946.

In early 1950, he was sent to serve with the occupying American forces in Japan, but when South Korea was attacked by the North in June of that year, his unit was one of the first to be shipped over in its defense. His service in the field of combat was exemplary, not only for his assiduous celebration of the Sacraments, but also for his assistance to the wounded, and recovery and burial of the dead. After barely more than two weeks on the battlefield, he earned a Bronze Star for rescuing a wounded soldier in the midst of heavy enemy fire. He was always particularly careful to write to the families of the fallen to let them know that their loved ones had died with the ministrations of a priest.

A famous photograph of Fr Kapaun celebrating Mass on the hood of his jeep, Oct. 7, 1950. 

In later September of 1950, the United Nations forces, led by those of the United States, launched a counter-offensive which within a little more than a month pushed the invading Communist forces back almost to the Chinese border. In early November, however, China invaded in defense of North Korea, and in the course of this new phase of the war, Fr Kapaun’s battalion was taken prisoner. They were held in a POW camp in Pyoktong, in the extreme north of enemy territory, in appalling conditions; it is reported that the prisoners died at the rate of more than twenty a day.

Despite his own sufferings, Fr Kapaun continued to serve the men with extraordinary heroism, giving them his own meager food, sneaking out of the camp to steal more food for them, washing those who were too weak to wash themselves, and visiting the men under cover of darkness, which was strictly forbidden, in order to pray with them and keep up their spirits. In May of 1951, he succumbed to pneumonia, aggravated by long-standing malnutrition. A few years after the 1953 Korean armistice, his remains were repatriated to the United States. He is buried in the cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Wichita, Kansas.

Image from Wikimedia Commons by Chris Riggs, CC BY-SA 4.0

Salvo D’Acquisto was born in Naples in 1920, the eldest of eight children, and enrolled in the carabinieri as a volunteer in 1939, shortly before the outbreak of World War II. After serving for two years in Libya, which was then an Italian colony, and being wounded in fighting with the English, he returned to Italy, and was sent to an officer training school in Florence. Upon graduating as a vice-brigadier, he was posted in late 1942 to a small rural town called Castello di Torre in Pietra, about 15 miles to the west of Rome.

In July of 1943, shortly after the Allies invaded Sicily, Benito Mussolini, who had ruled the country since 1922, was removed from power and arrested by order of the king, resulting in a complete collapse of Italian military forces abroad, and civil war at home. In the midst of the chaos, the region where D’Acquisto was stationed was occupied by the Germans. On the evening of September 22, two of their soldiers were killed, and two others wounded, by an accidental explosion while they were inspecting an abandoned munitions depot in the area. The German military authorities, believing this to be an act of deliberate sabotage on the part of the locals, demanded that the carabinieri cooperate with their investigation.

At the time, there was in effect a standing order that such acts should be met with reprisals against the civilian population at a ratio of ten for every soldier killed. The next morning, Salvo attempted to persuade the Germans that the explosion was accidental, but his plea was rejected. Twenty-four residents of the area were arrested and brought to the nearby town of Palidoro; Salvo was seized at his station and brought there under armed guard. After insisting upon their innocence, the men were given shovels and forced to dig a mass grave for themselves.

When he realized that the Germans intended to make good on the threat and kill them all, Salvo stepped forward and proclaimed that he alone was responsible for what had happened. At this, the prisoners were set free, and D’Acquisto was shot by a firing squad. He was 22 years old. Even the German officers themselves recognized the nobility of his sacrifice of his own life to save the innocent, saying to some of the locals, “Your brigadier died a hero, unmoved in the face of death.” Initially interred in the area, he was removed after the war to a military cemetery near Naples, and in 1986, to a chapel of the basilica of St Clare in the city itself.

The monument on the site of his execution in Palidoro. 

His grave in the basilica of St Clare in Naples. (© José Luiz Bernardes Ribeiro, CC BY-SA 4.0)

“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”

The Canonization of Pope St Pius X

Pope St Pius X died on August 20th, 1914, and was canonized by Pope Pius XII just under 40 years later, on May 29, 1954; this was one of the most significant events of the first Marian Year, proclaimed by the Pope to commemorate the centenary of the definition of the Immaculate Conception. His feast day was originally assigned to September 3rd, the first free day on the calendar after that of his death, and is still kept there in the traditional Roman Rite; in the post-Conciliar Rite, he was removed to August 21st. Here is a beautiful video of the event from the archives of the Italian newsreel company Istituto Luce, with my translation of the narration. Below it, I have added a video of raw footage of the event (without soundtrack) from British Pathé.

He has become a Saint, a glorious citizen of heaven, this citizen to whom Riese raised this monument. Here was born nearly 120 years ago Giuseppe Sarto, from here he went out to go to school, 7 kilometers on foot. His room has remained that of a poor country curate; neither as cardinal nor as Pope did Giuseppe Sarto want to decorate it nicely. The kitchen is still that where his mother cooked polenta (a very typically northern Italian dish) for him, when there was any; here any visitor may enter, even the most humble, and sign the guestbook. ‘Xe un Cristian anca lu’, (Venetian dialect for ‘he’s also a Christian’) says the guard. From all over the world, the faithful have come for the canonization of Pius X. The Christian people were the first to want this; there followed the miracles. The process was conducted rapidly as few others have, and forty years after his death, Pius X is a Saint; Pius V waited 100 years longer. The flag has come from Riese, brought by the mayor and an official delegation; the nieces have also come, Maria De Bei and Giuseppina Parolin, and all the Bonin, names which speak Venetian, as the Saint liked. (Italian Prime Minister Mario) Scelba leads the special Italian delegation; there arrive also (President Luigi) Einaudi e Donna Ida (Pellegrini, his wife).

(1:20) It is 5:30 p.m., in the evening, the time at which the procession exits the bronze doors. In the line led by the Swiss Guards and the ‘sediari’ (the gentlemen who carried the sedes gestatoria), 460 bishops and archbishops, and 42 cardinals. On the sedia gestatoria, the Pope moves forward. He wears the falda, amice, alb, stole, the great cope embroidered with gold, (closed) with the morse, the triple tiara. On the platform in front of the basilica, he gets off the sedia gestatoria and ascends to the throne to sit, with Cardinals Canali and Bruno at his sides, and the prince-assistant at the throne, Don Giuseppe Aspreno-Colonna. As the Tu es Petrus is sung, the cardinals come up to the throne one by one to offer their obedience. The rite begins. In the name of the Cardinal Procurator, the Consistorial Advocate reads the “postulatio” (the formal request for the canonization), to which the Secretary for Briefs answers that the Pontifical crown which adorned the head of Pius X will from today shine with splendor of sanctity. A miracle of the Saint – the mirrors are transformed into instruments of devotion. The Pope decrees and defines as Saint and Confessor Blessed Pope Pius X, the Saint given by Providence to our times.

