Nobility and Analogous Traditional Elites — In the Allocutions of Pius XII

April 19 – Captured by pirates

April 18, 2016

St. Alphege

(or Elphege), Saint, born 954; died 1012; also called Godwine, martyred Archbishop of Canterbury, left his widowed mother and patrimony for the monastery of Deerhurst (Gloucestershire).

St. Alphege being asked for advice.

After some years as an anchorite at Bath, he there became abbot, and (19 Oct., 984) was made Bishop of Winchester. In 994 Elphege administered confirmation to Olaf of Norway at Andover, and it is suggested that his patriotic spirit inspired the decrees of the Council of Enham. In 1006, on becoming Archbishop of Canterbury, he went to Rome for the pallium. At this period England was much harassed by the Danes, who, towards the end of September, 1011, having sacked and burned Canterbury, made Elphege a prisoner.

On 19 April, 1012, at Greenwich, his captors, drunk with wine, and enraged at ransom being refused, pelted Elphege with bones of oxen and stones, till one Thurm dispatched him with an axe. Elphege’s body, after resting eleven years in St. Paul’s (London), was translated by King Canute to Canterbury.

His principal feast is kept on the 19th of April; that of his translation on the 8th of June.

He is sometimes represented with an axe cleaving his skull.

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, ed. PLUMMER (Oxford, 1892-99); THIETMAR, Chronicle, in P. L., CXXXIX, 1384; OSBERN, Vita S. Elphegi in WHARTON, Anglia Sacra, II, 122 sqq.; Acta SS., April, II, 630; Bibl. Hag. Lat., 377; CHEVALIER, Repertoire, I, 1313; FREEMAN, Norman Conquest, I, v; BUTLER, Lives of the Saints, 18 April; STANTON, Menology, 19 April; HUNT in Dict. Nat. Biogr., s. v. AElfheah.

PATRICK RYAN (Catholic Encyclopedia)

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April 19 – The saintly warrior pope

April 18, 2016

Pope St. Leo IX

Pope St. Leo IX earnestly spread the Cluny reform. Born at Egisheim, near Colmar, on the borders of Alsace, 21 June, 1002, Pope St. Leo IX died on 19 April, 1054. He belonged to a noble family which had given or was to give saints to the Church and rulers to the Empire. He was named Bruno. His father Hugh was first cousin to Emperor Conrad, and both Hugh and his wife Heilewide were remarkable for their piety and learning.

When five years of age, he was committed to the care of the…

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April 19 – Blessed Conrad of Ascoli

April 18, 2016

Friar Minor and missionary, born at Ascoli in the March of Ancona in 1234; died there, 19 April, 1289.

He belonged to the noble family of Milliano and from his earliest years made penance the predominating element of his life…

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April 20 – Blessed John Finch

April 18, 2016

Bl. John Finch

A martyr, b. about 1548; d. 20 April, 1584. He was a yeoman of Eccleston, Lancashire, and a member of a well-known old Catholic family, but he appears to have been brought up in schism. When he was twenty years old he went to London where he spent nearly a year with some cousins at Inner Temple. While there he was forcibly struck by the contrast between Protestantism and Catholicism in practice and determined to lead a Catholic life. Failing to find…

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April 20 – “I beg your Lordship…that my lips and…fingers may be cut off…”

April 18, 2016

Blessed Fr. James Bell

Stone marking the site of the Tyburn tree on the traffic island at the junction of Edgware Road, Marble Arch and Oxford Street

Priest and martyr, b. at Warrington in Lancashire, England, probably about 1520; d. 20 April, 1584. For the little known of him we depend on the account published four years after his death by Bridgewater in his “Concertatio” (1588), and derived from a manuscript which was kept at Douay when Challoner wrote his “Missionary Priests” in 1741, and is now in the Westminster Diocesan Archives. A few further details were collected by Challoner, and others are supplied by the State Papers. Having studied at Oxford he was ordained priest in Mary’s reign, but unfortunately conformed to the established Church under Elizabeth, and according to the Douay MS. “ministered their bare few sacraments about 20 years in diverse places of England”. Finally deterred by conscience from the cure of souls and reduced to destitution, he sought a small readership as a bare subsistence. To obtain this he approached the patron’s wife, a Catholic lady, who induced him to be reconciled to the Church. After some time he was allowed to resume priestly functions, and for two years devoted himself to arduous missionary labours. He was at length apprehended (17 January 1583-84) and, having confessed his priesthood, was arraigned at Manchester Quarter-Sessions held during the same month, and sent for trial at Lancaster Assizes in March. When condemned and sentenced he said to the Judge: “I beg your Lordship would add to the sentence that my lips and the tops of my fingers may be cut off, for having sworn and subscribed to the articles of heretics contrary both to my conscience and to God’s Truth”. He spent that night in prayer and on the following day was hanged and quartered together with Ven. John Finch, a layman, 20 April, 1584.

