Pope Pius XII: Allocution of January 16, 1946

January 16, 2025

In past years, beloved Sons and Daughters, on this occasion—after having paternally welcomed the wishes that your illustrious representative usually offers Us in your name, with such noble expressions of faith and filial devotion—We usually accompanied Our expressions of thanks with some recommendations suggested by the circumstances of the moment. We spoke to you of your duties and your function in the tottering, tormented society of our modern times, though necessarily in a somewhat general manner, with the sense of a future in mind, a future whose time and aspect were indeed difficult to predict.

Uncertainty persists, and storm clouds still loom heavy on the horizon.

No doubt it remains obscure even today. Uncertainty persists, and storm clouds still loom heavy on the horizon. With armed conflict just ended, nations find themselves faced with the burdensome task of assuming responsibility for consequences that shall bear upon the course of the times and determine which way they turn. The time has come, in fact, not only for Italy but for many other nations, to elaborate their political and social constitutions, either to create entirely new ones or to revise, retouch, and modify to a greater or lesser degree the already existing statutes bearing them up. What makes this problem all the more arduous is that all these constitutions will be as different and autonomous as you like, as autonomous and different as are the nations themselves which wish to draft them; but they will not be—in fact, if not by law—any less interdependent for all that. What we have before us, therefore, is an event of the highest importance, the likes of which have rarely presented itself in the history of the world. In it there is enough to make even the boldest tremble in their hearts, if they are even only slightly aware of their responsibility; enough to disturb the most clairvoyant of people, precisely because they see better and farther than others and because, convinced of the gravity of the task, they more clearly understand the need to devote themselves calmly and attentively to the mature reflections required by works of such great import. And now, all of a sudden, prompted by collective and mutual efforts, the event is upon us; it will have to be confronted very soon; in a few months, perhaps, solutions will have to be found and definitive decisions made, which will make their effects felt on the destinies of not just one nation, but of the entire world, and which, once made, will establish the universal condition of nations, perhaps for a long time to come. In our democratic age, all members of human society must take part in this undertaking: on the one hand, the legislators, by whatever name they are designated, to whom shall fall the task of deliberating and drawing conclusions; and on the other hand, the people, whose task it is to make their will felt by voicing their opinions and exercising their right to vote. And you too, therefore—whether or not you shall belong to the future constituent assembly—have your own function to fulfill, which will have its bearing upon both the legislators and the people. What is this function, then? You may have happened, more than once, to encounter, in the church of St. Ignatius, groups of pilgrims and tourists. You have seen them stop in surprise in the vast nave of the church, their eyes turned upward to the vault on which Andrea Pozzo painted his stunning triumph of the Saint in his mission, entrusted to him by Christ, of spreading the divine light as far as the remotest corners of the earth. Seeing the apocalyptic avalanche of architectonic figures colliding above their heads, they thought, at first, that they were witnessing the delirium of a madman. Then you politely led them toward the center. As they gradually drew nearer, the columns began to rise up vertically, supporting the arches soaring into space; and each of the visitors, when standing on the little disk indicating the best spot on the floor for viewing the fresco, then saw the material vault disappear before his eyes, allowing him to contemplate in astonishment, in that wondrous perspective, a vision of angels and saints, of men and demons, living and stirring around Christ and Ignatius, who form the center of the grandiose scene. In the same way the world, to those who see it only in its complex and confused materiality, in all its disorderly proceeding, presents the appearance of chaos. Step by step the fine designs of the most skillful builders collapse and leave us thinking the ruins are irreparable, the construction of a new, balanced world on firm and stable foundations impossible. Why?

“In this world there is a stone of granite laid by Christ; one must stand on that stone and turn one’s gaze upward; thence originates the restoration of all things in Christ.” Photo by Alberto Fernandez Fernandez

In this world there is a stone of granite laid by Christ; one must stand on that stone and turn one’s gaze upward; thence originates the restoration of all things in Christ. Christ has revealed the secret thereof: “Quaerite primum regnum Dei et iustitiam eius, et haec omnia adicientur vobis” [Seek ye therefore first the kingdom of God, and his justice, and all these things shall be added unto you] (Matt. 6:33). One cannot therefore draw up the healthy, vital constitution of any society or nation unless the two great powers—the legislator with his deliberations and resolutions and the people with the free expression of their opinions and the exercise of their electoral rights—are both firmly planted on this foundation so they can look upward and bring the kingdom of God upon their country and their world. But are things this way now?

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January 16 – When the Emperor insisted that the lapsed be readmitted to communion without penance, one man stood in his way. This is his story.

January 16, 2025

>Pope St. Marcellus I

His date of birth unknown; elected pope in May or June, 308; died in 309. For some time after the death of Marcellinus in 304 the Diocletian persecution continued with unabated severity. After the abdication of Diocletian in 305, and the accession in Rome of Maxentius to the throne of the Caesars in October of the following year, the Christians of the capital again enjoyed comparative peace. Nevertheless, nearly two years passed before a new Bishop of Rome was elected. Then in 308, according to the “Catalogus Liberianus”, Pope Marcellus first entered on his office: “Fuit temporibus Maxenti a cons. X et Maximiano usque post consulatum X et septimum” (“Liber Pontif.”, ed. Duchesne, I, 6-7). This abbreviated notice is to be read: “A cons. Maximiano Herculio X et Maximiano Galerio VII [308] usque post cons. Maxim. Herc. X et Maxim. Galer. VII [309]” (cf. de Rossi, “Inscriptiones christ. urbis Romæ”, I, 30).

Pope_Marcellus_IAt Rome, Marcellus found the Church in the greatest confusion. The meeting-places and some of the burial-places of the faithful had been confiscated, and the ordinary life and activity of the Church was interrupted. Added to this were the dissensions within the Church itself, caused by the large number of weaker members who had fallen away during the long period of active persecution and later, under the leadership of an apostate, violently demanded that they should be readmitted to communion without doing penance. According to the “Liber Pontificalis” Marcellus divided the territorial administration of the Church into twenty-five districts (tituli), appointing over each a presbyter, who saw to the preparation of the catechumens for baptism and directed the performance of public penances. The presbyter was also made responsible for the burial of the dead and for the celebrations commemorating the deaths of the martyrs. The pope also had a new burial-place, the Cœmeterium Novellœ on the Via Salaria (opposite the Catacomb of St. Priscilla), laid out. The “Liber Pontificalis” (ed. Duchesne, I, 164) says: “Hic fecit cymiterium Novellae via Salaria et XXV titulos in urbe Roma constituit quasi diœcesis propter baptismum et pœnitentiam multorum qui convertebantur ex paganis et propter sepulturas Inartyrum”. At the beginning of the seventh century there were probably twenty-five titular churches in Rome; even granting that, perhaps, the compiler of the “Liber Pontificalis” referred this number to the time of Marcellus, there is still a clear historical tradition in support of his declaration that the ecclesiastical administration in Rome was reorganized by this pope after the great persecution.

SubscriptionThe work of the pope was, however, quickly interrupted by the controversies to which the question of the readmittance of the lapsi into the Church gave rise. As to this, we gather some light from the poetic tribute composed by Damasus in memory of his predecessor and placed over his grave (De Rossi, “Inscr. christ. urbis Romæ”, II, 62, 103, 138; cf. Idem, “Roma sotterranea”, II, 204-5). Damasus relates that the truth-loving leader of the Roman Church was looked upon as a wicked enemy by all the lapsed, because he insisted that they should perform the prescribed penance for their guilt. As a result serious conflicts arose, some of which ended in bloodshed, and every bond of peace was broken. At the head of this band of the unfaithful and rebellious stood an apostate who had denied the Faith even before the outbreak of persecution. The tyrannical Maxentius had the pope seized and sent into exile. This took place at the end of 308 or the beginning of 309 according to the passages cited above from the “Catalogus Liberianus”, which gives the length of the pontificate as no more than one year, six (or seven) months, and twenty days. Marcellus died shortly after leaving Rome, and was venerated as a saint. His feast-day was 16 January, according to the “Depositio episcoporum” of the “Chronography” of 354 and every other Roman authority. Nevertheless, it is not known whether this is the date of his death or that of the burial of his remains, after these had been brought back from the unknown quarter to which he had been exiled. He was buried in the catacomb of St. Priscilla where his grave is mentioned by the itineraries to the graves of the Roman martyrs as existing in the basilica of St. Silvester (De Rossi, “Roma sotterranea”, I, 176)

Pope St. Marcellus I

Pope St. Marcellus I

A fifth-century “Passio Marcelli”, which is included in the legendary account of the martyrdom of St. Cyriacus (cf. Acta Sanct., Jan., II, 369) and is followed by the “Liber Pontificalis”, gives a different account of the end of Marcellus. According to this version, the pope was required by Maxentius, who was enraged at his reorganization of the Church, to lay aside his episcopal dignity and make an offering to the gods. On his refusal, he was condemned to work as a slave at a station on the public highway (catabulum). At the end of nine months he was set free by the clergy; but a matron named Lucina having had her house on the Via Lata consecrated by him as “titulus Marcelli” he was again condemned to the work of attending to the horses brought into the station, in which menial occupation he died. All this is probably legendary, the reference to the restoration of ecclesiastical activity by Marcellus alone having an historical basis. The tradition related in the verses of Damasus seems much more worthy of belief. The feast of St. Marcellus, whose name is to this day borne by the church at Rome mentioned in the above legend, is still celebrated on 16 January. There still remains to be mentioned Mommsen’s peculiar view that Marcellus was not really a bishop, but a simple Roman presbyter to whom was committed the ecclesiastical administration during the latter part of the period of vacancy of the papal chair. According to this view, 16 January was really the date of Marcellunus’s death, the next occupant of the chair being Eusebius (Neues Archiv, 1896, XXI, 350-3). This hypothesis has, however, found no support.

Liber Pontif., ed. DUCHESNE, I, 164-6; cf. Introduction, xcix-c; Acta SS., Jan., II, 369; LANGEN, Gesch. der röm. Kirche, I, 379 sqq.; ALLARD, Hist. des persécutions, V, 122-4; DUCHESNE, Hist. ancienne de l’Eglise, II, 95-7.