(2:36) In a crystal casket, the venerated body, accompanied by an immense line of ecclesiastics, makes its way through those streets of Rome where Pius X passed no longer after his assumption to the throne; around him, the youth whom he wished to be admitted at the age of seven to the table of the Lord. The casket passes through fervent emotion of the faithful, such as Pius X felt around himself, but perhaps never saw so numerous during his difficult Pontificate. His blue eyes shine in his intact body, as it was found when they exhumed him at the beginning of the canonization process. Yesterday, the Pope remembered the glorious milestones of the reign of Pius X, in every way leading back to unity in Christ: the renewal of ecclesiastical law, his combat against the modernist heresy, but these people remember above all the shepherd, who while he was alive showed in his sweet and charitable good-will the light of holiness. Santa Maria Maggiore shines with the lights of the Marian year, but from the mystical rose of the Saints, Pius X contemplates the glory of Mary.

From British Pathé:

The Canonization of St John Bosco

Today is the feast of St John Bosco, who is well known as the founder of the Salesian Order, and as one of the great pioneers in modern Catholic education. Something about him which perhaps many English-speakers are less aware of is that he lived in a period in which the government of the state he came from, the kingdom of Savoy in north-western Italy, was extremely hostile to the Church. As it conquered one part of the Italian peninsula after another over the mid-19th century, (the political movement known as the “Risorgimento”), it would rob the Church in each region blind, suppressing religious orders, and forcing the closure of countless Catholic schools, hospitals, orphanages and cultural institutions, to say nothing of the churches themselves. Finally, in 1870, it conquered and despoiled the Papal state, at which the Popes became, in the phrase of the day, “prisoners in the Vatican”, refusing to cooperate with the robber-state’s illegal occupation of their country by setting foot within it. The Matins lessons for Don Bosco refer to this state of affairs when they say that he “more than once he helped the Roman Pontiff to temper the evils which derived from laws passed against the Church at that time.”

In 1922, the same year that Pius XI was elected, the Italian Fascists led by Benito Mussolini came to power, and although they would do many terrible things over the next 23 years, it cannot be denied that they also did some good things. One of these was to recognize that the state of cold war which existed between the Church and the Italian state was harmful to both, and needed to end. Not long after coming to power, Mussolini agreed to open negotiations to settle the Church’s legal status, and compensate it for the vast theft which Italy had perpetrated against it. The resulting treaties were signed by representatives of the Church and the Italian kingdom on February 11, 1929; they are known as the Lateran Treaties, since the signing ceremony was held in the papal palace next to the Lateran Basilica.

Don Bosco was the very first person to be beatified after the Lateran treaties went into effect, on June 2 of that same year. (This day is, ironically, now the July 4th of the modern Republic of Italy, the anniversary of the constitutional referendum of 1946 that turfed out the Savoiard monarchy, after the king’s appalling performance during World War 2.) Of course, the Lateran treaties did not magically erase all the tension between the Church and state, but this beatification was very much a celebration not only of a great Saint, but of the restoration of some measure of peace to a society long torn by serious internal strife.

Don Bosco was canonized 5 years later, on April 1, Easter Sunday of 1934. Here are two pieces of footage (without commentary) from the time of the canonization, from the archives of the Italian newsreel company Luce. The first shows events surrounding the canonization at St Peter’s in Rome, and the second, a procession in the city of Turin, where he is buried.

The Feast of Pope St Pius X

From a discourse of His Holiness Pope Pius XII, on the canonization of Pope St Pius X.

Sanctity, which was the guide and inspiration of the undertakings of Pius X, shines forth even more clearly in the daily acts of his personal life. Before applying it to others, he put into practice in himself his program of returning all things to unity in Christ. As a humble parish priest, as bishop, as the Supreme Pontiff, he believed that the sanctity to which God called destined him was that of a priest. What sanctity is more pleasing to God in a priest of the New Law than that which belongs to a representative of the Eternal High Priest, Jesus Christ, Who left to His Church in the holy Mass the perennial memorial, the perpetual renovation of the Sacrifice of the Cross, until He shall come for the last judgment; and Who with this Sacrament of the Blessed Eucharist has given Himself as the food of our souls: “He that eateth this bread shall live forever.”

A priest above all in the Eucharistic ministry: this is the most faithful portrait of St. Pius X. To serve the mystery of the Blessed Eucharist as a priest, and to fulfill the command of Our Savior “Do this in memory of me” (Luke 22:19), was his way. From the day of his sacred ordination until his death as Pope, he knew no other possible way to reach such an heroic love of God, and to make a such generous return to that Redeemer of the world, Who by means of the Eucharist “poured out the riches of His divine Love for men” (Council of Trent, Session 13, chapter 2). One of the most significant proofs of his priestly sensibility was his ardent concern for the renewal of the dignity of worship, and his concern to overcome the prejudices of an erroneous practice, by resolutely promoting the frequent, and even daily, Communion of the faithful at the table of the Lord, without hesitation, leading children thereto, lifting them up, as it were, in his own arms, and offering them to the embrace of God hidden on the altars. From this, sprang up a new springtime of the Eucharistic life of the Bride of Christ.

In the profound vision which he had of the Church as a society, Pius X recognized in the Eucharist the power to nourish substantially its interior life, and to raise it high above all other human associations. Only the Eucharist, in which God gives Himself to man, can lay the foundations of a social life worthy of its members, cemented by love more than by authority, rich in its works and aimed at the perfection of individuals: a life, that is, “hidden with Christ in God.”

A providential example for today’s world, where earthly society is becoming more and more a mystery to itself, and anxiously searches for a way give itself a soul! Let it look, then, for its model at the Church, gathered around its altars. There in the sacrament of the Eucharist mankind truly discovers and recognizes its past, present, and future as a unity in Christ. Conscious of, and strong in his solidarity with Christ and his fellow men, each member of either Society, the earthly and the supernatural one, will be able to draw from the altar an interior life of personal dignity and personal worth, such as today is almost lost through insistence on technology and by excessive organization of the whole of existence, of work and even leisure. Only in the Church, the holy Pontiff seems to repeat, and though Her, in the Eucharist which is ‘‘life hidden with Christ in God,” is to be found the secret and source of the renewal of society’s life.