He was beatified in 1929.

BRIDGEWATER, Concertatio ecclesiæ Catholicæ in Anglia, 1588; YEPEZ, Historia particular de la persecucion de Inglatera, 1599; CHALLONER, Missionary Priests 1741; Dict. Nat. Biog., IV, 163; GILLOW, Bibl. Dict. Eng. Cath., I, 173, citing State Papers in Public Record Office.

EDWIN BURTON (Catholic Encyclopedia)

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April 20 – Blessed Richard Sergeant

April 18, 2016

Bl. Richard Sergeant

This is an illustration, said to be from about 1680, of the permanent gallows at Tyburn, which once stood where Marble Arch now stands. There was a three-mile cart ride in public from Newgate prison to the gallows, with large spectator stands lined along the way, so many people could see the hangings (for a fee). Huge crowds collected on the way and followed the accused to Tyburn.

English martyr, executed at Tyburn, 20 April, 1586. He was probably a younger son of Thomas Sergeant of Stone, Gloucestershire, by Katherine, daughter of John Tyre of Hardwick. He took his degree at Oxford (20 Feb., 1570-1), and arrived at the English College, Reims, on 25 July, 1581. He was ordained subdeacon at Reims (4 April, 1582), deacon at Soissons (9 June, 1582), and priest at Laon (7 April, 1583). He said his first Mass on 21 April, and left for England on 10 September. He was indicted at the Old Bailey (17 April, 1586) as Richard lea alias Longe. With him was condemned and suffered Venerable William Thomson, a native of Blackburn, Lancashire, who arrived at the English College, Reims, on 28 May, 1583, and was ordained priest in the Reims cathedral (31 March, 1583-4). Thomson was arrested in the house of Roger Line, husband of the martyr Anne Line (q. v.) in Bishopsgate St. Without, while saying Mass. Both were executed merely for being priests and coming into the realm.

He was beatified in 1987.

CHALLONER, Missionary priests, I (London, 1878), nos. 32, 33; KNOX, Douay Diaries (London, 1878); FOSTER, Alumni Oxonienses, (Oxford, 1892); Harleian Soc. Publ. xxi (London, 1885), 258; POLLEN, English Martyrs 1584-1603 in Cath. Rec. Soc. (London, 1908), 129; Cath. Rec. Soc. II (London, 1906), 249, 255, 271.

John B. Wainewright (Catholic Encyclopedia)

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April 21 – Adventurous in youth and adulthood

April 18, 2016

St. Anselm

Archbishop of Canterbury, Doctor of the Church; born at Aosta a Burgundian town on the confines of Lombardy, died 21 April, 1109.

His father, Gundulf, was a Lombard who had become a citizen of Aosta, and his mother, Ermenberga, came of an old Burgundian family. Like many other saints, Anselm learnt the first lessons of piety from his mother, and at a very early age he was fired with the love of learning. In after life he still cherished the memories of childhood, and his biographer, Eadmer, has preserved some incidents which he had…

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Vasco da Gama prays to Our Lady before setting out for India

April 14, 2016

Painting of Vasco da Gama by António Manuel da Fonseca.

At Belém they were all kneeling at his side: Paulo da Gama, his brother, with Nicolau Coelho and Gonçalo Nunes, his other captains and their pilots, Pero de Alenquer, João de Coimbra, Pero Escolar, Afonso Gonçalves; and likewise the “secretaries” Diogo Dias, João de Sá and Álvaro de Braga. Bartolomeu Dias was also there, for his caravel was to leave with the fleet on its way to the castle of St. George. Their eyes were fixed on the standard hanging before the altar to receive the protection of the Holy Virgin Mary and her divine son. As they prayed, they laid their pride, their fears and their hopes at the feet of her whose name means in Hebrew “Star of the Sea.”

Statue of Our Lady of Belém over the South Portal entrance to Jerónimos Monastery where Vasco da Gama spent the night praying before leaving for India.

The glass in the windows lightened, and the flames of the candles grew yellow. A religious of the Order of Christ, one of those brought by King Henry from the convent at Tomar to be ever ready to administer the sacraments to departing sailors, mounted the altar and celebrated the divine sacrifice. Gama and all his captains, officers and pilots took Communion….