J. P. KIRSCH (Catholic Encyclopedia)

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Saint Pius V Was Born Into a Guelph Noble Family That Persecution Dragged Into Poverty

January 16, 2025

Michael Ghislieri was born on January 17, 1504, in Bosco, a fortified village not far from Alessandria . . . . The Ghislieri family, originally from Bologna, was of noble origin but lived in a poor condition as a result of the internal battles that had torn apart the city, between the Guelphs, who were tied to the Church, and the Ghibellines, who were tied to the empire. In 1445, as a result of the triumph of the Ghibelline faction, the Ghislieri family, faithful to the papacy, were expelled from Bologna and despoiled of their possessions. One branch of the family transferred to Rome, taking the name of Consiglieri, while the branch of the firstborn son transferred to Piedmont, to Bosco. Paolo Ghislieri and Domenica Augeri named their son Antonio, because he was born on the feast of St. Antony the hermit. Only subsequently, after he entered into religion, did he take the name Michael.

Roberto de Mattei, Saint Pius V: The Legendary Pope Who Excommunicated Queen Elizabeth I, Standardized the Mass, and Defeated the Ottoman Empire, trans. Giuseppe Pellegrino (Manchester, N.H.: Sophia Institute Press, 2021), 54–55.

Short Stories on Honor, Chivalry, and the World of Nobility—no. 861

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January 17 – Scanderbeg: the hero of Christendom

January 16, 2025

ScanderbegIn a history, where so much is spoken of the regions, from whence the miraculous Image of Our Lady of Good Counsel came, it will be of great use to take a brief glance at the once entirely Catholic nation in which it so long remained, and at the great client of its Sanctuary in Scutari, King George Castriota, or, as he is better known by his Turkish appellation, Scanderbeg, (from the words Iskander and beg or bey, which mean Alexander, the prince), the hero of Christendom….

The miraculous image of Our Lady of Good Counsel of Genazzano.

The miraculous Image of Our Lady of Good Counsel of Genazzano.

Amurath II ascended the throne of his grandfather Bajazet in 1422. He speedily spread his power over the remnant of territory left to Constantinople. He added Greece, and finally Albania, to his dominions; and gave a death blow to all opposition to his power, by a victory over the Christian crusade, which the zeal of the Pope had gathered to resist him at Varna, in 1444.

Skanderbeg

The reign of this Mussulman conqueror brings us to the mighty chief, whom Mary, Mother of Good Counsel, had raised up to save Albania and Europe from him, and from the still more terrible power of his son and successor Mahomet II, the captor of Constantinople. This was George, the youngest of four sons of King John Castriota….

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January 18 – St. Margaret of Hungary

January 16, 2025

St. Margaret of Hungary

Death of Saint Margaret of Hungary. Photo by József Molnár

Death of Saint Margaret of Hungary. Photo by József Molnár

Daughter of King Bela I of Hungary and his wife Marie Laskaris, born 1242; died 18 Jan., 1271. According to a vow which her parents made when Hungary was liberated from the Tatars that their next child should be dedicated to religion, Margaret, in 1245 entered the Dominican Convent of Veszprem. Invested with the habit at the age of four, she was transferred in her tenth year to the Convent of the Blessed Virgin founded by her parents on the Hasen Insel near Buda, the Margareten Insel near Budapest today, and where the ruins of the convent are still to be seen. Here Margaret passed all her life, which was consecrated to contemplation and penance, and was venerated as a saint during her lifetime. She strenuously opposed the plans of her father, who for political reasons wished to marry her to King Ottokar II of Bohemia. Margaret appears to have taken solemn vows when she was eighteen. All narratives call special attention to Margaret’s sanctity and her spirit of earthly renunciation. Her whole life was one unbroken chain of devotional exercises and penance. She chastised herself unceasingly from childhood, wore hair garments, and an iron girdle round her waist, as well as shoes spiked with nails; she was frequently scourged, and performed the most menial work in the convent.

Saint Margaret's grave in the Dominican monastery, Margaret Island, Budapest. This marks the site of the Saint Margaret’s tomb, devastated by the Turks in the sixteenth century.

Saint Margaret’s grave in the Dominican monastery, Margaret Island, Budapest. This marks the site of the Saint Margaret’s tomb, devastated by the Turks in the sixteenth century.

Shortly after her death, steps were taken for her canonization, and in 1271-1276 investigations referring to this were taken up; in 1275-1276 the process was introduced, but not completed. Not till 1640 was the process again taken up, and again it was not concluded. Attempts which were made in 1770 by Count Ignatz Batthyanyi were also fruitless; so that the canonization never took place, although Margaret was venerated as a saint shortly after her death; and Pius VI consented on 28 July, 1789, to her veneration as a saint. Pius VII raised her feast day to a festum duplex. The minutes of the proceedings of 1271-1272 record seventy-four miracles; and among those giving testimony were twenty-seven in whose favour the miracles had been wrought. These cases refer to the cure of illnesses, and one case of awakening from death. Margaret’s remains were given to the Poor Clares when the Dominican Order was dissolved; they were first kept in Pozsony and later in Buda. After the order had been suppressed by Joseph II, in 1782, the relics were destroyed in 1789; but some portions are still preserved in Gran, Gyor, Pannonhalma. The feast day of the saint is 18 January. In art she is depicted with a lily and holding a book in her hand.

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NEMETHY-FRAKNOI, Arpadhazi b. Margit tortenetehez (Budapest, 1885), being contributions on the history of Blessed Margaret of the House of Arpaden; DEMKO, Arpadhazi b. Margit elete (Budapest, 1895), a life of the saint. Further bibliographical particulars in Arpad and the Arpaden, edited by CSANKI (Budapest, 1908), 387-388; minutes of the proceedings of 1271-72, published in Monumenta Romana Episcopotus Vesprimiensis, I (Budapest, 1896).

A. ALDASY (Catholic Encyclopedia)

[She was canonized 19 November, 1943, by Pope Pius XII]

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January 19 – Thomas Vincent Faustus Sadler

January 16, 2025

Thomas Vincent Faustus Sadler

Thomas Vincent Faustus Sadler © The Trustees of the British Museum

Born 1604; died at Dieulward, Flanders, 19 Jan., 1680-1. He was received into the Church at the age of seventeen by his uncle, Dom Walter Sadler, and joined the Benedictines at Dieulward, being professed in 1622. Little is known of his missionary labors, but probably he was chaplain to the Sheldons of Weston and the Tichbornes in Hampshire before going to London, where he worked many years. He edited several spiritual books, often collaborating with Dom Anselm Crowther, and signing himself T.V. His chief publications are “The Christian Pilgrim in his Spiritual Conflict and Conquest” (1652); “Jesus, Maria, Joseph” (1657); “The Daily Exercise of the Devout Rosarists” (1657), which was afterwards developed into a well-known prayer book, “The Daily Exercise of the Devout Christian”; “A Guide to Heaven”, translated from Bona’s “Manuductio” (1672); “The Holy Desires of Death”, translated from Lallemant (1678). Wood attributes to him “The Childe’s Catechism” (1678).

WELLDON, Chronological Notes on the English Benedictine Congregation (London, 1881; SNOW, Necrology of the English Congregation O. S. B. (London, 1883); WOOD, Athenae Oxonienses, ed. BLISS (London, 1813-20); OLIVER, Collections (London, 1857); GILLOW in Bibl. Dict. Eng. Cath.; COOPER in Dict. Nat. Biog.

EDWIN BURTON (Catholic Encyclopedia)

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January 19 – John Baptist Tolomei

January 16, 2025

John Baptist Tolomei

Giovanni Battista Tolomei, S.J.

A distinguished Jesuit theologian and cardinal, born of noble parentage, at Camberaia, between Pistoia and Florence, 3 Dec., 1653; died at Rome in the Roman College, 19 Jan., 1726, and was buried before the high altar of the Church of Saint Ignatius. At the age of fifteen, after an early schooling at Florence, he studied law at the University of Pisa; on 18 Feb., 1673, he entered the Society of Jesus at Rome. He was master of eleven languages, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Chaldee, Syriac, Arabic, English, French, Spanish, Illyrian, and Italian. He began his public career at Rome by expounding the Sacred Scriptures on Sunday evenings in the Church of the Gesù. At the age of thirty he was elected in the General Congregation of the Jesuits as the procurator general of the order, which office he held for five years, relinquishing it to take the chair of philosophy at the Roman College. Here his lecture-room was thronged. His lectures were printed at Rome in 1696 under the title of “Philosophia mentis et sensuum”, and demonstrated that, while loyal to the principles and method of Aristotle, he welcomed every discovery of his time in the natural sciences and wove these into his course. The lectures were reprinted in 1698 in Germany and evoked the warmest encomiums from the Academy of Leipzig as well as from Leibniz. He later filled the chair of theology at the Roman College (now the Gregorian University) and renewed the courses in controversial dogma begun by Bellarmine a century before. These lectures in MS. filled six volumes in folio but were never printed. Successively Rector of the Roman College and of the German College, he was at the same time Consultor of the Congregations of Rites, of the Index, and of Indulgences, as well as being one of the appointed examiners of bishops. On 17 May, 1712, unexpectedly created cardinal by Clement XI, under the title of Santo Stefano in Monte Cœlio, he became chief adviser to the pontiff in matters theological, particularly in the preparation of the condemnation of the errors of Quesnel. As cardinal he assisted at the conclaves which elected Innocent XIII and Benedict XIII. His published works are the “Philosophia mentis et sensuum” (with the addition of natural theology and ethics, Rome, 1702), “De primatu beati Petri” (in the second series of the miscellany printed from the manuscripts in the library of the Roman College, Rome, 1867), and a little pamphlet containing “Daily Prayers for a Happy Death” (in Latin, Vienna, 1742; also in German, Augsburg, 1856).

HURTER, Nomenclator literarius, IV (Innsbruck, 1910); SOMMERVOGEL, Biblioth que de la compagnie de Jésus, VIII (Brussels, 1898).