Hence follows the grave responsibility of those who, as ministers of the altar, have the duty of it is to open up to souls the saving treasure of the Eucharist. There are indeed many forms of activity which a priest can exercise for the salvation of the modern world; but only one of them is without a doubt the most worthy, the most efficacious, and the most lasting in its effects: to act as dispenser of the Holy Eucharist, after first nourishing himself thereof abundantly. His work would not be that of a priest, if, even through zeal for souls, he were to put his Eucharistic vocation in second place. Let priests conform their outlook to the inspired wisdom of Pius X, and orient every activity of their life and apostolate by the sun of the Eucharist.

The canonization ceremony of St Pius X, May 29, 1954. The urn with his relics can be seen in front of the altar of St Peter’s in the lower left; it now rests in the altar of the Presentation in the left aisle of the church.

The Seventh Centenary of St Thomas Aquinas’ Canonization

The Church today celebrates the seventh centenary of the canonization of St Thomas Aquinas. Although popular devotion to him began as soon as he died, the Dominicans did not begin officially collecting testimonies to his sanctity until 1317, over 40 years after his death. Representatives of the Order presented their evidence to Pope John XXII (1316-34, the second Avignon Pope) in an audience the following year, at which the process received formal approval to continue. One of the most famous stories about Thomas is that a cardinal objected to his cause because he had performed no miracles, to which the postulator answered, “Quot articuli, tot miracula - there are as many miracles as there are articles (in the Summa.)” The cause was concluded in five years, and the same Pope issued the bull of canonization on July 18, 1323; as was then the custom, it includes an appendix of some of the Saint’s more notable posthumous miracles. His feast day is traditionally kept on March 7th, the date of his death, but the Neo-Gallican uses of Paris and various other French sees moved it to this date to keep it out of Lent.

This altarpiece by the Sienese painter Lippo Memmi (1291 ca. – 1356) is one of the earliest to be made after the canonization. It is housed in a church in Pisa, Italy, dedicated to St Catherine of Alexandria, patron Saint of philosophers, which formerly belonged to the Dominican Order. (All images from Wikimedia Commons by Sailko, CC BY 3.0)

Above St Thomas, the Lord sits on a throne of angels, and around his head are Moses, St Paul and the Four Evangelists, figures representing his mastery of all the sources of Divine Revelation.

On the book in Thomas’ hands are written the words of Proverbs 8, 7, “Veritatem meditabitur guttur meum, et labia mea detestabuntur impium. – My mouth shall meditate truth, and my lips shall hate wickedness”, the first words of the Summa Contra Gentiles. Of the four books lying flat under it, the one on the left is the Bible, with the first words of Genesis 1, 1, while the other shows the beginning of Thomas’ commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard. (In medieval universities, the final step to obtain a doctorate in theology was the writing and defending of such a commentary; St Robert Bellarmine was the first person to be granted a doctorate in theology by writing one on Thomas’ Summa Theologica.) The two books under them are written with a purely ornamental form of letter called pseudo-kufic script, used by medieval artists to represent languages that they did not know such as Greek and Arabic; this would signify the superiority of Christian philosophy and theology over those of the pagans and Muslims.

Continue Reading this Article. . .

St Margaret of Hungary and Hagiographical Skepticism

On the calendar of the Dominican Order in both the Ordinary and Extraordinary Forms, today is the feast of St Margaret of Hungary, who died on this day in the year 1270 at the age of 28. In earlier versions of the Dominican liturgical books, she is found on other days. When she was equivalently beatified with an approbatio cultus in 1789, her death day was occupied by the feast of St Peter’s Chair in Rome; she was therefore assigned to January 26th. In 1943, she was formally canonized by Pope Pius XII, and her feast moved to the 19th, and finally, with the suppression of St Peter’s Chair, to the 18th.

Ss Elizabeth, Margaret and Henry of Hungary, depicted by Simone Martini in a fresco in the lower basilica of St Francis at Assisi, 1318. (public domain image from Wikipedia.)

St Margaret was the daughter of Bela IV, a king of the Arpad dynasty, which ruled Hungary for almost exactly three centuries, from 1000-1301; six members of this family have been canonized by the Catholic Church, three men and three woman, and one by the Orthodox Church. At the time of her birth, the Dominican Order was still very young, but rapidly expanding, and Margaret spent her earliest years in a convent of Dominican nuns in the city of Veszprém. When she was twelve, her parents established a convent for her on an island in the Danube where it passes through Budapest; this island, now a public park, is fairly large, over a mile and a half long, although only 550 yards across at the widest. Before the Ottoman invasion of Hungary and the concomitant destruction of all the religious foundations, it was also the home of Premonstratensian, Franciscan and Augustinian communities, the ruins of which can still be seen there, but it is still to this day called after her “Margaret Island.”

Seven years after her death, a cause for her canonization was begun. Of course, most of the sisters who had known her personally were still alive, and they gave extremely detailed and thorough depositions about her life, as did many others. The entire bulk of this material is preserved, a very unusual case among pre-Congregation Saints; it attests with sobriety, and great consistency among the many witnesses, to a significant number of miracles. While still at Veszprém, Margaret once repeated the miracle which is practically the only thing known about the life of St Benedict’s sister Scholastica, forcing two Dominican friars to prolong their visit to the convent by praying for a heavy downpour that prevented their departure. As the revised Butler’s Lives of the Saints puts it, “there are so many such incidents vouched for by the sisters in their evidence on oath that it is difficult to stretch coincidence so far as to explain them all.” One of the persons interviewed was a servant girl at the convent named Agnes, who on an extremely dark night fell into a well and nearly drowned, but was saved by Margaret’s prayers. (This took place while the latter was still alive.) This is also attested by almost all of the other persons deposed.

St Margaret shares her current feast day with a Roman martyr named Prisca, whose cultus is very ancient, but of whom nothing is known at all for certain, not even her dates. Her entry in the revised Butler’s states that “…. it is unquestionable that the so-called ‘acts’, dating at earliest from the tenth century, are historically worthless, for they simply reproduce, with slight changes, the legendary Passion of St Tatiana.” When reading this today, I was struck by this thought: but for the historical accident that the depositions given for St Margaret’s cause survive, would it not say something similar about her? A heavy miraculous element is frequently treated by hagiographical scholars as a telltale sign that the life of the Saint is unreliable, as is the repetition of miracles for which other Saints are famous. And yet, these miracles are attested by numerous eyewitnesses, people who sincerely believed that they were true, and that they would be committing a very grave, indeed, a damnable sin, were they to lie under oath. I had occasion to read a fair amount of this material with one of my Latin teachers many years ago, and it would take the stone heart of a Voltaire to think that they were involved in some weird conspiracy of lying.

