Nobility and Analogous Traditional Elites

Sweden’s Royal Family Welcomes Ukrainian Children at the Royal Palace

August 27, 2026

Queen Silvia of Sweden. Photo by Frankie Fouganthin.

For two weeks, children from Ukraine who have been injured in the war have been visiting Sweden for rest and recuperation. On August 25, 2026, Queen Silvia, Crown Princess Victoria, and Princess Madeleine welcomed the children to a cake party at the Royal Palace.

The children, aged between 10 and 18, have all been injured during the war. Together with their relatives, they are now spending a couple of weeks in Sweden for rest and recuperation. The initiative is organised by Beredskapslyftet, Astrid Lindgren Children’s Hospital at Karolinska University Hospital, and Min Stora Dag.

h/t: newmyroyals.com

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Work As Diversion and Work As Heroism

August 27, 2026

Completely relaxed physiognomies. Smiles on every face. Appearances that express a high degree of physical and psychological well-being. Their subdued, solid-colored clothing reinforces this impression.

And what are these young people doing? If they were all gathered for tea around a table in a ‘cozy’ salon, their way of being would be no different. But what is this table? Are they playing some new and peculiar game that provides a relaxing diversion? Far from this. They are workers who work in a factory.

This vision of work is obviously false. All work requires effort. And this effort fatigues, wearies and exhausts. However, in this picture, those very ideas of fatigue, weariness and exhaustion are completely eliminated. One could say that there were no original sin, and that perspiration, that terrible symbol of arduous exertion, is not inherent to work.

Clearly, in special circumstances, professional activity can be supremely pleasurable and relaxing. But these circumstances are fleeting. As the work is prolonged or repeated, the fatigue and the painful impression of the fight begin to appear.

That an artist has decided to portray work in this false light is not the point of major importance. What is important is that his picture typifies a very generalized tendency of our epoch, which is a fundamental horror of all suffering. This leads to trying to conceal pain and present the universe like a paradise of delights. Thus pain is just a subjective product of the mind. If a man will only smile in face of everything, he will have eliminated suffering —if not totally, then at least for the most part.

This gave rise to the famous phrase: “Break your leg but keep smiling.”

The picture expresses this trivial and false conception of life, which is convincing only for the simple-minded. It can be summed up in two words: naturalistic neo-paganism.

Long face, distinct and strong features, penetrating and resolute gaze, this Basque fisherman who holds his large oar with a manly vigor has a harsh profession that shapes and ennobles his soul. He is a man in every sense of the word. He is a man who has the noble chivalry of a true Christian, of an authentic Catholic. His whole personality reflects the struggle, the fight and the risk. One sees that he has confronted and has overcome the furor and treachery of the ocean innumerable times and that he is still completely ready for a countless series of other bold undertakings.

Underlying the physiognomy of this worker and the ambience he embodies is a whole Catholic conception of work and pain. Suffering exists. But it is an admirable gift from God so that man”, aided by grace, can temper and elevate his personality. Saint Frances de Sales called suffering the Eighth Sacrament. To conceal suffering is to hide one of the most noble and important aspects of existence. If one analyzes life well, he will see that almost all — or all — of the beauty that it contains results from sufferings boldly confronted and nobly borne to the end. What would this fisherman be without the great struggles of his existence? Are they not his true and shining glory?

Obviously, without the help of grace man can not righteously and totally support the thousand types of efforts and sacrifices that life imposes. But, when the soul corresponds to grace, it is capable of that grand and glorious conformity to suffering.

Thus we have the Catholic conception of work, that its most intrinsically beautiful aspect is what it possesses of the painful.

Ambience Customs & Civilization, No. 87 — March 1958

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August 27 – “Conform I would not, for it was against my conscience”

August 27, 2026

Saint David Lewis, alias Charles Baker

(Recté, according to his own entry in the English College David Henry Lewis).