Charles Macksey (Catholic Encyclopedia)

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January 19 – Henri Victor Regnault

January 16, 2025

Henri Victor Regnault

Chemist and physicist, b. at Aachen, 21 July, 1810; d. in Paris, 19 Jan., 1878. Being left an orphan at the age of eight he was soon obliged to work in order to provide for himself and his sister. Up to the age of eighteen he worked as a clerk in a drapery establishment in Paris, but made use of all his spare time in studying, until he was received at the Ecole Polytechnique in 1830. In 1832 he entered the School of Mines, was graduated, and in 1835 he was attached to the chemical laboratory of the school, becoming professor and adjunct director in 1838, and remaining until his call to the chair of physics at the Collège de France. Up till then he had been working in the comparatively new field of organic chemistry, chiefly in producing new compounds by the method of substituting chlorine for hydrogen equivalents in hydro-carbons. The results were published in eighteen memoirs in the “Annales de Chimie et de Physique” and earned for him the election as member of the Chemical Section of the Academy of Sciences. In 1843 he was commissioned by the Government to investigate the properties of steam and to obtain numerical data that should be of value to the steam engineer. The results were published in 1847, as vol. XXI of the “Mémoires” of the Academy of Sciences. They obtained for him the Rumford Medal of the Royal Society of London, and the exceptional appointment as Chief Engineer of Mines. In 1852 he became the Director of the porcelain manufactory at Sèvres, where he continued his experiments until his laboratory, instruments and papers were destroyed during the Franco-German War, in 1871. This, together with the loss of his talented son, a well-known painter, broke his spirit, and a stroke of apoplexy in 1873 was followed by years of long, slow agony. Daubrée says of him, that “only his religious faith could console him, and this consolation was not wanting”.

Henri Victor Regnault doing an experiment.

His invaluable work was done as a skillful, thorough, patient experimenter in determining the specific heat of solids, liquids, gases, and the vapour-tensions of water and other volatile liquids, as well as their latent heat at different temperatures. He corrected Mariotte’s law of gases concerning the variation of the density with the pressure, determined the coefficients of expansion of air and other gases, devised new methods of investigation and invented accurate instruments. Two laws governing the specific heat of gases are named after him. This mass of numerical data are recognized as standards by the engineer as well as by the physical chemist.

He was a foreign member of the Royal Society of London, received its highest honour, the Copley Medal, in 1869, and in 1863 was made Commander of the Legion of Honour.

“Cours élémentaire de Chimie” was published in 1849 at Paris, and received several later editions. “Premiers éléments de Chimie”, Paris, 1850, 6th ed., 1874, is a shorter work. “Relations des expériences”, etc., 1847-70, were collected in 3 vols., Paris, 1870.

J. H. NORTON in Nature, XVII (London, 1878), 263; VOGT, Pop. Sc. My. 13, 20 (New York, 1878); DUMAS, Eloge historique de H. V. Regnault (Paris, 1881); DEBRAY, JAMIN, DAUBRÉE, AND LABOULAYE, Discours, etc., in Comptes Rendus, LXXXVI, 131-43 (Paris, 1878); BERTHELOT, Science et philos. (Paris, 1886), 218.

WILLIAM FOX (Catholic Encyclopedia)

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January 19 – Lady Fullerton

January 16, 2025

Lady Georgiana Charlotte Fullerton

Lady Georgiana Fullerton

Novelist; born 23 September, 1812, in Staffordshire, died 19 January, 1885, at Bournemouth. She was the youngest daughter of Lord Granville Leveson Gower (afterwards first Earl Granville) and Lady Harriet Elizabeth Cavendish, second daughter of the fifth Duke of Devonshire. She was chiefly brought up in Paris, her father having been appointed English ambassador there when she was twelve years old. Her mother, a member of the Anglican Church, was a woman of deep religious feeling and Lady Georgiana was trained to devotion. In 1833 she married in Paris an attaché of the embassy Alexander George Fullerton, who was of good Irish birth and had previously been in the Guards. In 1841, when Lord Granville retired from the embassy, Lady Georgiana and her husband traveled for some time in France, Germany, and Italy. Two years later, Mr. Fullerton was received into the Church, after long and thoughtful study of the religious questions involved in this step. In 1844 his wife published her first book “Ellen Middleton”, a tragic novel, of some power and showing markedly “High Anglican” religious views, so that Lord Brougham pronounced it “rank Popery”. It was well received, and was criticized by Mr. Gladstone in “The English Review”. Two years after, in 1846, the author placed herself under the instruction of Father Brownhill, S. J., and was received by him into the Church on Passion Sunday. In 1847 she published her second book, “Grantley Manor”, which is largely a study of character, and is usually considered an advance, from a literary point of view, upon the first. There was then a pause in her published work, which was continued, in 1852, with the story of “Lady Bird”. In 1855 her only son died, a loss she never quite recovered from, and henceforth she devoted herself to works of charity. In 1856 she joined the Third Order of St. Francis. She and her husband eventually settled in London and her literary work became a large part of her life. She not only wrote novels, but a good deal of biography, some poetry, and made translations from French and Italian. All her books have distinction and charm. Some of her chief works are: “Ellen Middleton” (London, 1884), “Grantley Manor” (London, 1854); “Lady Bird” (London, 1865); “La Comtesse de Bonneval”, written in French (Paris, 1857); the same translated into English (London, 1858), “Laurentia”, a tale of Japan (London, 1904); “Constance Sherwood” (Edinburgh and London, 1908), “Seven Stories” (London, 1896).

LEE in Dict. Nat. Biog., s. v.; CRAVEN, Lady G. Fullerton, sa vie et ses aeuvres (Paris, 1888), English version by COLERIDGE (London, 1888); YONGE, Women Novelists of Queen Victoria’s Reign (London, 1897); The Inner Life of Lady G. Fullerton (London, 1899).

Kate M. Warren (Catholic Encyclopedia)

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January 19 – Godfrey Goodman

January 16, 2025

Godfrey Goodman

Born at Ruthin, Denbighshire, 28 February, 1582-3; died at Westminster, 19 January, 1656. He was Anglican Bishop of Gloucester, and passed all his public life in the Protestant Church. His religious sympathies, however, inclined him to the old Faith, and when misfortune and ruin overtook him, late in life, he entered its fold. He was the son of Godfrey Goodman and his wife, Jane Croxton, landed gentry living in Wales. In 1593 he was sent to Westminster School, where he remained seven years under the protection of his uncle, Gabriel Goodman, Dean of Westminster. He was an earnest student and when only seventeen won a scholarship in Trinity College Cambridge. He graduated there in 1604 and was ordained at Bangor, Wales, shortly after. His first appointment was to the rectory of Stapleford Abbots, Essex, in 1606. From this time ecclesiastical dignities and lucrative emoluments fell rapidly to his share. He was made successively prebend of Westminster 1607, rector of West IIsley, Berks, 1616, rector of Kinnerton, Gloucester, canon of Windsor, 1617, Dean of Rochester, 1620-1, and finally Bishop of Gloucester, 1694-5. In addition he held two livings in Wales, at Llandyssil and Llanarmon. Even when he was a bishop, he was allowed to retain most of these appointments. He became one of the Court preachers and was chaplain to Queen Anne, wife of James I. His leaning towards Catholicity made enemies for him at Windsor and he was reprimanded by the King on Court sermons. A few years later he was severely blamed for having erected a crucifix at Windsor and used altar-cloths worked with a cross in his own cathedral at Gloucester, and further for having suspended a minister who insisted on preaching “that all who die papists go inevitably to hell.” It is likely that at this time doubts were arising in his mind about the legitimacy of the separation from Rome, and he sought the society of the Catholic priests who were in hiding throughout the country.

St. Margaret’s Church in Westminster, where Godfrey Goodman is buried.

He was frequently at variance with Archbishop Laud, and in 1640 refused on conscientious grounds to sign the seventeen Articles drawn up by him. He was thereupon arrested, but after five weeks in prison he overcame his scruples. This, however, availed him little, as he was soon impeached by Parliament along with Laud and the ten other signatories of the Articles and was sent to prison for four months. In 1643 his episcopal palace was pillaged by the parliamentarian soldiers and in a year or two he was stripped of all his emoluments. He withdrew now from public life to his small Welsh estate in Carnarvon. It was at this time too, most likely, that he was converted. About 1650 he came to London, and gave himself up to study and research; he was befriended by some Catholic royalists and lived in close connection with them till his death in 1656. Father Davenport, O.S.F., former chaplain to Queen Henrietta, was his confessor and attended him in his last illness. By his will, in which he made a profession of his Catholic Faith, he left most of his property to Ruthin his native town; his manuscripts and books, however, were given to Trinity College, Cambridge. His contemporaries describe him as being a hospitable, quiet man, and lavish in his charity to the poor.

His principal works are: (1) “The Fall of Man, or the Corruption of Nature proved by the light of his Natural Reason” (1616); (2) An account of his sufferings, 1650, (3) “The two mysteries of the Christian Religion, the Trinity and the lncarnation, explicated” (1653); (4) “Arguments and animadversions on Dr. George Hakewil’s Apology”, (5) “The Creatures praying God” (1622); (6) “The Court of King James the First by Sir A.W. reviewed”.

A. A. MacErlean (Catholic Encyclopedia)

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RCR – Part 1 Chapter IV Thru Chapter VII

January 13, 2025

CHAPTER IV

The Metamorphoses of the Revolutionary Process

As can be seen from the analysis in the preceding chapter, the revolutionary process is the development by stages of certain disorderly tendencies of Western and Christian man and of the errors to which they have given rise.

In each stage, these tendencies and errors have a particular characteristic. The Revolution, therefore, metamorphoses in the course of history.

The metamorphoses observed in the great general lines of the Revolution recur on a smaller scale within each of its great episodes.

Hence, the spirit of the French Revolution, in its first phase, used an aristocratic and even ecclesiastical mask and language. It frequented the court and sat at the table of the royal council. Later, it became bourgeois and worked for a bloodless abolition of the monarchy and nobility and for a veiled and pacific suppression of the Catholic Church. As soon as it could, it became Jacobin and inebriated itself with blood in the Terror.

Portrait of Maximilien-François-Marie-Isidore de Robespierre

But the excesses committed by the Jacobin faction stirred up reactions. The Revolution turned back, going through the same stages in reverse. From Jacobin it became bourgeois in the Directory. With Napoleon, it extended its hand to the Church and opened its doors to the exiled nobility. Finally, it cheered the returning Bourbons. Although the French Revolution ended, the revolutionary process did not end. It erupted again with the fall of Charles X and the rise of Louis Philippe, and thus through successive metamorphoses, taking advantage of its successes and even its failures, it reached its present state of paroxysm.

The Revolution, then, uses its metamorphoses not only to advance but also to carry out the tactical retreats that have so frequently been necessary.