As I have written on other occasions, there are many cases of Saints whose lives as we have received them are difficult or impossible for a reasonable person to accept as accurate. Perhaps the case of St Margaret should serve as a cautionary tale, that there may perhaps not be as many such cases as the modern hagiographical skeptics would have us believe.

The Canonization of Pope St Pius X

Pope St Pius X died on August 20th, 1914, and was canonized by Pope Pius XII just under 40 years later, on May 29, 1954; this was one of the most significant events of the first Marian Year, proclaimed by the Pope to commemorate the centenary of the definition of the Immaculate Conception. His feast day was originally assigned to September 3rd, the first free day on the calendar after that of his death, and is still kept there in the Extraordinary Form; in the Ordinary Form, he was removed to August 21st. Here is a beautiful video of the event from the archives of the Italian newsreel company Istituto Luce, with my translation of the narration. Below it, I have added a video of raw footage of the event (without soundtrack) from British Pathé.

He has become a Saint, a glorious citizen of heaven, this citizen to whom Riese raised this monument. Here was born nearly 120 years ago Giuseppe Sarto, from here he went out to go to school, 7 kilometers on foot. His room has remained that of a poor country curate; neither as cardinal nor as Pope did Giuseppe Sarto want to decorate it nicely. The kitchen is still that where his mother cooked polenta (a very typically northern Italian dish) for him, when there was any; here any visitor may enter, even the most humble, and sign the guestbook. ‘Xe un Cristian anca lu’, (Venetian dialect for ‘he’s also a Christian’) says the guard. From all over the world, the faithful have come for the canonization of Pius X. The Christian people were the first to want this; there followed the miracles. The process was conducted rapidly as few others have, and forty years after his death, Pius X is a Saint; Pius V waited 100 years longer. The flag has come from Riese, brought by the mayor and an official delegation; the nieces have also come, Maria De Bei and Giuseppina Parolin, and all the Bonin, names which speak Venetian, as the Saint liked. (Italian Prime Minister Mario) Scelba leads the special Italian delegation; there arrive also (President Luigi) Einaudi e Donna Ida (Pellegrini, his wife).

(1:20) It is 5:30 p.m., in the evening, the time at which the procession exits the bronze doors. In the line led by the Swiss Guards and the ‘sediari’ (the gentlemen who carried the sedes gestatoria), 460 bishops and archbishops, and 42 cardinals. On the sedia gestatoria, the Pope moves forward. He wears the falda, amice, alb, stole, the great cope embroidered with gold, (closed) with the morse, the triple tiara. On the platform in front of the basilica, he gets off the sedia gestatoria and ascends to the throne to sit, with Cardinals Canali and Bruno at his sides, and the prince-assistant at the throne, Don Giuseppe Aspreno-Colonna. As the Tu es Petrus is sung, the cardinals come up to the throne one by one to offer their obedience. The rite begins. In the name of the Cardinal Procurator, the Consistorial Advocate reads the “postulatio” (the formal request for the canonization), to which the Secretary for Briefs answers that the Pontifical crown which adorned the head of Pius X will from today shine with splendor of sanctity. A miracle of the Saint – the mirrors are transformed into instruments of devotion. The Pope decrees and defines as Saint and Confessor Blessed Pope Pius X, the Saint given by Providence to our times.

(2:36) In a crystal casket, the venerated body, accompanied by an immense line of ecclesiastics, makes its way through those streets of Rome where Pius X passed no longer after his assumption to the throne; around him, the youth whom he wished to be admitted at the age of seven to the table of the Lord. The casket passes through fervent emotion of the faithful, such as Pius X felt around himself, but perhaps never saw so numerous during his difficult Pontificate. His blue eyes shine in his intact body, as it was found when they exhumed him at the beginning of the canonization process. Yesterday, the Pope remembered the glorious milestones of the reign of Pius X, in every way leading back to unity in Christ: the renewal of ecclesiastical law, his combat against the modernist heresy, but these people remember above all the shepherd, who while he was alive showed in his sweet and charitable good-will the light of holiness. Santa Maria Maggiore shines with the lights of the Marian year, but from the mystical rose of the Saints, Pius X contemplates the glory of Mary.

From British Pathé:

The Canonization of St Maria Goretti

From the archives of British Pathé, a brief report on the canonization of St Maria Goretti, which took place on the feast of St John the Baptist in 1950. Today is her feast day in the post-Conciliar Rite, the anniversary of her death in 1902. The report mentions the remarkable fact that her mother, who was then 84, was present for the ceremony, and shows her watching the ceremony from a window overlooking St Peter’s Square; four of her six siblings were in attendance. It does not mention that her assailant, Alessandro Serenetti, who underwent a very remarkable conversion through her direct intervention, was also present. The story of the rest of his life after his conversion is such that it would not be surprising if he himself were someday canonized, much like the Blessed Carino, the assassin of St Peter Martyr.

A Saint and Four Spaniards

In addition to the feast of Pope St Gregory the Great and the Ember Saturday of Lent, today the Church marks the 400th anniversary of one of the most important events of the Counter-Reformation. On this day in the year 1622, Pope Gregory XV canonized four Saints who had played particularly important roles in the reformation of the Church after the terrible shock of the Protestant rebellion: St Philip Neri, the founder of the Oratory; his friend St Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, who was a Basque; the great missionary St Francis Xavier, one of the first members of the Jesuit order, who was from the northern Spanish kingdom of Navarre; and St Theresa of Avila, the foundress of the Discalced Reform of the Carmelites. To this illustrious company was added one medieval Saint, a farmer from Madrid named Isidore, who lived from 1070 ca. – 1130; this was done at the behest of King Philip IV of Spain, whose father, Philip III, was once cured of a deadly illness when the Saint’s relics were brought into his bedroom.

A Spanish painting of the “Five Saints”, as they are known in that country, with Isidore the Farmer in the middle.  