Saint David Lewis, engraving 1683

An English Jesuit martyr, born in Monmouthshire in 1616; died at Usk, 27 August, 1679. His father, Morgan Lewis, was a lax Catholic, afterwards converted; his mother, Margaret Pritchard, was a very devout Catholic. David was brought up as a Protestant, and educated at the Royal Grammar School at Abergavenny, of which his father was the head master. In his sixteenth year, he spent three months in Paris as companion to the son of Earl Rivers, and there was received into the Church by a Father Talbot, S.J. On returning to England he remained with his parents till their death and then, having a desire for the priesthood, went to Rome, where he was admitted as an alumnus to the English College, 3 November, 1638. He was ordained priest in 1642, and entered the novitiate of the Society at Sant’ Andrea, 16 April, 1644. In 1647 he was sent to the English mission, but was quickly recalled and made Spiritual Father at the Roman College. In 1648 he returned to England finally, and was assigned to the South Wales District, where he labored zealously for twenty-eight years. It is told of him that to avoid the persecutors, he used to take long and dangerous journeys at night that he might be able to visit the faithful under cover of darkness, and that his devotedness gained for him the title Father of the Poor.

In the summer of 1678, Titus Oates came forward with his pretended revelations, and Parliament in a frenzy of bigotry offered fresh rewards for the discovery and arrest of priests and Jesuits. Father David was one of the victims. A bigoted Calvinist magistrate named Arnold, who had hitherto professed friendship for him, caused him to be arrested at Llantarnam in Monmouthshire, 17 November, 1678. He was carried in a sort of triumphal procession to Abergavenny, where, in allusion to one article of Oates’ fabrications, he was shown to the people as “the pretended Bishop of Llandaff”. He was then committed for trial, and meanwhile imprisoned, first at Monmouth and then at Usk. The trial came off at Monmouth, 16 March, 1679. It was impossible to connect Father David with the pretended Popish Plot, so he was charged under the Statute of 27 Elizabeth, which made it high treason to take orders abroad in the Church of Rome and afterwards to return to England and say Mass. The trial was not too fairly conducted, and the witnesses were of a worthless class. Still the breach of the law was undeniable, and he was condemned to undergo the barbarous penalties which the law prescribed. For the moment, indeed, he was reprieved, and taken up to London, to be confronted with Oates and his associates. It was hoped that he might be induced to save his life either by apostasy or by inculpating some others in the Plot.

Lord Shaftesbury advised him that if he gave evidence about the “plot” or renounced his Catholic faith, that his life would be spared and he would be greatly rewarded. Lewis said in his dying speech, “discover the plot I could not, as I knew of none; and conform I would not, for it was against my conscience”.

But this hope proved vain, he was sent back to Monmouthshire, and his sentence was carried out at Usk. The cause of his beautification was introduced, under the name of “David Lewis, alias Charles Baker” by the Decree of 4 December, 1886.

He was canonized by Pope Paul VI on October 25, 1970.

Corbett, State Trials, VII; Florus Anglo-Bavaricus (1685); Challoner, Memoirs of Missionary Priests; Foley, Records of the English Province, S.J.; Gillow, Bib. Dict. Eng. Cath., s.v.

(cfr. Catholic Encyclopedia)

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August 27 – Never underestimate the prayers of a mother

August 27, 2026

St. Monica

Widow; born of Christian parents at Tagaste, North Africa, in 333; died at Ostia, near Rome, in 387.

Marriage of St Monica by Antonio Vivarini

We are told but little of her childhood. She was married early in life to Patritius who held an official position in Tagaste. He was a pagan, though like so many at that period, his religion was no more than a name; his temper was violent and he appears to have been of dissolute habits. Consequently Monica’s married life was far from being a happy one, more especially as Patritius’s mother seems to have been of a like disposition with himself. There was of course a gulf between husband and wife; her almsdeeds and her habits of prayer annoyed him, but it is said that he always held her in a sort of reverence. Monica was not the only matron of Tagaste whose married life was unhappy, but, by her sweetness and patience, she was able to exercise a veritable apostolate amongst the wives and mothers of her native town; they knew that she suffered as they did, and her words and example had a proportionate effect.