That July 8, 1497, was a feast consecrated to the Virgin. As the capitão-mor and his companions left the chapel, they paused for a moment, dazzled by the sight of the immense throng which even at that early hour covered the strand….

The departure of Vasco da Gama to India in 1497. Painting by Alfredo Roque Gameiro.

From all the neighboring parishes and nearby convents and monasteries, priests and religious had gathered in great numbers to join those of the Order of Christ and add their prayers to those just uttered before the altar of Our Lady of Belém…. The priests chanted the litany of the saints:

Kyrie, eleison!

Christe, eleison!

Kyrie, eleison!

Christe, audi nos!

Christe, exaudi nos!

“Miserere nobis!” cried the throng, responding to the invocations.

Gilbert Renault, The Caravels of Christ, trans. Richmond Hill (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1959), 157-8.

Short Stories on Honor, Chivalry, and the World of Nobility—no. 520

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Norway referendum on monarchy to be proposed this month

April 14, 2016

According to Norway Today:

…Labour’s deputy Hadia Tajik and over 80 percent of the youngest members of the Ap group in the parliament want to remove the royal house and introduce the republic in Norway. Oslo Progress Party does not want this, but wants to propose a referendum on this issue.

– It is important to hear what people think, not just me and the other politicians at Stortinget. Therefore we want referendum on the monarchy, says Aina Stenersen, head of Oslo Progress Party. The proposal will be made at the national convention of the Progress Party in late April, she said.

To read the entire article on Norway Today, please click here.

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Churchill: Democracy Made War Cruel and Squalid

April 14, 2016

Sir Winston Churchill addressing a joint session of the United States Congress, May 1943.

“War, which used to be cruel and magnificent, has now become cruel and squalid. In fact it has been completely spoilt. It is all the fault of democracy and science. From the moment that either of these meddlers and muddlers was allowed to take part in actual fighting, the doom of war was sealed. Instead of a small number of well-trained professionals championing their country’s cause with ancient weapons and a beautiful intricacy of archaic manoeuvre, sustained at every moment by the applause of their nation, we now have entire populations, including even women and children, pitted against one another in brutish mutual extermination, and only a set of blear-eyed clerks left to add up the butcher’s bill. From the moment democracy was admitted to, or rather forced itself upon the battlefield, war ceased to be a gentleman’s game. To hell with it!”

Sir Winston S. Churchill, My Early Life: A Roving Commission (London: The Folio Society, 2007), 64-5.

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April 16 – Martyred in the name of Equality

April 14, 2016

Just a few of the many martyrs during the French Revolution († 1792-1799)

16 April 1794 in Avrillé, Maine-et-Loire (France)

The cruel blade of the guillotine was indifferent to the service that generations of France’s illustrious lineages had given to the country.

Pierre Delépine
layperson of the diocese of Angers
born: 24 May 1732 in Marigné, Maine-et-Loire (France)
Jean Ménard
layperson of the diocese of Angers…

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April 17 – He rescued his country from crushing debt, yet waged incessant war

April 14, 2016

Maximilian I

Duke of Bavaria, 1598-1622, Elector of Bavaria and Lord High Steward of the Holy Roman Empire, 1623-1651; born at Munich, 17 April, 1573; died at Ingolstadt, 27 September, 1651.

The lasting services he rendered his country and the Catholic Church justly entitle him to the surname of “Great”. He was the son of zealous Catholic parents, William V, the Pious, of Bavaria, and Renate of Lorraine….

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April 17 – One of the many nobles who spread the Cluny reform

April 14, 2016

St. Robert

Founder of the Abbey of Chaise-Dieu in Auvergne, born at Aurilac, Auvergne, about 1000; died in Auvergne, 1067.

St. Robert print by Raphael Sadeler & Marten de Vos

On his father’s side he belonged to the family of the Counts of Aurilac, who had given birth to St. Géraud. He studied at Brioude near the…

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April 17 – St. Stephen Harding

April 14, 2016

St. Stephen Harding

Confessor, the third Abbot of Cîteaux, was born at Sherborne in Dorsetshire, England, about the middle of the eleventh century; died 28 March, 1134. He received his early education in the monastery of Sherborne and afterwards studied in Paris and Rome. On returning from the latter city he stopped at the monastery of Molesme and, being much impressed by the holiness of St. Robert, the abbot, joined that community. Here he practised great austerities, became one of St. Robert’s chief supporters and was one of the band of twenty-one monks who, by authority of Hugh, Archbishop of Lyons, retired to Cîteaux to institute a reform in the new foundation there…