Gregory XV was born of a noble family from Bologna called Ludovisi, baptized with the name Alessandro, and educated in the Jesuits’ school in Rome known as the Roman College, which had been founded by Ignatius himself in 1551. (A total of 17 Popes, including a string of eight in a row in the 16th and 17th centuries, were alumni of this institution.) He would therefore certainly have known early members of the Society who had known the founder personally. After serving for many years as a canon lawyer in the Curia without being ordained to the priesthood, he was appointed archbishop of his native city by Pope Paul V in 1612. He was ordained a priest on the feast of St Gregory, and a bishop on the following May 1, the feast of the Apostles Ss Philip and James. Four years later, he was made a cardinal, and then elected to the Papacy in 1621 on the death of Paul V. It seems likely that he chose Gregory as his papal name in remembrance of the Saint on whose feast day he had been ordained to the priesthood. The great canonization of 1622 was held on the tenth anniversary of his priestly ordination.

An image of the canonization ceremony held in St Peters’ Basilica, and of Pope Gregory reading the decree of canonization. Assuming the image on the left is accurate, note the large decorative wall built around the high altar of the basilica, and the contingent sections of the nave, apse and transepts, almost in the form of an extended liturgical choir. Also note the baldachin over the altar itself, which I believe was a temporary creation, done a few years before Gregory’s successor, Urban VIII, commissioned Gian Lorenzo Bernini to build the much larger permanent baldachin which we see in the basilica today. (Nicked from the Twitter feed of the York Oratory.)

In the 17th century, the power and political influence of the Spanish crown were extremely strong in Italy, since it controlled the kingdom of Naples (the southern third of the peninsula), the islands of Sicily and Sardinia, and the duchy of Milan. This occasioned no small resentment among the Italians, and particularly the Romans, since the Papacy ruled over a large independent state in the center, but was caught up in an endless political tug-of-war between the Spanish and French interests. A popular joke in Rome in 1622, therefore, was that Gregory XV had canonized “a Saint and four Spaniards.”

The Canonization of Pope St Pius X

Pope St Pius X died on August 20th, 1914, and was canonized by Pope Pius XII just under 40 years later, on May 29, 1954; this was one of the most significant events of the first Marian Year, proclaimed by the Pope to commemorate the centenary of the definition of the Immaculate Conception. His feast day was originally assigned to September 3rd, the first free day on the calendar after that of his death, and is still kept there in the traditional rite; in the post-Conciliar rite, he was removed to August 21st. Here is a beautiful video of the event from the archives of the Italian newsreel company Istituto Luce, with my translation of the narration. Below it, I have added a video of raw footage of the event (without soundtrack) from British Pathé.

He has become a Saint, a glorious citizen of heaven, this citizen to whom Riese raised this monument. Here was born nearly 120 years ago Giuseppe Sarto, from here he went out to go to school, 7 kilometers on foot. His room has remained that of a poor country curate; neither as cardinal nor as Pope did Giuseppe Sarto want to decorate it nicely. The kitchen is still that where his mother cooked polenta (a very typically northern Italian dish) for him, when there was any; here any visitor may enter, even the most humble, and sign the guestbook. ‘Xe un Cristian anca lu’, (Venetian dialect for ‘he’s also a Christian’) says the guard. From all over the world, the faithful have come for the canonization of Pius X. The Christian people were the first to want this; there followed the miracles. The process was conducted rapidly as few others have, and forty years after his death, Pius X is a Saint; Pius V waited 100 years longer. The flag has come from Riese, brought by the mayor and an official delegation; the nieces have also come, Maria De Bei and Giuseppina Parolin, and all the Bonin, names which speak Venetian, as the Saint liked. (Italian Prime Minister Mario) Scelba leads the special Italian delegation; there arrive also (President Luigi) Einaudi e Donna Ida (Pellegrini, his wife).

(1:20) It is 5:30 p.m., in the evening, the time at which the procession exits the bronze doors. In the line led by the Swiss Guards and the ‘sediari’ (the gentlemen who carried the sedes gestatoria), 460 bishops and archbishops, and 42 cardinals. On the sedia gestatoria, the Pope moves forward. He wears the falda, amice, alb, stole, the great cope embroidered with gold, (closed) with the morse, the triple tiara. On the platform in front of the basilica, he gets off the sedia gestatoria and ascends to the throne to sit, with Cardinals Canali and Bruno at his sides, and the prince-assistant at the throne, Don Giuseppe Aspreno-Colonna. As the Tu es Petrus is sung, the cardinals come up to the throne one by one to offer their obedience. The rite begins. In the name of the Cardinal Procurator, the Consistorial Advocate reads the “postulatio” (the formal request for the canonization), to which the Secretary for Briefs answers that the Pontifical crown which adorned the head of Pius X will from today shine with splendor of sanctity. A miracle of the Saint – the mirrors are transformed into instruments of devotion. The Pope decrees and defines as Saint and Confessor Blessed Pope Pius X, the Saint given by Providence to our times.

(2:36) In a crystal casket, the venerated body, accompanied by an immense line of ecclesiastics, makes its way through those streets of Rome where Pius X passed no longer after his assumption to the throne; around him, the youth whom he wished to be admitted at the age of seven to the table of the Lord. The casket passes through fervent emotion of the faithful, such as Pius X felt around himself, but perhaps never saw so numerous during his difficult Pontificate. His blue eyes shine in his intact body, as it was found when they exhumed him at the beginning of the canonization process. Yesterday, the Pope remembered the glorious milestones of the reign of Pius X, in every way leading back to unity in Christ: the renewal of ecclesiastical law, his combat against the modernist heresy, but these people remember above all the shepherd, who while he was alive showed in his sweet and charitable good-will the light of holiness. Santa Maria Maggiore shines with the lights of the Marian year, but from the mystical rose of the Saints, Pius X contemplates the glory of Mary.

From British Pathé:

The Feast of Pope St Pius X

From a discourse of His Holiness Pope Pius XII, on the canonization of Pope St Pius X.

Sanctity, which was the guide and inspiration of the undertakings of Pius X, shines forth even more clearly in the daily acts of his personal life. Before applying it to others, he put into practice in himself his program of returning all things to unity in Christ. As a humble parish priest, as bishop, as the Supreme Pontiff, he believed that the sanctity to which God called destined him was that of a priest. What sanctity is more pleasing to God in a priest of the New Law than that which belongs to a representative of the Eternal High Priest, Jesus Christ, Who left to His Church in the holy Mass the perennial memorial, the perpetual renovation of the Sacrifice of the Cross, until He shall come for the last judgment; and Who with this Sacrament of the Blessed Eucharist has given Himself as the food of our souls: “He that eateth this bread shall live forever.”