St. Monica with her son, St. Augustine

Three children were born of this marriage, Augustine the eldest, Navigius the second, and a daughter, Perpetua. Monica had been unable to secure baptism for her children, and her grief was great when Augustine fell ill; in her distress she besought Patritius to allow him to be baptized; he agreed, but on the boy’s recovery withdrew his consent. All Monica’s anxiety now centered in Augustine; he was wayward and, as he himself tells us, lazy. He was sent to Madaura to school and Monica seems to have literally wrestled with God for the soul of her son. A great consolation was vouchsafed her – in compensation perhaps for all that she was to experience through Augustine – Patritius became a Christian. Meanwhile, Augustine had been sent to Carthage, to prosecute his studies, and here he fell into grievous sin. Patritius died very shortly after his reception into the Church and Monica resolved not to marry again. At Carthage Augustine had become a Manichean and when on his return home he ventilated certain heretical propositions she drove him away from her table, but a strange vision which she had urged her to recall him. It was at this time that she went to see a certain holy bishop, whose name is not given, but who consoled her with the now famous words, “the child of those tears shall never perish.” There is no more pathetic story in the annals of the Saints than that of Monica pursuing her wayward son to Rome, wither he had gone by stealth; when she arrived he had already gone to Milan, but she followed him. Here she found St. Ambrose and through him she ultimately had the joy of seeing Augustine yield, after seventeen years of resistance. Mother and son spent six months of true peace at Cassiacum, after which time Augustine was baptized in the church of St. John the Baptist at Milan. Africa claimed them however, and they set out on their journey, stopping at Cività Vecchia and at Ostia. Here death overtook Monica and the finest pages of his “Confessions” were penned as the result of the emotion Augustine then experienced.

Saint Monica’s tomb, in Sant’Agostino church at Rome, by Isaia da Pisa.

St. Monica was buried at Ostia, and at first seems to have been almost forgotten, though her body was removed during the sixth century to a hidden crypt in the church of St. Aureus. About the thirteenth century, however, the cult of St. Monica began to spread and a feast in her honour was kept on 4 May. In 1430 Martin V ordered the relics to be brought to Rome. Many miracles occurred on the way, and the cultus of St. Monica was definitely established. Later the Archbishop of Rouen, Cardinal d’Estouteville, built a church at Rome in honour of St. Augustine and deposited the relics of St. Monica in a chapel to the left of the high altar. The Office of St. Monica however does not seem to have found a place in the Roman Breviary before the sixteenth century.

In 1850 there was established at Notre Dame de Sion at Paris an Association of Christian mothers under the patronage of St. Monica; its object was mutual prayer for sons and husbands who had gone astray. This Association was in 1856 raised to the rank of an archconfraternity and spread rapidly over all the Catholic world, branches being established in Dublin, London, Liverpool, Sydney, and Buenos Aires. Eugenius IV had established a similar Confraternity long before.

Bibliography. ST. AUGUSTINE, Confession, IX, reprinted in SURIUS. GUALTERUS, Canon Regular of Ostia, who was especially charged with the work of removing the relics from Ostia by Martin V, wrote a life of the saint with an account of the translation. He appended to the life a letter which used to be attributed to St. Augustine but which is undoubtedly spurious; it purports to be written to his sister Perpetua and describes their mother’s death. The BOLLANDISTS decide for the contemporary character of the letter whilst denying it to St. Augustine. BARONIUS, Ann. Eccl., ad an. 389; BOUGAUD, Histoire de S. Monique.

HUGH T. POPE (Catholic Encyclopedia)

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August 28 – Restless Heart

August 27, 2026

St. Augustine of Hippo

Statue of St. Augustine and the Angel in the Royal Monastery of the Incarnation in Madrid, Spain.

The great St. Augustine’s life is unfolded to us in documents of unrivaled richness, and of no great character of ancient times have we information comparable to that contained in the “Confessions,” which relate the touching story of his soul, the “Retractations,” which give the history of his mind, and the “Life of Augustine,” written by his friend Possidius, telling of the saint’s apostolate.

We will confine ourselves to sketching the three periods of this great life: (1) the young wanderer’s gradual…