This movement, always alive, has at times feigned death. This is one of its most interesting metamorphoses. On the surface, the situation of a certain country looks entirely tranquil. The counter-revolutionary reaction slackens and dozes. But in the depths of the religious, cultural, social, or economic life, the revolutionary ferment is continuously spreading. Then, at the end of this apparent interval, there is an unexpected upheaval, often more severe than the previous ones.

CHAPTER V

The Three Depths of the Revolution: In the Tendencies, in the Ideas, and in the Facts

1. The Revolution in the Tendencies

As we have seen, this Revolution is a process made up of stages and has its ultimate origin in certain disorderly tendencies that serve as its soul and most intimate driving force.1

Accordingly, we can also distinguish in the Revolution three depths, which, chronologically speaking, overlap to a certain extent.

The first and deepest level consists of a crisis in the tendencies. These disorderly tendencies by their very nature struggle for realization. No longer conforming to a whole order of things contrary to them, they begin by modifying mentalities, ways of being, artistic expressions, and customs without immediately touching directly — at least habitually — ideas.

“On the contrary, man’s free will, aided by grace, can overcome any crisis, just as it can stop and overcome the Revolution itself.”

2. The Revolution in the Ideas

The crisis passes from these deep strata to the ideological terrain. Indeed, as Paul Bourget makes evident in his celebrated work Le Demon du Midi, “One must live as one thinks, under pain of sooner or later ending up thinking as one has lived.”2 Inspired by the disorder of these deep tendencies, new doctrines burst forth. In the beginning, they at times seek a modus vivendi with the old doctrines, expressing themselves in such a way as to maintain a semblance of harmony with them. Generally, however, this soon breaks out into open warfare.

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January 13 – The Count Who Converted the King

January 13, 2025

St. Remigius of Rheims

St. Remigius annointing Clovis. Basilique Saint-Remi de Reims

St. Remigius annointing Clovis. Basilique Saint-Remi de Reims

Apostle of the Franks, Archbishop of Rheims, b. at Cerny or Laon, 437; d. at Rheims, 13 January 533.

His father was Emile, Count of Laon. He studied literature at Rheims and soon became so noted for learning and sanctity that he was elected Archbishop of Rheims in his twenty-second year. Thence-forward his chief aim was the propagation of Christianity in the realm of the Franks. The story of the return of the sacred vessels, which had been stolen from the Church of Soissons, testifies to the friendly relations existing between him and Clovis, King of the Franks, whom he converted to Christianity with the assistance of St. Waast (Vedastus, Vaast) and St. Clotilda, wife of Clovis.

Paving stone in the nave of Notre Dame de Reims, France. Reads, in French: "Here Saint Remi (Saint Remigius) baptized Clovis king of the Franks"

Paving stone in the nave of Notre Dame de Reims, France. Reads, in French: “Here Saint Remi (Saint Remigius) baptized Clovis king of the Franks”

Even before he embraced Christianity, Clovis had showered benefits upon both the Bishop and Cathedral of Rheims, and after the battle of Tolbiac, he requested Remigius to baptize him at Rheims (24 December, 496) in presence of several bishops of the Franks and Alemanni and great numbers of the Frankish army. Clovis granted Remigius stretches of territory, in which the latter established and endowed many churches. He erected, with the papal consent, bishoprics at Tournai; Cambrai; Terouanne, where he ordained the first bishop in 499; Arras, where he placed St. Waast; Laon, which he gave to his nephew Gunband.

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January 13 – The Opponent of Bishop Lucifer

January 13, 2025

St. Hilary of Poitiers

Bishop, born in that city at the beginning of the fourth century; died there 1 November, according to the most accredited opinion, or according to the Roman Breviary, on 13 January, 368. Belonging to a noble and very probably pagan family, he was instructed in all the branches of profane learning, but, having also taken up the study of Holy Scripture and finding there the truth which he sought so ardently, he renounced idolatry and was baptized. Thenceforth his wide learning and his zeal for the Faith attracted such attention that he was chosen about 350 to govern the body of the faithful which the city had possessed since the third century. We know nothing of the bishops who governed this society in the beginning. Hilary is the first concerning whom we have authentic information, and this is due to the important part he played in opposing heresy. The Church was then greatly disturbed by internal discords, the authority of the popes not being so powerful in practice as either to prevent or to stop them. Arianism had made frightful ravages in various regions and threatened to invade Gaul, where it already had numerous partisans more or less secretly affiliated with it. Saturninus, Bishop of Arles, the most active of the latter, being exposed by Hilary, convened and presided over a council at Béziers in 356 with the intention of justifying himself, or rather of establishing his false doctrine. Here the Bishop of Poitiers courageously presented himself to defend orthodoxy, but the council, composed for the most part of Arians, refused to hear him, and being shortly afterwards denounced to the Emperor Constantius, the protector of Arianism, he was at his command transported to the distant coasts of Phrygia.

But persecution could not subdue the valiant champion. Instead of remaining inactive during his exile he gave himself up to study, completed certain of his works which he had begun, and wrote his treatise on the synods. In this work he analysed the professions of faith uttered by the Oriental bishops in the Councils of Ancyra, Antioch, and Sirmium, and while condemning them, since they were in substance Arian, he sought to show that sometimes the difference between the doctrines of certain heretics and orthodox beliefs was rather in the words than in the ideas, which led to his counseling the bishops of the West to be reserved in their condemnation. He was sharply reproached for his indulgence by certain ardent Catholics, the leader of whom was Lucifer, Bishop of Cagliari. However, in 359, the city of Seleucia witnessed the assembly in synod of a large number of Oriental bishops, nearly all of whom were either Anomoeans or Semi-Arians. Hilary, whom everyone wished to see and hear, so great was his reputation for learning and virtue, was invited to be present at this assembly. The governor of the province even furnished him with post horses for the journey. In presence of the Greek fathers he set forth the doctrines of the Gallic bishops, and easily proved that, contrary to the opinion current in the East, these latter were not Sabellians. Then he took part in the violent discussions which took place between the Semi-Arians, who inclined toward reconciliation with the Catholics, and the Anomoeans, who formed as it were the extreme left of Arianism.

St. Hilary of Poitiers Presiding over a Council from the Hours of Etienne Chevalier

After the council, which had no result beyond the wider separation of these brothers in enmity, he left for Constantinople, the stronghold of heresy, to continue his battle against error. But while the Semi-Arians, who were less numerous and less powerful, besought him to become the intermediary in a reconciliation between themselves and the bishops of the West, the Anomoeans, who had the immense advantage of being upheld by the emperor, besought the latter to send back to his own country this Gallic bishop, who, they said, sowed discord and troubled the Orient. Constantius acceded to their desire, and the exile was thus enabled to set out on his journey home. In 361 Hilary re-entered Poitiers in triumph and resumed possession of his see. He was welcomed with the liveliest joy by his flock and his brothers in the episcopate, and was visited by Martin, his former disciple and subsequently Bishop of Tours. The success he had achieved in his combat against error was rendered more brilliant shortly afterwards by the deposition of Saturninus, the Arian Bishop of Arles by whom he had been persecuted. However, as in Italy the memory still rankled of the efforts he had made to bring about a reconciliation between the nearly converted Semi-Arians and the Catholics, he went in 364 to the Bishop of Vercelli to endeavour to overcome the intolerance of the partisans of the Bishop Lucifer mentioned above. Almost immediately afterwards, that it might be seen that, if he was full of indulgence for those whom gentleness might finally win from error, he was intractable towards those who were obstinate in their adherence to it, he went to Milan, there to assail openly Auxentius, the bishop of that city, who was a firm defender of the Arian doctrines. But the Emperor Valentinian, who protected the heretic, ordered Hilary to depart immediately from Milan.

Reliquary of St. Hilary in the crypt of Saint-Hilaire le Grand (Poitiers) Church

He then returned to his city of Poitiers, from which he was not again to absent himself and where he was to die. This learned and energetic bishop had fought against error with the pen as well as in words. The best edition of his numerous and remarkable writings is that published by Dom Constant under the title: “Sancti Hilarii, Pictavorum episcopi opera, ad manuscriptos codices gallicanos, romanos, belgicos, necnon ad veteres editiones castigata” (Paris, 1693). Pius IX raised him to the rank of Doctor of the Universal Church. The Church of Puy glories in the supposed possession of his relics, but according to one tradition his body was borne to the church of St-Denys near Paris, while according to another it was taken from the church of St-Hilaire at Poitiers and burned by the Protestants in 1572.

BARONIUS, Ann. (1590), 355, 69-83; 358, 11-19; 360, 1-17; 362, 228-238; 369, 6-27; TILLEMONT, Mem. pour servir a l`hist. eccles. (1700), VII, 432-469; CEILLIER, Hist. gen. des aut. sacr. et eccles. (Paris, 1735), VI, 1-150; DUTEMS, Clerge de France (Paris, 1774), II, 396-402; Ad. VIEHAUSER, Hilarius Pictaviensis geschild. in seinem Kampfe gegen den Arianismus (Klagenfurt, 1860); BARBIER, Vie de S. Hilaire, eveque de Poitiers, docteur et pere de l`Eglise (Tours and Paris, 1882).

cfr. LEON CLUGNET (1913 Catholic Encyclopedia)

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January 14 – Blessed Devasahayam Pillai

January 13, 2025

Blessed Devasahayam Pillai

Bl. Devasahayam PillaiDevasahayam Pillai (named Neelakanda Pillai at birth) was born into an affluent Nair-caste family at Nattalam in the present-day Kanyakumari District, on 23 April 1712. His father Vasudevan Namboodiri, hailed from Kayamkulam, in present-day Kerala state, and was working as a priest at Sri Adi Kesava Perumal temple in Thiruvattar in present-day Kanyakumari district of Tamil Nadu. His mother Devaki Amma hailed from Thiruvattar in Kanyakumari District. In the Nair matriarchal traditions of the day, Devasahayam Pillai was raised by his maternal uncle, and was inculcated with Hindu beliefs and traditions early on.

Devasahayam’s family had much influence in the royal palace of Maharaja Marthanda Varma, king of Travancore, and Devasahayam went into the service of the royal palace as a young man. His capabilities and enthusiasm did not go unnoticed in the palace, as he was soon put in charge of state affairs as an official under Ramayyan Dalawa, the Dewan of Travancore.