A priest above all in the Eucharistic ministry: this is the most faithful portrait of St. Pius X. To serve the mystery of the Blessed Eucharist as a priest, and to fulfill the command of Our Savior “Do this in memory of me” (Luke 22:19), was his way. From the day of his sacred ordination until his death as Pope, he knew no other possible way to reach such an heroic love of God, and to make a such generous return to that Redeemer of the world, Who by means of the Eucharist “poured out the riches of His divine Love for men” (Council of Trent, Session 13, chapter 2). One of the most significant proofs of his priestly sensibility was his ardent concern for the renewal of the dignity of worship, and his concern to overcome the prejudices of an erroneous practice, by resolutely promoting the frequent, and even daily, Communion of the faithful at the table of the Lord, without hesitation, leading children thereto, lifting them up, as it were, in his own arms, and offering them to the embrace of God hidden on the altars. From this, sprang up a new springtime of the Eucharistic life of the Bride of Christ.

In the profound vision which he had of the Church as a society, Pius X recognized in the Eucharist the power to nourish substantially its interior life, and to raise it high above all other human associations. Only the Eucharist, in which God gives Himself to man, can lay the foundations of a social life worthy of its members, cemented by love more than by authority, rich in its works and aimed at the perfection of individuals: a life, that is, “hidden with Christ in God.”

A providential example for today’s world, where earthly society is becoming more and more a mystery to itself, and anxiously searches for a way give itself a soul! Let it look, then, for its model at the Church, gathered around its altars. There in the sacrament of the Eucharist mankind truly discovers and recognizes its past, present, and future as a unity in Christ. Conscious of, and strong in his solidarity with Christ and his fellow men, each member of either Society, the earthly and the supernatural one, will be able to draw from the altar an interior life of personal dignity and personal worth, such as today is almost lost through insistence on technology and by excessive organization of the whole of existence, of work and even leisure. Only in the Church, the holy Pontiff seems to repeat, and though Her, in the Eucharist which is ‘‘life hidden with Christ in God,” is to be found the secret and source of the renewal of society’s life.

Hence follows the grave responsibility of those who, as ministers of the altar, have the duty of it is to open up to souls the saving treasure of the Eucharist. There are indeed many forms of activity which a priest can exercise for the salvation of the modern world; but only one of them is without a doubt the most worthy, the most efficacious, and the most lasting in its effects: to act as dispenser of the Holy Eucharist, after first nourishing himself thereof abundantly. His work would not be that of a priest, if, even through zeal for souls, he were to put his Eucharistic vocation in second place. Let priests conform their outlook to the inspired wisdom of Pius X, and orient every activity of their life and apostolate by the sun of the Eucharist.

The canonization ceremony of St Pius X, May 29, 1954. The urn with his relics can be seen in front of the altar of St Peter’s in the lower left; it now rests in the altar of the Presentation in the left aisle of the church.

Photopost: St John Henry Newman Canonization Events (Part 2)

Here are pictures of a couple of more recent events held to celebrate the canonization of St John Henry Newman.

St Augustine of Canterbury Ordinariate Church in San Diego, California, celebrate the canonization of John Henry Newman, with a Solemn Mass in the Ordinariate Rite, followed by the singing of the Te Deum.

The Gospel sung in the nave, a common custom of the Ordinariate Rite.

Continue Reading this Article. . .

Photopost: St John Henry Newman Canonization Events

There really is something extraordinary about the devotion to the newly-canonized St John Henry Newman; in all the years I have worked on NLM, we have never had requests to publicize events related to a canonization, and yet with this one we have had several. Likewise, there were numerous celebrations in Rome in wake of the event; here are some photos of similar sent in by readers from three different places. We will be happy to share others wit our readers if people care to send them in to the usual address, photopost@newliturgicalmovement.org.

Our Lady, Seat of Wisdom – Dublin, Ireland

On Thursday, October 17, a Solemn High Mass and Te Deum were sung to celebrate the canonization at the church of Our Lady, Seat of Wisdom, which was founded by Newman for the Catholic University. After the Mass, a first-class relic of the new Saint was offered for veneration. Photos by John Briody; see the full album here.)

The music was provided by the Lassus Scholars under the direction of Dr Ite O’Donovan; the organist was Dr Paul McKeever.

Continue Reading this Article. . .

St. John Henry Newman, the Traditionalist

This is the kind of atmosphere Newman associated with the Mass.
(The photo is recent — the New Evangelization banner gives it away —
but the feel is timeless, and not simply because the photo is monochrome.)

It is ironic, to say the least, that Cardinal Newman is so often hailed as “the theologian of the Second Vatican Council” or the great proponent of reforming trends within the contemporary Church, when — at least on matters concerning fundamental theology, Christian morality, and sacred liturgy — he argued strenuously and consistently throughout his career against rationalism, emotionalism, liberalism, and tinkeritis. In the realm of liturgy in particular, he was staunchly opposed to ritual modifications and modernizations designed to “meet people where they’re at” or to (as Paul VI put it in his April 3, 1969 Apostolic Constitution promulgating the Novus Ordo) “accommodate the mentality of today.”

Newman was not just anti-liberal (which he says expressly of himself); he was not just a Burkean conservative with a loathing for revolutionary schemes. He was what is now called a traditionalist in matters dogmatic and liturgical, one who would have lambasted the entire conciliar project, and certainly the liturgical reform carried out in its name, as misguided and doomed to failure. “What points in common are there between the easy religion of this day, and the religion of St. Athanasius, or St. Chrysostom? How do the two agree, except that the name of Christianity is given to both of them?” (Parochial and Plain Sermons, sermon 25, Feasting in Captivity).

In his Essay on the Development of Doctrine he claimed that the Fathers of the Church, were they to return to England in his day, would bypass the grand houses of worship owned by the Establishment and seek out a little Catholic chapel, in the liturgy of which they would be able to recognize the spirit and the reality of their own faith:

Did St. Athanasius or St. Ambrose come suddenly to life, it cannot be doubted what communion he would take to be his own. All surely will agree that these Fathers, with whatever opinions of their own, whatever protests, if we will, would find themselves more at home with such men as St. Bernard or St. Ignatius Loyola, or with the lonely priest in his lodging, or the holy sisterhood of mercy, or the unlettered crowd before the altar, than with the teachers or with the members of any other creed. And may we not add, that were those same Saints, who once sojourned, one in exile, one on embassy, at Treves, to come more northward still, and to travel until they reached another fair city, seated among groves, green meadows, and calm streams, the holy brothers would turn from many a high aisle and solemn cloister which they found there, and ask the way to some small chapel where Mass was said in the populous alley or forlorn suburb?