August 29 – Passion of St. John the Baptist

August 27, 2026

Part of the Baptist’s ministry was exercised in Perea: Ennon, another scene of his labours, was within the borders of Galilee; both Perea and Galilee made up the tetrarchy of Herod Antipas. This prince, a son worthy of his father Herod the Great, had married, likely for political reasons, the daughter of Aretas, king of the Nabathaeans. But on a visit to Rome, he fell in love with his niece Herodias, the wife of his half-brother Philip (son of the younger Mariamne), and induced her to come on to Galilee. When and where the Precursor met Herod, we are not told, but from the synoptic Gospels we learn that John dared to rebuke the tetrarch for his evil deeds, especially his public adultery. Herod, swayed by Herodias, did not allow the unwelcome reprover to go unpunished: he “sent and apprehended John and bound him in prison”. Josephus tell us quite another story, containing perhaps also an element of truth. “As great crowds clustered around John, Herod became afraid lest the Baptist should abuse his moral authority over them to incite them to rebellion, as they would do anything at his bidding; therefore he thought it wiser, so as to prevent possible happenings, to take away the dangerous preacher. . .and he imprisoned him in the fortress of Machaerus” (Antiq., XVIII, v, 2). Whatever may have been the chief motive of the tetrarch’s policy, it is certain that Herodias nourished a bitter hatred against John: “She laid snares for him: and was desirous to put him to death” (Mark, vi, 19). Although Herod first shared her desire, yet “he feared the people: because they esteemed him as a prophet” (Matt., xiv, 5). After some time this resentment on Herod’s part seems to have abated, for, according to Mark, vi, 19,20, he heard John willingly and did many things at his suggestion.

John, in his fetters, was attended by some of his disciples, who kept him in touch with the events of the day. He thus learned of the wonders wrought by Jesus. At this point it cannot be supposed that John’s faith wavered in the least. Some of his disciples, however, would not be convinced by his words that Jesus was the Messias. Accordingly, he sent them to Jesus, bidding them say: “John the Baptist hath sent us to thee, saying: Art thou he that art to come; or look we for another? (And in that same hour, he cured many of their [the people’s] diseases, and hurts, and evil spirits; and to many that were blind he gave sight.) And answering, he said to them: Go and relate to John what you have hard and seen: the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are made clean, the deaf hear, the dead rise again, to the poor the gospel is preached: and blessed is he whosoever shall not be scandalized in me” (Luke, vii, 20-23; Matt., xi, 3-6).

How this interview affected John’s disciples, we do not know; but we do know the encomium it occasioned of John from the lips of Jesus: “And when the messengers of John were departed, he began to speak to the multitudes concerning John. What went ye out into the desert to see? A reed shaken with the wind?” All knew full well why John was in prison, and that in his captivity he was more than ever the undaunted champion of truth and virtue.-“But what went you out to see? A man clothed in soft garments? Behold they that are in costly apparel, and live delicately, are in the houses of kings. But what went you out to see? A prophet? Yea, I say to you, and more than a prophet. This is he of whom it is written: Behold, I send my angel before thy face, who shall prepare thy way before thee. For I say to you: Amongst those that are born of women, there is not a greater prophet than John the Baptist” (Luke, vii, 24-28). And continuing, Jesus pointed out the inconsistency of the world in its opinions both of himself and his precursor: “John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine; and you say: He hath a devil. The Son of man is coming eating and drinking: and you say: Behold a man that is a glutton and a drinker of wine, a friend of publicans and sinners. And wisdom is justified by all her children” (Luke, vii, 33-35).

St. John languished probably for some time in the fortress of Machaerus; but the ire of Herodias, unlike that of Herod, never abated: she watched her chance. It came at the birthday feast which Herod, after Roman fashion, gave to the “princes, and tribunes, and chief men of Galilee. And when the daughter of the same Herodias [Josephus gives her name: Salome] had come in, and had danced, and pleased Herod and them that were at table with him, the king said to the damsel: Ask of me what thou wilt, and I will give it thee. . .Who when she was gone out, said to her mother, what shall I ask? But she said: The head of John the Baptist. And when she was come in immediately with haste to the king, she asked, saying: I will that forthwith thou give me in a dish, the head of John the Baptist. And the king was struck sad. Yet because of his oath, and because of them that were with him at table, he would not displease her: but sending an executioner, he commanded that his head should be brought in a dish: and gave it to the damsel, and the damsel gave it to her mother” (Mark, vi, 21-28). Thus was done to death the greatest “amongst them that are born of women”, the prize awarded to a dancing girl, the toll exacted for an oath rashly taken and criminally kept (St. Augustine). At such an unjustifiable execution even the Jews were shocked, and they attributed to Divine vengeance the defeat Herod sustained afterwards at the hands of Aretas, his rightful father-in-law (Joseph., loc. cit.). John’s disciples, hearing of his death, “came, and took his body, and laid it in a tomb” (Mark, vi, 29), “and came and told Jesus” (Matt., xiv, 12).