In 1741, Captain Eustachius De Lannoy, a Dutch naval commander, was sent on command of a Dutch naval expedition by the Dutch East India Company to capture Colachel, a port under the control of Travancore, and establish a trading post there. In the battle (Battle of Colachel) that followed between the Travancore forces and De Lannoy’s men, the Dutch forces were defeated and the men were either killed or captured. Eustachius De Lannoy, his assistant Donadi and a few other Dutch soldiers were captured and imprisoned.

De Lannoy and the Dutchmen were later pardoned by the king, on condition that they serve in the Travancore army. De Lannoy later earned the trust of the king and went on to become the commander of the Travancore armed forces, winning many battles and annexing various neighbouring territories to Travancore.

Padmanapuram palace, in Tamilnadu, India.

It was during their influential roles under the King of Travancore that Devasahayam Pillai and De Lannoy became well acquainted. De Lannoy’s Christian faith interested Devasahayam and De Lannoy enlightened him on the faith, leading to his conversion in 1745.

On Devasahayam’s acceptance of the Christian faith, he was baptized at the Roman Catholic Latin Rite church at Vadakkankulam village (in the present Tirunelveli District of Tamil Nadu), where the Jesuits had a mission under Rev. Fr. R. Bouttari Italus S.J. Neelakanda Pillai, his name at birth, was then changed to Lazar, although he is more widely known by the Tamil & Malayalam translation Devasahayam (meaning God’s help). Pillai was married by this time to Bargavi Ammal of Travancore. She was also persuaded and converted to Christianity by her husband. His wife was given the baptismal name of Gnanapoo Ammaal (equivalent to Theresa in Tamil & Malayalam). Fearing reprisal in Travancore against her religious conversion, she chose to be a migrated-resident of this village. Some of Devasahayam Pillai’s immediate family members also received baptism later, after being converted to Christianity.

The tomb of Blessed Devasahayam Pillai

The tomb of Blessed Devasahayam Pillai

Church chroniclers say that the Brahmin chief priest of the kingdom, the feudal lords, members of the royal household and the Nair community brought false charges on Devasahayam to the Dewan, Ramayyan Dalawa. Pillai was divested of his portfolio in the administration and was later accused of treason and of divulging state secrets to rivals and Europeans. He was later arrested and tortured for three years. After his execution orders were passed, he was initially ordered to be taken on a buffalo to Kuzhumaikkad, where he would be executed. But the original Royal order was altered later to finally to be taken on a buffalo back to Aralvaimozhy border for a meaningful punishment of banishment after carrying out a series of tortures by ten different karyakkars on the advice of the ministers.

Devasahayam Pillai was marched from Padmanabhapuram Palace to Aralvaimozhy by soldiers, over the period of a few days. Pillai was treated like a cruel criminal and as was customary in those days for very cruel criminals, his body was painted with red and black spots, and was intentionally marched through populated areas, sitting backward on top of a water buffalo (the mythical vehicle or vahana of Yama, the lord of death in Hinduism) through the streets of South Travancore. As a method of torture, he was beaten everyday with eighty stripes, pepper rubbed in his wounds and nostrils, exposed to the sun, and given only stagnant water to drink.

While halting at Puliyoorkurichi, not far away from the Padmanabhapuram Palace of the Travancore king, it is believed by Christians that God quenched his thirst by letting water gush through a small hole on a rock, the very place where he knelt to pray. The water hole is still found in the compound of a church at Puliyoorkurichi, about 15 km from Nagercoil.

It is also believed that the leaves of a neem (Margosa) tree in the village of Peruvilai, to which he had been tied while being marched to Aralvaimozhy, cured illnesses of sick people in the village and around. Many more miracles are attributed to Devasahayam Pillai.

In 1752, the original order of the King and his Dewan was to deport him from Travancore, into the Pandya country, at Aralvaimozhy. He was let off in the forested hills near Aralvaimozhy. There, he is believed to have begun deep meditations, and the people from the adjacent villages began visiting the holy man. Christian sources allege that at this time, high caste Hindus plotted to do away with Devasahayam.

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The soldiers went up the forested hills and tried to shoot Devasahayam, but were unable to fire; after which he took the gun in his hands, blessed it and gave it back to the soldiers to shoot him to death, if they wished to. The soldiers took the gun back and fired at him five times. His body was then carelessly thrown out near the foothills at Kattadimalai.

It was at Kattadimali in Kanyakumari district that Devasahayam Pillai died on 14 January 1752. His mortal remains were interred near the altar inside St. Xavier’s Church, Kottar, Nagercoil, which is now the diocesan Cathedral.

Since the days of the interment of the mortal remains of Devesahayam Pillai many Christian pilgrims visited his tomb and offered prayers.

He was beatified on 2 December, 2012, and is the first lay person to be elevated to the rank of “Blessed” in India.

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January 14 – The Ten Year Old Saint and Some Of Her Miracles

January 13, 2025

Ven. Anne de Guigné

Left front is Marie-Antoinette and next to her is Magdeleine. Back is Jacques and Anne, who is eight years old.

Left front is Marie-Antoinette and next to her is Magdeleine. Back is Jacques and Anne, who is eight years old.

When St. Thomas Aquinas’s sister asked him how to become a Saint, he told her to just “will it.” Venerable Anne de Guigné¹ was a child with an iron will and from the moment of her conversion, she willed only one thing…to be a Saint. “To become a Saint is to persist,” she said. Though she lived for a short time, she excelled in overcoming her natural inclinations, generously and heroically accepted the sufferings that God sent to her.

Ven. Anne de Guigné, the eldest of four children was born on April 25, 1911 to Count Jacques de Guigné and Antoinette de Charette. The Count was a second lieutenant in the 13th Battalion, Chambéry of Chasseurs Alpins. Anne’s maternal grandmother, Francoise Eulalie Marie Madeleine de Bourbon-Busset was a direct descendant of the sixth son of King St. Louis IX of France. Anne’s Mother was the great-niece of General François de Charette, one of La Vendée leaders.

Anne with her father 1911.

Anne with her father 1911.

Ven. Anne died when she was 10 years old, though short, it was full of suffering and joy, but she wasn’t saintly at first; in fact she was a little tyrant. One doctor, who came to visit the child who was very ill, found it impossible to examine her and a furious command came from Anne, “Take your hat and go!” Such scenes were not unusual. Her grandfather said once, “I feel sorry for her Mother 20 years from now.” Anne was intelligent, perfectly frank, courageous and when she wasn’t being troublesome, she could be very loving. Though if anyone showed resistance to what she wanted to do, there was trouble!

When Jacques (Jojo) was born 15 months after Anne, she became very jealous, throwing dirt in the baby’s eyes and she even kicked him once. Thankfully it didn’t last long and she was very happy to be the oldest. Anne was haughty, vain difficult to handle and her first 4 years were the worst. This behavior was soon to change and with it a saintly, little girl emerged.

Anne with her Mother, Autumn 1911.

Anne with her Mother, Autumn 1911.

In September 1913, Magdeleine was born and January 1915 Marie-Antoinette was born. Anne was the Godmother of Marie-Antoinette³, who everyone called Marinette. When Anne was 3 ½ the war broke out between France and Germany and her father, though retired, was sent to the front lines. A month later he returned home, severely injured. Anne, who loved her father immensely, took upon herself to look after him, fetching books and even arranging his cushions. Recovering from his wounds, Lieutenant de Guigné left again for the front lines only to return a few days later wounded worse than before. Despite not being healed sufficiently, Lieutenant de Guigné insisted upon returning to his men. In February, being seriously wounded, he was sent to a hospital in Lyons for an operation. Taking Anne with her, Madame de Guigné went to Lyons and pointed out the suffering soldiers to Anne, who was moved at the sight.

Jacques de Guigné, father of Ven. Anne.

On May 3, Feast of the Holy Cross, feeling better the Count left again for the front line. The Germans, who had invaded France, were trying to take Paris. In Alsace, on July 22, 1915, Lieutenant de Guigné, having received absolution, led the attack with his men. With a large sign of the cross and charging from the trenches, Lieutenant de Guigné was killed. The news of his death was delivered to his wife on July 28th. In the morning, the grieving widow told Anne about her father’s death. Tearfully Madame de Guigné said to Anne, “If you want to comfort me, you must be good.” Gazing long and thoughtfully into her Mother’s eyes, she realized that in order to please God she must be good and  Anne resolved to be good and please her Mother. Her father’s death was the beginning of Anne’s conversion. All day long, Anne was thoughtful, trying to make the other children behave. “You must be good Jojo, because Mother is sad.” From this time on there was no more tempers, nor selfishness. This huge change did not come easy for Anne; though no one would have guessed the daily battle within herself she fought.

Anne aged two and a half, 1913.

Anne aged two and a half, 1913. “When very small, before the age of four, obedience was very difficult for her. She used to resist violently. From the time of her conversion, however, she started to control herself and achieved unquestioning obedience which cost her a great deal,” Madame de Guigné.

When Madeleine Bassett (Demoise as the children called her), the governess came in January 1916, she was surprised to hear how difficult Anne had been for the past 4 ½ years. Anne fussed over Demoise, so as to make her feel at home, even pointing to the flowers in the garden, telling Demoise that she can send a bouquet to her family back home in Cannes. One thing that the governess noticed was that Anne seemed wise beyond her years. “I was really charmed by the easy grace of her manner. One could not help loving her even then that inspired respect. She was very sensible too, and she had such a kind little heart.”

Shortly before Anne’s conversion, Madeleine Bassett found Anne standing on a chair surveying her reflection in the mirror with some satisfaction. “I’m rather pretty, don’t you think so,” said the four-year-old. The governess replied that it was a waste of time to admire yourself, since beauty is a gift of God and we should not be vain about it. Anne jumped down from the chair and never praised herself again.

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Pius XII: Allocution of January 14, 1952

January 13, 2025

Faithful to your ancient tradition, beloved Sons and Daughters, you have again come this year to present the visible Head of the Church with a testimonial of your devotion and your fond wishes for the New Year. We welcome them with keen and affectionate gratitude, and offer you in return Our warmest regards. We include them in Our prayers, so that the year just born may be marked by the seal of divine goodness and enriched with the most precious favors of Providence. To these wishes We should like to add, as usual, a few practical spiritual gifts, which We will summarize in a threefold exhortation.

First of all, you must look fearlessly, courageously, at the present reality.