Is there any doubt, did Newman come suddenly to life in our midst, that he would (with consummate politeness and decorum, of course) ask the way to some small chapel where Mass was said as he knew it and said it, and where he would find himself at home?

Newman was, I maintain, a Catholic traditionalist avant la lettre. One can see this in so many writings from every period of his life, and of every genre, that it takes little more than opening pages at random to be able to start a fine personal collection of polished gems of perennial, hence anti-modernist, wisdom. (Next week, I will share an annotated florilegium of such texts.) Because the postconciliar “progressives” in the Church are accustomed to craft and lying, which is how they have obtained the mastery of all important positions right up to the top (for the devil is lavish with his own), Newman has been selectively misquoted and misrepresented as a friend of their cause, which has led to his falling under a cloud of suspicion in the minds of more conservative or traditional Catholics who do not know his work well. He has even been accused of being a modernist himself, although in fact one finds him expressly refuting the modernists, in many cases long before their ideas became fashionable and widespread.

Moreover, it is worthy of note that Newman has always been a favorite author for traditionalist writers. Michael Davies edited a volume of his sermons entitled Newman Against the Liberals; Arlington House publisher and conservative American littérateur Neil McCaffrey, founder of The Latin Mass magazine, quotes Newman frequently; and two of our most appreciated Catholic clergy who were former Anglicans, Fr. John Hunwicke and Fr. Richard Cipolla, are steeped in the thought and words of the great Cardinal.

Another recent photo, but it might as well be from 19th-century England.

Newman played a crucial role in my own intellectual and spiritual “conversion” to traditional Catholicism. In college, I got hold of the one-volume Ignatius Press edition of his Parochial and Plain Sermons and somehow persevered in reading the entire book, over 1,700 pages of glorious (Anglican!) preaching. It did not make me think of Anglicanism per se; it made me think: “So this is what serious, biblical, Patristic, earnest Christianity looks like! It’s not anything I ever saw in the Catholic Church growing up in suburban New Jersey.” That book was one among many influences (reading Butler’s Lives of the Saints, and Ludwig Ott’s Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, were two more) that prompted me to search harder to find this Christianity, if possible. As we know, some people are led by that search to the Catholic Eastern rites or to Eastern Orthodoxy; others, myself in their number, are led to the full-blooded, 2,000-year old reality of Western or Latin Catholicism that finds its supreme exemplar in the Tridentine Roman Rite and the culture of faith and beauty that surrounds it, of which the postconciliar establishment has been like a photographic negative or an algebraic cancellation.

In the exploration of the tradition(s) of the Church, Newman has long been for me a compagnon de voyage. This fall, with all the buzz about the canonization, I decided to make a study of his writings on worship, reverence, and ritual. What I discovered amazed me anew with its richness, variety, and eloquence. In addition to a few passages already well-known to traditionalists — such as where he says that the Church never abolishes her traditional liturgical rites, but always carries them forward (tell that one to the Consilium!) — Newman has page after page on the beauty and solemnity of Holy Mass, the importance of its aesthetic and linguistic qualities, the spiritual fruitfulness of objective predetermined ceremonial, the ample room that exists within set forms for differences in individual devotional engagement, and similar themes, all of them current in the traditionalist movement.

I therefore decided to create and publish a collection of all of the best texts of this sort that I could find, and the book is now available (from different sources, depending on one’s location). Below are the cover, the description, and links:

DESCRIPTION: The life and thought of John Henry Newman were permeated with the ceremonies and hallowed texts of Christian liturgies, which he celebrated for over six decades, starting as an Anglican deacon in 1824 and ending as a Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church. It comes as no surprise that allusions to liturgical worship are ubiquitous in his writings. The “ordinances” of the Church, her rich panoply of rites handed down through the centuries, are, for Newman, doors or windows into the heavenly society for which we were created and to which God is calling us throughout our lives. As Newman says in a number of places, we are given our time on earth to begin to live, through personal prayer and corporate worship, the life of the blessed in heaven. This new book gathers over seventy texts from a large number and wide range of Newman’s writings in all periods of his career, including forty-four of his incomparably great sermons. That Newman deserves his reputation as one of the finest English writers and theologians of all time is abundantly demonstrated in these spirited and subtle reflections on the duty of reverence, the benefits of ritual, and the privilege of divine worship.

Those in Europe may order from Amazon:

• Amazon.co.uk
• Amazon.de
• Amazon.it
• Amazon.fr
• Amazon.es

Those in the USA may order from Lulu:



Here is the Table of Contents for those who wish to see what is included (the pages are cropped and combined for convenience):

May St. John Henry Newman, who gave us a marvelous example of seeking the light of truth wherever it leads and who persevered in ecclesial prayer with Mary the Mother of God and the Apostles, intercede for us on earth, as we strive to love that same truth and to restore the lost splendor of our divine worship.

Visit www.peterkwasniewski.com for articles, sacred music, and classics reprinted by Os Justi Press (e.g., Benson, Scheeben, Parsch, Guardini, Chaignon, Leen).

The Canonization of Pope St Pius X

Pope St Pius X died on August 20th, 1914, and was canonized by Pope Pius XII just under 40 years later, on May 29, 1954; this was one of the most significant events of the first Marian Year, proclaimed by the Pope to commemorate the centenary of the definition of the Immaculate Conception. His feast day was originally assigned to September 3rd, the first free day on the calendar after that of his death, and is still kept there in the Extraordinary Form; in the Ordinary Form, he was removed to August 21st. Here is a beautiful video of the event from the archives of the Italian newsreel company Istituto Luce, with my translation of the narration. Below it, I have added a video of raw footage of the event (without soundtrack) from British Pathé.