The lasting impression made by the Precursor upon those who had come within his influence cannot be better illustrated than by mentioned the awe which seize upon Herod when he heard of the wonders wrought by Jesus who, in his mind, was not other than John the Baptist come to life (Matt., xiv, 1, 2, etc.).

CHARLES L. SOUVAY (Catholic Encyclopedia)

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August 29 – At the helm during the French Revolution

August 27, 2026

Pope Pius VI

(GIOVANNI ANGELICO BRASCHI).

Portrait of Pope Pius VI by Pompeo Batoni

Born at Cesena, 27 December, 1717; elected 15 February, 1775; died at Valence, France, 29 Aug., 1799. He was of a noble but impoverished family, and was educated at the Jesuit College of Cesena and studied law at Ferrara. After a diplomatic mission to Naples, he was appointed papal secretary and canon of St. Peter’s in 1755. Clement XIII appointed him treasurer of the Roman Church in 1766, and Clement XIV made him a cardinal in 1775. He then retired to the Abbey of Subiaco, of which he was commendatory abbot, until his election as Pius VI.

Spain, Portugal, and France had at first combined to prevent his election, because he was believed to be a friend of the Jesuits; he was well disposed towards the order, but he dared not revoke the Bull of their suppression. Still he ordered the liberation of their general, Ricci, a prisoner in the Castle of Sant’ Angelo in Rome, but the general died before the decree of liberation arrived. Upon the request of Frederick II of Prussia he permitted the Jesuits to retain their schools in Prussia; while in Russia, he permitted an uninterrupted continuation of the order. Soon after his accession he took steps to root out the Gallican idea of papal supremacy which had been spread in Germany by Hontheim. Joseph II forbade the Austrian bishops to apply to Rome for faculties of any kind, and suppressed innumerable monasteries. Pius VI resolved to go to Vienna; he left Rome on 27 Feb., 1782, and arrived in Vienna on 22 March. The emperor received him respectfully, though the minister, Kaunitz, neglected even the ordinary rules of etiquette. The pope remained at Vienna until 22 April, 1782. All that he obtained from the emperor was the promise that his ecclesiastical reforms would not contain any violation of Catholic dogmas, or compromise the dignity of the pope. The emperor accompanied the pope on his return as far as the Monastery of Mariabrunn, and suppressed this monastery a few hours after the pope had left it. Scarcely had the pope reached Rome when he again saw himself compelled to protest against the emperor’s unjustifiable confiscation of ecclesiastical property. But when Joseph II filled the vacant See of Milan of his own authority, Pius solemnly protested, and it was probably at this occasion that he threatened the emperor with excommunication. On 23 Dec., 1783, the emperor unexpectedly came to Rome to return the papal visit. He was determined to continue his ecclesiastical reforms, and made known to the Spanish diplomat, Azara, his project of separating the German Church entirely from Rome. The latter, however, dissuaded him from taking this fatal step. To avoid worse things, the pope granted him the right of nominating the bishops in the Duchies of Milan and Mantua, in a concordat dated 20 Jan., 1784 (see Nussi, “Conventiones de rebus ecclesiasticis et civilibus inter S. Sedem et civilem potestatem”, Mainz, 1870, 138-9).

Death of Pope Pius VI

Joseph’s example was followed in Tuscany by his brother, the Grand Duke Leopold II and Bishop Scipio Ricci of Pistoia. Here the antipapal reforms culminated in the Synod of Pistoia in 1786, where the doctrines of Jansenius and Quesnel were sanctioned, and the papal supremacy was eliminated. In his Bull “Auctorem fidei” of 28 Aug., 1794, the pope condemned the acts, and in particular eighty-five propositions of this synod. In Germany the three ecclesiastical Electors of Mainz, Trier, and Cologne, and the Archbishop of Salzburg attempted to curtail the papal authority by convening a congress at Ems (q.v.). With Portugal the papal relations became very friendly after the accession of Maria I in 1777, and a satisfactory concordat was concluded in 1778 (Nussi, loc. cit., 138-39). In Spain, Sardinia, and Venice the Governments to a great extent followed in the footsteps of Joseph II. But the most sweeping anti-ecclesiastical reforms were carried out in the Two Sicilies. Ferdinand IV refused the exequatur to all papal briefs that were obtained without the royal permission, and claimed the right to nominate all ecclesiastical beneficiaries. Pius VI refused to accept the bishops that were nominated by the king and, as a result, there were in 1784 thirty vacant sees in the Kingdom of Naples alone, which number had increased to sixty in 1798. The king, moreover, refused to acknowledge the papal suzerainty which had existed for eight hundred years. The pope repeatedly made overtures, but the king persisted in nominating to all the vacant sees. In April, 1791, when more than half the sees in the Kingdom of Naples were vacant, a temporary compromise was reached and in that year sixty-two vacant sees were filled (Rinieri, loc. cit., infra).