1) First of all, you must look fearlessly, courageously, at the present reality. It seems superfluous to insist on recalling to your mind what, three years ago, was the object of Our considerations; it would seem vain and unworthy of you to veil it in prudent euphemisms, especially after the words of your eloquent representative have given Us so clear a testimonial of your adhesion to the social doctrine of the Church and to the duties stemming therefrom. The new Italian Constitution no longer recognizes you as possessing, as a social class, in the State and among the people, any particular mission, quality, or privilege.A page of history has been turned; a chapter has ended. A period has been placed, indicating the end of a social and economic past; a new chapter has begun, inaugurating very different lifestyles. One may think as one wishes, but the fact remains: It is the “irresistible course” of history. Some, perhaps, may painfully resent so profound a transformation; but what good can come of wallowing at length in the bitterness of that fact? All, in the end, must bow to reality; the difference lies solely in the “manner.” While the mediocre can only wear a frown in the face of ill fortune, superior spirits are able, according to the classic expression, to prove themselves “beaux joueurs,” imperturbably maintaining their noble and untroubled bearing.

Lift your gaze and keep it fixed on the Christian ideal. All those upheavals, those evolutions and revolutions, have left it untouched. They can do nothing against what is the inner essence of true nobility, that which aspires to Christian perfection, the same that the Redeemer pointed to in the Sermon on the Mount.

2) Lift your gaze and keep it fixed on the Christian ideal. All those upheavals, those evolutions and revolutions, have left it untouched. They can do nothing against what is the inner essence of true nobility, that which aspires to Christian perfection, the same that the Redeemer pointed to in the Sermon on the Mount. Unconditional loyalty to Catholic doctrine, to Christ, and to His Church; the ability and the will to be also models and guides for others. Need We enumerate the practical applications of all this? You must present to the world, even to the world of believers and of practicing Catholics, the spectacle of a faultless conjugal life, the edification of a truly exemplary domestic hearth; you must build a dike against every infiltration, into your home and your circles, of ruinous ideas, pernicious indulgences and tolerances that might contaminate and sully the purity of matrimony and family. Here indeed is an exemplary and holy enterprise, well suited to ignite the zeal of the Roman and Christian nobility in our times.

You must present to the world, even to the world of believers and of practicing Catholics, the spectacle of a faultless conjugal life, the edification of a truly exemplary domestic hearth

As We present these reflections for your consideration, We are thinking especially of countries in which the devastating catastrophe struck the families of your class particularly violently, reducing them from power and wealth to forlornness and even to extreme poverty; yet at the same time it revealed and brought out the nobility and generosity with which many of them have remained faithful to God even in misfortune and the silent magnanimity and dignity with which they are able to bear their lot. These are the virtues that are not improvised, but rather which flourish and ripen at the hour of affliction.

Lastly, give your devoted and ready assistance to the common effort.

3) Lastly, give your devoted and ready assistance to the common effort. Vast is the field in which your activities may prove useful: in the Church and in the State, in parliamentary and administrative life, in literature, in science, in the arts, in the various professions. Only one attitude is forbidden you—for it would be contrary to the original spirit of your station: We are referring to “abstentionism.” More than an “emigration,” it would be a desertion, since whatever may happen and however much it may cost, one must above all preserve, against the danger of even the smallest rifts, the strict union of all the forces of Catholicism.

It may well be that one thing or another about the present conditions displeases you. Yet for the sake and for the love of the common good, for the salvation of Christian civilization, during this crisis which, far from abating, seems instead to be growing, stand firm in the breach, on the front line of defense. There your special qualities can be put to good use even today. Your names, which resonate deeply in the memories even of the distant past, in the history of the Church and of civil society, recall to mind figures of great men and fill your souls with echoes of the dutiful call to prove yourselves worthy.

Yet for the sake and for the love of the common good, for the salvation of Christian civilization, during this crisis which, far from abating, seems instead to be growing, stand firm in the breach, on the front line of defense.

The inborn sentiment of perseverance and continuity, the attachment to a healthy notion of tradition, are characteristic features of true nobility. If you are able to combine them with a vast openness of views on contemporary reality, especially on social justice, and an honest and sincere collaboration, you will be making a contribution of the highest value to public life.

These, beloved Sons and Daughters, are the thoughts We deemed suitable to communicate to you at the dawn of this New Year. May the Lord inspire in you the resolve to carry them out and deign to fecundate your good will with the abundance of His grace, in hopes of which We now with all Our heart impart to you, and to your families, your children, your sick and infirm, and to all those dear to you, near and far, Our paternal Apostolic blessing.

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Discorsi e Radiomessaggi di Sua Santità Pio XII (Tipografia Poliglotta Vaticana, January 14, 1952), pp. 457-459.

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January 15 – St. Maurus & St. Placidus

January 13, 2025

St. Maurus

Reliquary of St. Maurus from the 2010 exhibition in Prague Castle

Deacon, son of Equitius, a nobleman of Rome, but claimed also by Fondi, Gallipoli, Lavello etc.; died 584. Feast, 15 Jan. He is represented as an abbot with crozier, or with book and censer, or holding the weights and measures of food and drink given him by his holy master. He is the patron of charcoalburners, coppersmiths etc. — in Belgium of shoemakers — and is invoked against gout, hoarseness etc. He was a disciple of St. Benedict, and his chief support at Subiaco. By St. Gregory the Great (Lib. Dialog., II) he is described as a model of religious virtues, especially of obedience. According to the Vita (“Acta SS.” II Jan., 320, and Mabillon “Acta SS. O.S.B.”, I, 274) he went to France in 543 and became the founder and superior of the abbey at Glanfeuil, later known by his name. This Vita ascribed to a companion, the monk Faustus of Monte Cassino, has been severely attacked. Delehaye (loc. cit., 106) calls it a forgery of Abbot Odo of Glanfeuil in the ninth century but Adlhoch (Stud. u. Mittheil ., 1903, 3, 1906, l85) makes a zealous defence. On the Signum S. Mauri, a blessing of the sick with invocation of St. Maurus given in the Appendix of Rituale Romanum, see “Studien u. Mittheil.” (1882), 165.

FRANCIS MERSHMAN

St. Benedict orders St. Maurus to rescue St. Placidius. Painting by Fra Filippo Lippi

St. Placidus

St. Placidus, disciple of St. Benedict, the son of the patrician Tertullus, was brought as a child to St. Benedict at Sublaqueum (Subiaco) and dedicated to God as provided for in chapter 69 of St. Benedict’s Rule. Here too occurred the incident related by St. Gregory (Dialogues, II, vii) of his rescue from drowning when his fellow monk, Maurus, at St. Benedict’s order ran across the surface of the lake below the monastery and drew Placidus safely to shore. It appears certain that he accompanied St. Benedict when, about 529, he removed to Monte Cassino, which was said to have been made over to him by the father of Placidus. Of his later life nothing is known, but in an ancient psalterium at Vallombrosa his name is found in the Litany of the Saints placed among the confessors immediately after those of St. Benedict and St. Maurus; the same occurs in Codex CLV at Subiaco, attributed to the ninth century (see Baumer, “Johannes Mabillon”, p. 199, n. 2).

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There seems now to be no doubt that the “Passio S. Placidi”, purporting to be written by one Gordianus, a servant of the saint, on the strength of which he is usually described as abbot and martyr, is really the work of Peter the Deacon, a monk of Monte Cassino in the twelfth century (see Delehaye, op. cit. infra). The writer seems to have begun by confusing St. Placidus with the earlier Placitus, who, with Euticius and thirty companions, was martyred in Sicily under Diocletian, their feast occurring in the earlier martyrologies on 5 October. Having thus made St. Placidus a martyr, he proceeds to account for this by attributing his martyrdom to Saracen invaders from Spain — an utter anachronism in the sixth century but quite a possible blunder if the “Acta” were composed after the Moslem invasions of Sicily. The whole question is discussed by the Bollandists (infra).

Acta SS., III Oct. (Brussels, 1770), 65-147; MABILLON, Acta SS. O.S.B., I (Paris, 1668), 45; IDEM, Annales O.S.B., I (Paris, 1703); IDEM, Iter italicum (Paris, 1687), 125; GREGORY THE GREAT, Dial., II, iii, v, vii, in P. L., LXV, 140, 144, 146; PIRRI, Sicilia sacra (Palermo, 1733), 359, 379, 432, 1128; ABBATISSA, Vita di S. Placido (Messina, 1654); AVO, Vita S. Placidi (Venice, 1583); Compendio della vita di s. Placido (Monte Cassino, 1895); DELEHAYE, Legends of the Saints, tr. CRAWFORD (London, 1907), 72, 106.

G. ROGER HUDLESTON (Catholic Encyclopedia)

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The Nobility: A Particularly Distinguished Order in Human Society—It Will Have Special Accounts to Render to God

January 9, 2025

An application of these rich and solid teachings to the contemporary condition of the nobility may be found in the allocution of John XXIII to the Roman Patriciate and Nobility on January 9, 1960.

The Pontifical Noble Guard pays homage to Pope Pius XII, Christmas 1945. The Pope's Nephew, Prince Giulio Pacelli, is the third guard from the left.

The Pontifical Noble Guard pays homage to Pope Pius XII, Christmas 1945. The Pope’s nephew, Prince Giulio Pacelli, is the third guard from the left.

“The Holy Father is pleased to note that the distinguished audience is a reminder of what human society is as a whole: a multiple variety of elements, each with its own personality and efficiency like flowers in the sunlight, and each worthy of respect and honor, regardless of its importance and size.

“The fact of belonging to a particularly distinguished order of society, however, while requiring due consideration, is a call to its members to give more, as befits those who have received more, and who will one day have to render accounts to God for everything.

Pope Paul VI addressing the Roman Patriciate and Nobility,  Jan. 14, 1964.

“By acting in this manner, you cooperate in the wondrous harmony of the kingdom of Our Lord, with the profound conviction that the things that made the fame of each family in the past must now strengthen its commitment—precisely as dictated by its particular social condition—to the sublime concept of Christian brotherhood and to the exercise of special virtues: sweet and gentle patience, purity of customs, humility, and above all, charity. Only thus will great and undying honor be conferred on individuals!