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April 18 – Blessed Marie de l’Incarnation

April 14, 2016

Bl. Marie de l’Incarnation

Bl. Marie of the Incarnation, O.C.D. , also as Madame Acarie

Known also as Madame Acarie, foundress of the French Carmel, born in Paris, 1 February, 1566; died at Pontoise, April, 1618. By her family Barbara Avrillot belonged to the higher bourgeois society in Paris. Her father, Nicholas Avrillot was accountant general in the Chamber of Paris, and chancellor of Marguerite of Navarre, first wife of Henri IV; while her mother, Marie Lhuillier was a descendant of Etienne Marcel, the famous…

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April 18 – St. Willigis

April 14, 2016

St. Willigis

Archbishop of Mainz, d. 23 Feb., 1011. Feast, 23 February or 18 April. Though of humble birth he received a good education, and through the influence of Bishop Volkold of Meissen entered the service of Otto I, and after 971 figured as chancellor of Germany. Otto II in 975 made him Archbishop of Mainz and Archchancellor of the Empire, in which capacity he did valuable service to the State. Hauch (Kirchengesch. Deutschlands, III, Leipzig, 1906, 414) calls him an ideal bishop of the tenth century. Well educated himself, he demanded solid learning in his clergy. He was known as a good and fluent speaker. In March, 975, he received the pallium from Benedict VII and was named Primate of Germany. As such, on Christmas, 983, he crowned Otto III at Aachen, and in June, 1002, performed the coronation of Henry II at Mainz; he presided at the Synod of Frankfort, 1007, at which thirty-five bishops signed the Bull of John XVIII…

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April 12 – St. Teresa of the Andes

April 11, 2016

Saint Teresa of the Andes, O.C.D. (July 13, 1900 – April 12, 1920), also known as Saint Teresa of Jesus of the Andes (Spanish: Teresa de Jesús de los Andes), was a Chilean nun of the Discalced Carmelite order.

She was born Juana Enriqueta Josefina de los Sagrados Corazones Fernández y Solar in Santiago, Chile into an upper class family. Early in her life she read the autobiography of the French Carmelite nun Thérèse of Lisieux, who was later to be canonized herself. The experience had a profound effect on Juanita’s already pious character, coming to the realization she wanted to live for God alone. She had to work to overcome a very self-centered personality toward being one which cared for others above all…

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April 12 – Crusader in every sense of the word

April 11, 2016

Bl. Angelo Carletti di Chivasso

Moral theologian of the order of Friars Minor; born at Chivasso in Piedmont, in 1411; and died at Coni, in Piedmont, in 1495.

From his tenderest years the Blessed Angelo was remarkable for the holiness and purity of his life. He attended the University of Bologna, where he received the degree of Doctor of Civil and Canon Law. It was probably at the age of thirty that he entered the Order of Friars Minor. His virtues and learning soon…

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April 12 – Pope St. Julius I

April 11, 2016

Pope St. Julius I

(337-352)

The immediate successor of Pope Silvester, Arcus, ruled the Roman Church for only a very short period – from 18 January to 7 October, 336 – and after his death the papal chair remained vacant for four months. What occasioned this comparatively long vacancy is unknown. On 6 February, 337, Julius, son of Rustics and a native of Rome, was elected pope. His pontificate is chiefly celebrated for his judicious and firm intervention in the Arian controversies, about which we have abundant sources of information. After the death of Constantine the Great…
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April 13 – This Prince Defied His Family

April 11, 2016

St. Hermengild

Date of birth unknown; died 13 April, 585.

Leovigild, the Arian King of the Visigoths (569-86), had two sons, Hermengild and Reccared, by his first marriage with the Catholic Princess Theodosia.

Hermengild married, in 576, Ingundis, a Frankish Catholic princess, the daughter of Sigebert and Brunhilde…

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April 13 – Born blind, lame, deformed, hunchbacked and dwarfed

April 11, 2016

Blessed Margaret of Castello (1287–1320) is the patroness of the poor, crippled, and the unwanted. She was born blind, lame, deformed, hunchbacked and a dwarf, into a family of nobles in the castle of Metola, in southeast of Florence. As a child, her parents Parisio and Emilia imprisoned her for 14 years so no one… […]

St. Alphege

Pope St. Leo IX

Blessed Fr. James Bell

St. Anselm

Maximilian I

St. Robert

St. Stephen Harding

Bl. Marie de l’Incarnation

St. Willigis

Bl. Angelo Carletti di Chivasso

St. Hermengild

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