In response to the application of the clergy of the United States, the Bull of April, 1788, erected the See of Baltimore.

Pius VI put the papal finances on a firmer basis; drained the marshy lands near Città della Pieve, Perugia, Spoleto, and Trevi; deepened the harbours of Porto d’Anzio and Terracina; added a new sacristy to the Basilica of St. Peter; completed the Musee Pio-Clementino, and enriched it with many costly pieces of art; restored the Via Appia; and drained the greater part of the Pontine Marshes.

Tomb of Pius VI at St. Peter’s Basilica.

After the French Revolution, Pius rejected the “Constitution civile du clergé” on 13 March, 1791, suspended the priests that accepted it, provided as well as he could for the banished clergy and protested against the execution of Louis XVI. France retaliated by annexing the small papal territories of Avignon and Venaissin. The pope’s co-operation with the Allies against the French Republic, and the murder of the French attaché, Basseville, at Rome, brought on by his own fault, led to Napoleon’s attack on the Papal States. At the Truce of Bologna (25 June, 1796) Napoleon dictated the terms: twenty-one million francs, the release of all political criminals, free access of French ships into the papal harbours, the occupation of the Romagna by French troops etc. At the Peace of Tolentino (19 Feb., 1797) Pius VI was compelled to surrender Avignon, Venaissin, Ferrara, Bologna, and the Romagna; and to pay fifteen million francs and give up numerous costly works of art and manuscripts. In an attempt to revolutionize Rome the French General Duphot was shot and killed, whereupon the French took Rome on 10 Feb., 1798, and proclaimed the Roman Republic on 15 Feb. Because the pope refused to submit, he was forcibly taken from Rome on the night of 20 Feb., and brought first to Siena and then to Florence. At the end of March, 1799, though seriously ill, he was hurried to Parma, Piacenza, Turin, then over the Alps to Briançon and Grenoble, and finally to Valence, where he succumbed to his sufferings before he could be brought further. He was first buried at Valence, but the remains were transferred to St. Peter’s in Rome on 17 Feb., 1802 (see I). His statue in a kneeling position by Canova was placed in the Basilica of St. Peter before the crypt of the Prince of the Apostles.

Bullarii Romani Continuatio, ed. BARBERI (Rome, 1842 sq.), V-X; Collectio Brevium atque Instructionem Pii Papæ VI quæ ad præsentes Gallicanarum ecclesiarum calamitates pertinent (2 vols., Augsburg, 1796); Acta Pii VI quibus ecclesia catholica calamitatibus in Gallia consultum est (2 vols., Rome, 1871); BOURGOING, Mémoires historiques et philosophiques sur Pie VI et son pontificat (2 vols., Paris, 1900); GENDRY, Pie VI. Sa vie, son pontificat 1777-99, d’après des archives vaticanes et de nombreux documents inédits (2 vols., Paris, 1907); WOLF, Gesch. der Kath. Kirche unter der Regierung Pius VI (Zürich, 1793- 1802), 7 vols. (Josephinistic); BECCATINI, Storia di Pio VI (4 vols., Venice, 1801-02); FERRARI, Vita Pii VI (Padua, 1802); BERTRAND, Le Pontificat de Pie VI et l’Athéisme Révolutionnaire (2 vols., BarleDuc, 1879); SAMPSON, Pius VI and the French Revolution in Amer. Cath. Quarterly Review (New York, 1907), 220-40, 413-40, 601-31; Pius VI in Catholic World, XIX (New York, 1874), 755-64; TIEPOLI, Relazioni sul conclave per la elezioni di papa Pio VI (Venice, 1896); KÖNIG, Pius VI und die Säkularisation, Program (Kalksburg, 1900); SCHLITTER, Pius VI und Joseph II von der Rückkehr des Papstes nach Rom bis zum Abschluss des Konkordats, ibid. II (Vienna, 1894); CORDARA, De profectu Pii VI ad aulam Viennensem ejusque causis et exitu commentarii, ed. BOËRO (Rome, 1855); RINIERI, Della rovina di una Monarchia, Relazioni storiche tra inediti dell’ Archivo Vaticano (Turin, 1910); BALDASSARI, Histoire de l’enlèvement et de la captivité de Pie VI (Paris, 1839), Ger. tr. STECK (Tübingen, 1844); MADELIN, Pie VI et la première coalition in Revue des quest. hist., LXXXI (Paris, 1903), 1-32.