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January 9 – Blessed Tommaso Reggio

January 9, 2025

Blessed Tommaso Reggio

Bl. Tommaso Reggio

Bl. Tommaso Reggio

Bl. Tommaso Reggio was born in Genoa, Italy, on 9 January 1818 to the Marquis of Reggio and Angela Pareto. He had a comfortable upbringing which gave him a solid Christian and cultural background and assured him of a brilliant career. However, at the age of 20 he decided to become a priest and to turn his back on his previous life. At the time of ordination on 18 September 1841 he said:  “I want to become a saint, cost what it may, living my life in accordance with the two cornerstones of Christianity:  prayer and ascesis”.

At the age of 25 he was already the vice-rector of the Genoa seminary and later the rector of the Chiavari seminary at a politically turbulent time in the mid-1800s. While in charge of the seminary he became one of the founders of the first Catholic newspaper, The Catholic Standard.

He wanted to report news clearly and honestly. His defense of the Christian faith and its basic principles never got in the way of truth and freedom. In 1865 The Catholic Standard and 25 other newspapers supported Catholic electoral lists. They were hoping for a Catholic political party, but when the Non expedit came out in 1874 and Catholics were told that they could not vote, he realized that his newspaper could not go on. He closed it down without complaint.

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In 1877 he was consecrated Bishop of Ventimiglia, a very poor diocese that he was to cross many times on the back of a mule. He was able to feel the pulse of his diocese by visiting even the most inaccessible villages, and organized three Synods in just 15 years. A renovation project was also begun:  new parishes were opened, there was a revival of the liturgy and hymns played an important part in the Mass. There were also teaching programs set up for all sectors of the population.

In 1878 the Bishop founded the Sisters of St Martha, a religious order whose purpose was “to meet the requirements of every age”. He gave them the task of welcoming “the poorest of the poor” like Martha, who “served Jesus with her humble hands”.

Bl. Tommaso Reggio

Bl. Tommaso Reggio

From him they learned how to worship in silence, to nourish themselves constantly with prayer and to discover “on their knees” the values of a faith whereby Christ can be found in the humblest and in all those with whom he is identified.

In 1887 the diocese was hit by an earthquake. Despite the fact that the Bishop was now elderly, he was actively at work among the rubble. He did not only bless and console but called on his parish priests to make a rigorous and exact check of the gravity of the situation in each parish. His patched cassock and his watch hanging from a piece of string testified that he was a Bishop who had become “poor” for his people.

His main concern was for the orphans whose numbers had increased after the earthquake, so he founded orphanages in Ventimiglia and San Remo, where they could learn a trade and the money they earned was put aside for when they would have to go out into the world alone. In 1892 he asked the Pope to be relieved of his duties. The Holy Father’s answer was surprising:  in May 1892 he appointed him Archbishop of Genoa.

He was 74 and his new job was anything but easy given the complex situation in the city of Genoa. The civil authorities were hostile towards him, but he humbly accepted his post, certain of doing God’s will. The Archbishop’s influence was such that eventually Catholics and non-believers brought their problems to him, as one would to a good and wise father.

Bl. Tommaso ReggiWith Bishops Bonomelli and Scalabrini he set up an assistance network for immigrants which supplied them with documents to prevent any exploitation. Catholic associations were encouraged and he supported reduced work hours and weekends off for laborers, which soon gained him the admiration of his adversaries.

He would pray every night from 3 a.m. until 6 a.m. Cheerful and carefree, he made no show of his penitential life. He worshiped Christ and knew how to hide his problems and labors behind a cheerful and humorous appearance. He had an unshakable faith and a natural humility which sustained his life.

In 1900 Catholic Italy decided to consecrate the new century to God and Our Lady. The Archbishop invited all the Ligurian Bishops to Ventimiglia for a pilgrimage to Monte Saccarello, where a statue of the Redeemer was erected. Although he very much wanted to go up the mountain, he took ill and was unable to do so. He died on the afternoon of 22 November 1901.

(source: Vatican)

He was beatified September 3, 2000, by Pope John Paul II.

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January 10 – Maria Theodor Ratisbonne

January 9, 2025

Theodore Ratisbonne

A distinguished preacher and writer, and director of the Archconfraternity of Christian Mothers, b. of Jewish parentage at Strasburg, 28 Dec., 1802; d. in Paris, 10 Jan. 1884. He was raised in luxury, was educated at the Royal College of his native city, and at the age of manhood, was considered a leader among his people, who unanimously elected him to replace Samson Libermann when the latter was converted in 1824. The conversion of his three friends, Emile Dreyfus, Alfred Mayer, and Samson Libermann, caused him to study the Bible and the history of the Church. For two years the work of grace went on within him, and finally he was baptized in 1826. He entered the seminary, and received Holy orders in 1830. He worked in his native diocese until 1840, when he became subdirector of the Confraternity of Notre Dame des Victoires at Paris.

Alphonse Ratisbonne

It was whilst in this city, in 1842, that his brother Alphonse, a free-thinker animated with greatest hatred against Christianity, was miraculously converted at Rome, and suggested to him to secure a home for the education of Jewish children. Providence seemed to design him for the work, and answered his prayer for light by sending him the two daughters of a Jewish lady whom he subsequently converted. During the same summer he went to Rome; Gregory XVI decorated him a Knight of St. Sylvester, complimented him for his “Life of St. Bernard”, and granted his request to labour for the conversion of the Jews. Houses were opened under the patronage of “Our Lady of Sion” for the Christian education of Jewish boys and girls. Pius IX gave Ratisbonne many marks of his affection, and Leo XIII appointed him prothonotary Apostolic. At his death he received the last Sacraments from the Archbishop of Paris, and the final blessing from Leo XIII. His chief works are: “Essai sur l’Education Morale” (1828); “Histoire de Saint-Bernard” (1841); “Méditations de Saint-Bernard sur le Présent et Futur” (1853); “Le Manuel de la Mère Chrétienne” (1860); “Questions Juives” (1868); “Nouveau Manuel des Mères Chrétiennes” (1870); “Le Pape” (1870); “Miettes Evangéliques” (1872); “Réponse aux Questions d’un Israélite de Notre Temps” (1878).

The Jewish Encyclopedia, X; Currier, History of Religious Orders; Vapereau, Dictionnaire des Contemporains; Larousse, Grand Dictionnaire Universel; Hogan, Irish Monthly, XII; M. Th. Ratisbonne (Paris, 1904).

MARTIN A. HEHIR (Catholic Encyclopedia)

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January 10 – St. Diarmaid the Just

January 9, 2025

A famous Irish confessor of the mid-sixth century; d. 542. His name is associated with the great monastery of Inisclothran (Iniscleraun) on Lough Ree, in the Dioeese of Ardagh, which he founded about the year 530. He was of princely origin and a native of Connacht. Wishing to found an oratory far from the haunts […]

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January 10 – Jean-Baptiste Régis

January 9, 2025

Born at Istres, Provence, 11 June, 1663, or 29 Jan., 1664; died at Peking, 24 Nov., 1738. He was received into the Society of Jesus, 14 Sept. 1683, or 13 Sept. 1679, and in 1698 went on the Chinese mission, where he served science and religion for forty years, and took the chief share in […]

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Pius XII: Allocution of January 11, 1943

January 9, 2025

How, beloved Sons and Daughters, could the warm and heartfelt greetings that the lofty words of your illustrious representative conveyed to Us in your name fail to find their response in the offerings We now raise to God on your behalf? Unvanquished by the sorrows of the present hour, We feel, at this moment, a […]

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January 12 – Prominent Jesuit Missionary in Early Mexico

January 9, 2025

Pedro Díaz Missionary, b. at Lupedo, Diocese of Toledo, Spain, in 1546; d. in Mexico, 12 Jan., 1618. Though but twenty years of age when he joined the Society of Jesus he had already been a teacher of philosophy for two years. In 1572 he was sent by St. Francis Borgia to Mexico with the […]

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January 12 – Tyrolese priest and patriot

January 9, 2025

Johann Simon (Joachim) Haspinger A Tyrolese priest and patriot; b. at Gries, Tyrol, 28 October, 1776; d. in the imperial palace of Mirabell, Salzburg, 12 January, 1858. His parents were well-to-do country people, and destined their son for the priesthood. It was, however, only in 1703 after having devoted himself until his seventeenth year to […]

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January 12 – Countess, convert and authoress

January 9, 2025

Ida Hahn-Hahn Countess, convert and authoress, born 22 June, 1805; died 12 January, 1880. She was descended from a family that formerly was one of the wealthiest and most illustrious of the Mecklenburg nobility. Her father, the tragic and famous “Theatergraf” (theatrical count), squandered such huge sums on his one hobby, the drama, that he […]

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January 12 – Bernard Jungmann

January 9, 2025

Bernard Jungman A dogmatic theologian and ecclesiastical historian, born at Münster in Westphalia, 1 March, 1833; died at Louvain, 12 Jan., 1895. He belonged to an intensely Catholic family of Westphalia; like him, two of his brothers entered the service of the Church, one joining the Society of Jesus and the other becoming a missionary […]

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January 12 – Physician

January 9, 2025

Daniel Noble Physician, b. 14 Jan., 1810; d. at Manchester, 12 Jan, 1885. He was the son of Mary Dewhurst and Edward Noble of Preston, a descendant of an old Yorkshire Catholic family. Apprenticed to a Preston surgeon named Thomas Moore, Noble was in time admitted a member of the Royal College of Surgeons and […]

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RCR Book

January 6, 2025

Foreword Since its first publication in the Brazilian cultural journal Catolicismo in 1959, Revolution and Counter-Revolution has gone through a number of editions in Portuguese, English, French, Italian, and Spanish. The present edition is the first to be published digitally in the United States. It includes recent commentaries on Revolution and Counter-Revolution’s third part, which […]

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January 6 – The Kingship of Christ Is Manifest to the Pagan World

January 6, 2025

The Epiphany of Our Lord Saints Balthasar, Caspar and Melchior Epiphany, which in the original Greek signifies appearance or manifestation, as St. Augustin observes, (1) is a festival principally solemnized in honor of the discovery Jesus Christ made of himself to the Magi, or wise men; who, soon after his birth, by a particular inspiration […]

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First recorded Mass in the Americas: January 6, 1494 at La Isabela, Dominican Republic

January 6, 2025

Columbus’s second fleet of seventeen assorted ships carried between twelve hundred and fifteen hundred men and was organized to establish a permanent colony that would serve as a base for trade with the people of this new land. The fleet left Cádiz on 25 September 1493 and arrived in the Caribbean in November. Columbus was […]