He has become a Saint, a glorious citizen of heaven, this citizen to whom Riese raised this monument. Here was born nearly 120 years ago Giuseppe Sarto, from here he went out to go to school, 7 kilometers on foot. His room has remained that of a poor country curate; neither as cardinal nor as Pope did Giuseppe Sarto want to decorate it nicely. The kitchen is still that where his mother cooked polenta (a very typically northern Italian dish) for him, when there was any; here any visitor may enter, even the most humble, and sign the guestbook. ‘Xe un Cristian anca lu’, (Venetian dialect for ‘he’s also a Christian’) says the guard. From all over the world, the faithful have come for the canonization of Pius X. The Christian people were the first to want this; there followed the miracles. The process was conducted rapidly as few others have, and forty years after his death, Pius X is a Saint; Pius V waited 100 years longer. The flag has come from Riese, brought by the mayor and an official delegation; the nieces have also come, Maria De Bei and Giuseppina Parolin, and all the Bonin, names which speak Venetian, as the Saint liked. (Italian Prime Minister Mario) Scelba leads the special Italian delegation; there arrive also (President Luigi) Einaudi e Donna Ida (Pellegrini, his wife).

(1:20) It is 5:30 p.m., in the evening, the time at which the procession exits the bronze doors. In the line led by the Swiss Guards and the ‘sediari’ (the gentlemen who carried the sedes gestatoria), 460 bishops and archbishops, and 42 cardinals. On the sedia gestatoria, the Pope moves forward. He wears the falda, amice, alb, stole, the great cope embroidered with gold, (closed) with the morse, the triple tiara. On the platform in front of the basilica, he gets off the sedia gestatoria and ascends to the throne to sit, with Cardinals Canali and Bruno at his sides, and the prince-assistant at the throne, Don Giuseppe Aspreno-Colonna. As the Tu es Petrus is sung, the cardinals come up to the throne one by one to offer their obedience. The rite begins. In the name of the Cardinal Procurator, the Consistorial Advocate reads the “postulatio” (the formal request for the canonization), to which the Secretary for Briefs answers that the Pontifical crown which adorned the head of Pius X will from today shine with splendor of sanctity. A miracle of the Saint – the mirrors are transformed into instruments of devotion. The Pope decrees and defines as Saint and Confessor Blessed Pope Pius X, the Saint given by Providence to our times.

(2:36) In a crystal casket, the venerated body, accompanied by an immense line of ecclesiastics, makes its way through those streets of Rome where Pius X passed no longer after his assumption to the throne; around him, the youth whom he wished to be admitted at the age of seven to the table of the Lord. The casket passes through fervent emotion of the faithful, such as Pius X felt around himself, but perhaps never saw so numerous during his difficult Pontificate. His blue eyes shine in his intact body, as it was found when they exhumed him at the beginning of the canonization process. Yesterday, the Pope remembered the glorious milestones of the reign of Pius X, in every way leading back to unity in Christ: the renewal of ecclesiastical law, his combat against the modernist heresy, but these people remember above all the shepherd, who while he was alive showed in his sweet and charitable good-will the light of holiness. Santa Maria Maggiore shines with the lights of the Marian year, but from the mystical rose of the Saints, Pius X contemplates the glory of Mary.

From British Pathé:

What Does the Canonization of Paul VI Mean for the Liturgy and Liturgical Reform?

This article was originally published last December, when the first reports were coming out about the possible canonization of Pope Paul VI, but had not yet been confirmed. It is here reposted with a few changes, mostly by way of elimating the theoretical “would”, “if”, etc. I do not say anything here about whether his canonization is per se appropriate or opportune, but I commend this article on the subject by Dr Kwasniewski to our readers’ attention. I ask those who wish to comment here to address only the question of what the canonization means for the future prospects of the liturgy and liturgical reform.

The short answer is: absolutely nothing.

The canonization of a Saint does not change the facts of his earthly life. It does not rectify the mistakes he made, whether knowingly or unknowingly. It does not change his failures into successes, whether they came about through his fault or that of others. When St Joseph Calasanz died in 1648, the religious order he had founded, the Piarists, was to all intents and purposes destroyed. Ten years after Calasanz was canonized, another religious founder, St Alphonse Liguori was tricked by a close friend and early collaborator into signing a document which badly compromised the Redemptorist Order, and he was openly reproved by his confreres for having destroyed it. (The life of St Joseph Calasanz was one of his favorite books for spiritual reading in his later years.) These are historical facts which were not in the least bit altered by their later canonization and the later restoration of their orders.

Likewise, there have been and still are many Catholic historians who believe that St Pius V’s excommunication of Queen Elizabeth I of England, and his decree releasing her subjects from obedience to her, was a significant error in judgment; they are not bad or disloyal Catholics for holding such an opinion. There are others who hold exactly the opposite opinion, and they are not good and loyal Catholics merely for the fact of holding such an opinion.

I mention St Pius V particularly because he also, of course, gave the Church a significant reform of the liturgy. It will surely be argued from the canonization of Paul VI that his liturgical reform must be held in the same veneration shown to that of St Pius V in the post-Tridentine period. This will be a false comparison on every level, and should be flatly rejected as such. The Pius V reform is significant precisely because it was deliberately conceived as a very conservative reform in the proper sense of the term, a reform that sought to conserve the authentic tradition of Catholic worship, and change only what it was felt to be absolutely necessary to change for the good of the Church. The Paul VI reform is significant for exactly the opposite reason, because it introduced more changes into the liturgy and more rapidly than had ever happened before in the Church’s history.

The reform of the liturgical books begun by St Pius V and continued by his successors was one of the great successes of the Counter Reformation, and one from which the Church unquestionably drew many spiritual benefits. This does not change the fact that, unwittingly, it also set in motion a process by which the other Uses of the Roman Rite were gradually Romanized, and many valuable things (such as nearly the entire corpus of Sequences) were effectively lost. Many liturgical writers have regretted such losses, and whether one agrees with them or not, they have not been bad Catholics for doing so. The same applies to the reform of the Breviary by St Pius X; and likewise, many Catholics hold Pope Pius XII in the highest regard for a variety of good reasons, while disliking the Holy Week reform which he promulgated.

All of which is to say, the intrinsic merits or demerits of the post-Conciliar reform, and its status as a success or a failure, have not been changed in any way, shape or form by the canonization of Paul VI. No one can honestly say otherwise, and no one has the right to attack, silence or call for the silencing of other Catholics if they contest that reform. If that reform went beyond the spirit and the letter of what Vatican II asked for in Sacrosanctum Concilium, as its own creators openly bragged that it did; if it was based on bad scholarship and a significant degree of basic incompetence, leading to the many changes now known to be mistakes; if it failed utterly to bring about the flourishing of liturgical piety that the Fathers of Vatican II desired, none of these things have changed today. Just as the canonizations of Pius V and X, and the future canonization of XII, did not place their liturgical reforms beyond question or debate, the canonization of Paul VI does not put anything about his reform beyond debate, and no one has any right to say otherwise.