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January 6 – St. Roch

January 6, 2025

St. Roch Born at Montpellier towards 1295; died 1327. His father was governor of that city. At his birth St. Roch is said to have been found miraculously marked on the breast with a red cross. Deprived of his parents when about twenty years old, he distributed his fortune among the poor, handed over to […]

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January 6 – St. Joan of Arc was born on this day over 600 years ago

January 6, 2025

St. Joan of Arc In French Jeanne d’Arc; by her contemporaries commonly known as la Pucelle (the Maid). Born at Domremy in Champagne, probably on 6 January, 1412; died at Rouen, 30 May, 1431. The village of Domremy lay upon the confines of territory which recognized the suzerainty of the Duke of Burgundy, but in […]

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January 7 – St. Aldric

January 6, 2025

St. Aldric Bishop of Le Mans in the time of Louis le Debonnaire, born c. 800; died at Le Mans, 7 January, 856. As a youth he lived in the court of Charlemagne, at Aix la Chapelle, as well as in that of his son and successor Louis. By both monarchs he was highly esteemed, […]

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January 7 – Ordered bandits of royal blood to hang from the highest mast

January 6, 2025

St. Canut Second son of Eric the Good, king of Denmark, he was made duke of Sleswig, his elder brother Nicholas being king of Denmark. Their father, who lived with his people as a father with his children, and no one ever left him without comfort, says the ancient chronicle Knytling-Saga, p. 71. died in […]

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Allocution of January 8, 1940

January 6, 2025

At the start of the New year, a twofold gift has been given us by the Roman Patriciate and Nobility by their gathering around Us: the most appreciated gift of their presence and the gift of their filial best wishes, adornments, as a flower, of the testimonial of their traditional loyalty to the Holy See, […]

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January 8 – Hapsburg Saint

January 6, 2025

St. Gudula (Latin, Guodila) Born in Brabant, Belgium, of Witger and Amalberga, in the seventh century; died at the beginning of the eighth century. After the birth of Gudula her mother Amalberga, who is herself venerated as a saint, embraced the religious life, and according to tradition received the veil at the hands of St. […]

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Three Reasons Why Abolishing the Hereditary Lords in the English Parliament Is a Big Mistake

January 2, 2025

By John Horvat II The United Kingdom’s Labour Party government is presenting a bill to abolish the hereditary lords from the upper chamber of Parliament. Hereditary lords are those House of Lords’ members who inherit the right to sit in the upper House based on services rendered to the realm. Many storied families have retained […]

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Aging Gracefully or Shamefully

January 2, 2025

By Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira In today’s society, at least as it pertains to the natural aging process, “young” is “in”—“old” is “out.” Everyone wants to appear young. There is a strange anomaly here. While it is fashionable to collect antiques and even vintage automobiles, a deep-rooted sentiment of displeasure exists among those for whom […]

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The Charm of the Curtsey

January 2, 2025

A young Englishwoman of title visited this country recently she expressed astonishment at the ignorance of the art of formal social behavior which American girls displayed. They did not know how to bow correctly, the curtsey seemed to have become an obsolete social form here; they had not learned the graceful way to proceed down the […]

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January 2 – The Infant of Prague

January 2, 2025

Its earliest history can be traced back to Prague in the year 1628 when the small, 19-inch high, wooden and coated wax statue of the Infant Jesus was given by Princess Polyxena von Lobkowicz (1566–1642) to the Discalced Carmelites, to whom she had become greatly attached. The princess had received the statue as a wedding […]

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January 3 – Discoverer of Oregon and of the entire California coast

January 2, 2025

Estévan (Juan) Cabrillo A Portugese in the naval service of Spain, date and place of birth unknown; died on the island of San Bernardo, 3 Jan., 1543. In 1541 Pedro de Alvarado gathered a fleet of twelve vessels on the coast of Western Mexico (Navidad) for an expedition to the Moluccas. Alvarado was soon after […]

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January 3 – The saint who twice saved Paris

January 2, 2025

St. Genevieve Patroness of Paris, born at Nanterre, circa 419 or 422; died at Paris, 512. Her feast is kept on 3 January. She was the daughter of Severus and Gerontia; popular tradition represents her parents as poor peasants, though it seems more likely that they were wealthy and respectable townspeople. In 429 St. Germain […]

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January 4 – Patroness of those afflicted by sexual temptation

January 2, 2025

Blessed Angela of Foligno Umbrian penitent and mystical writer. She was born at Foligno in Umbria, in 1248, of a rich family; died 4 January, 1309. Married at an early age, she loved the world and its pleasures and, worse still, forgetful of her dignity and duties as wife and mother, fell into sin and […]

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January 4 – Nobility in the United States

January 2, 2025

St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Foundress and first superior of the Sisters of Charity in the United States, b. in New York City, 28 Aug., 1774, of non-Catholic parents of high position; d. at Emmitsburg, Maryland, 4 Jan., 1821. Her father, Dr. Richard Bayley (b. Connecticut and educated in England), was the first professor of anatomy […]

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The Great Coronation Banquet

December 30, 2024

A century has passed since Emperor Karl was crowned King of Hungary on December 30, 1916. The coronation ceremony took place at St. Stephen’s Basilica in Budapest, attended by illustrious guests from throughout Europe. Usually a coronation is an occasion of mirth and celebration. However, Hungary was reeling from the ongoing First World War, just […]

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December 30 – He Preached Sanctity in Marriage and Chastity in Priesthood

December 30, 2024

St. Egwin Third Bishop of Worcester; date of birth unknown; d. (according to Mabillon) 20 December, 720, though his death may have occurred three years earlier. His fame as founder of the great Abbey of Evesham no doubt tended to the growth of legends which, though mainly founded on facts, render it difficult to reconcile […]

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December 31 – The patrician girl who befriended St. Augustine, St. Jerome, and the Empress

December 30, 2024

St. Melania (the Younger) Born at Rome, about 383; died in Jerusalem, 31 December, 439. She was a member of the famous family of Valerii. Her parents were Publicola and Albina, her paternal grandmother of the same name is known as Melania, Senior. Little is known of the saint’s childhood, but after the time of […]

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St. Louis and The Holy Name Of God

December 30, 2024

St. Louis, King of France, was one of the gentlest and most pious of monarchs. One thing only did he punish with great severity, and this was disrespect to, and profanation of, the Holy Name of God. At that time, as in our own days, nothing was more dishonored than God’s holy Name. To put […]

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The Dauphin’s gift to the Queen on New Year’s Day

December 30, 2024

At Marie Antoinette’s insistence, the four-year-old Dauphin promised: “By the end of the year, I will learn how to read. It will be my New Year’s gift to you.” Soon after he asked his tutor, Father Avaux, “How long is it before the end of the year?” “A little more than a month,” the priest […]

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January 1 – The Virgin Mary was “of the house of David”

December 30, 2024

Mary’s Davidic ancestry St. Luke (2:4) says that St. Joseph went from Nazareth to Bethlehem to be enrolled, “because he was of the house and family of David”. As if to exclude all doubt concerning the Davidic descent of Mary, the Evangelist (1:32, 69) states that the child born of Mary without the intervention of […]

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January 1 – As bishop, he was harsh to himself, to his clergy, and to any king

December 30, 2024

St. Fulgentius (FABIUS CLAUDIUS GORDIANUS FULGENTIUS). Born 468, died 533. Bishop of Ruspe in the province of Byzacene in Africa, eminent among the Fathers of the Church for saintly life, eloquence and theological learning. His grandfather, Gordianus, a senator of Carthage, was despoiled of his possessions by the invader Genseric, and banished to Italy, his […]

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Was There No Zeal For The Well-being of The Common People in The Centuries of Faith?

December 30, 2024

Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira Two rooms.   The first belongs to a building with thick walls, easily seen by the deep encasement of the two windows that allow the light to enter through their thick panes yet protect the room from the cold. The wide borders of carved wood and the finely sculpted ceiling beams […]

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December 26 – He had the face of an angel

December 26, 2024

St. Stephen One of the first deacons and the first Christian martyr; feast on 26 December. In the Acts of the Apostles the name of St. Stephen occurs for the first time on the occasion of the appointment of the first deacons (Acts, vi, 5). Dissatisfaction concerning the distribution of alms from the community’s fund […]

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Excerpt from Pope Pius XII’s Allocution to the Pontifical Noble Guard on December 26, 1942

December 26, 2024

“None can be envious upon seeing that We bear you such special affection. To whom, in truth, is the immediate protection of Our person entrusted, if not to you? And are you not the first of Our guards? “Guard! What lofty resonance there is in this word: the soul trembles therewith; thoughts take wing. An […]

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December 27 – Son of Thunder

December 26, 2024

St. John the Apostle and Evangelist Styled in the gospel, The beloved disciple of Christ, and called by the Greeks The Divine, he was a Galilean, the son of Zebedee and Salome, and younger brother to St. James the Great, with whom he was brought up to the trade of fishing. From his acquaintance with […]

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December 27 – The divorced saint

December 26, 2024

St. Fabiola of Rome A Roman matron of rank, died 27 December, 399 or 400. She was one of the company of noble Roman women who, under the influence of St. Jerome, gave up all earthly pleasures and devoted themselves to the practice of Christian asceticism and to charitable work. At the time of St. […]

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The Legend of St. Dismas

December 26, 2024

by Pauline Sanders Many years ago, after Jesus was born, the evil King Herod waited for the three kings from the Orient to return to his kingdom with news of the newborn King. When they did not return, Herod grew afraid that this new King would cause him to lose his throne. Because of this, […]

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The Socialists Declare That the Right of Property Is a Human Invention Opposed to the Innate Equality of Man

December 26, 2024

[From Leo XIII’s encyclical Quod Apostolici muneris, of December 28, 1878]: But Catholic wisdom, sustained by the precepts of natural and divine law, provides with especial care for public and private tranquility in its doctrines and teachings regarding the duty of government and the distribution of the goods which are necessary for life and use. […]

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The Universe, the Church, and Civil Society Reflect the Love of God in an Organic Inequality

December 26, 2024

[From Leo XIII’s encyclical Quod Apostolici muneris, of December 28, 1878]: For, He who created and governs all things has, in His wise providence, appointed that the things which are lowest should attain their ends by those which are intermediate, and these again by the highest. Thus, as even in the kingdom of heaven He […]

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