MICHAEL OTT (Catholic Encyclopedia)

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August 30 – Saved by the cross

August 27, 2026

Blessed Bronislava (or Bronislawa) of Poland

Born in 1230 to an important Polish family, her grandfather had founded the Premonstratensian monastery at Zwierzyniec near Cracow where Bronislava’s aunt Gertrude had entered, later becoming prioress at Imbramowice.

Bronislava was also a cousin of the Dominican Saint Hyacinth and related to Saint Jacek and Blessed Czeslaw. Bronislava entered the convent at Zwierzyniec at the age of sixteen where she was soon afterward elected prioress. The hallmarks of her spiritual life were her devotions to the Passion of Our Lord and His Holy Cross. When plague came to Poland she quickly set about aiding the ailing and comforting the dying. During the political turmoil that engulfed Poland the convent of Zwierzyniec had to be abandoned on several occasions, situated as it was outside the rampart of Cracow and thus vulnerable to attack. On these occasions the canonesses were forced to seek shelter from the marauding hordes in other religious houses or in the depths of the forests.

The worse attack came in 1241 with the invasion of the Tartars. Bronislava with some of her sisters were praying, with arms outstretched in the form of a cross, when they received the news that the savage Tartars were advancing rapidly towards Cracow.

The convent was in imminent danger of destruction. Bronislava took up a crucifix, pressed it to her heart and said to her sisters, “Do not fear anything – the cross will save us.” She then led the sisters to the subterranean passages beneath the convent where they successfully remained hidden from the invaders. The convent buildings, however, were not spared, and collapsed in flames, trapping the sisters underground. It is said that when Bronislava knocked three times with her crucifix on a rock wall of the dark prison, a passage to freedom opened for the sisters. After the destruction of the convent, many of the sisters took refuge in monasteries which had been spared. Bronislava remained in the ruins of the old convent with a handful of sisters, building little huts to sleep in and passing the days caring for the poor, the sick, and the countless victims of the Tartar invasion.

Bronislava died in 1259, soon after the passing of St. Hyacinth. Ever since then her cult has flourished amongst the people of Cracow and her shrine is the site of many pilgrimages. In all eras of Cracow’s history the people have always sought her aid in times of trouble. On August 23 1839 Pope Gregory confirmed her immemorial cult and many hundreds continue to pray for her canonisation. She is considered patroness of a happy death and of the prevention of disease.

August 30 – She smuggled a priest out of prison

August 27, 2026

Saint Margaret Ward

Nave statue St Margaret Ward inside St Etheldreda Church in Ely Place, London.

Martyr, born at Congleton, Cheshire; executed at Tyburn, London, 30 Aug., 1588. Nothing is known of her early life except that she was of good family and for a time dwelt in the house of a lady of distinction named Whitall then residing in London. Knowing that William Watson, the priest who wrote the work known as the “Quodlibets”, was imprisoned, she obtained permission to visit him. After several visits she disarmed the vigilance of the gaoler and furnished him with a cord whereby he could make his escape. At the appointed time the boatman whom she had engaged to convey the priest down the river refused to carry out his bargain, and in her distress she confided her difficulty to a young man, Ven. John Roche (or Neele), who undertook to assist her. He provided a boat and exchanged clothes with Watson, who made good his escape. But the clothes betrayed John Roche, and the rope convinced the gaoler that Margaret Ward had been instrumental in the flight of the prisoner. They were both arrested and loaded with irons. Ven. Robert Southwell wrote to Father Acquaviva, S.J.:

She was flogged and hung up by the wrists, the tips of her toes only touching the ground, for so long a time that she was crippled and paralyzed, but these sufferings greatly strengthened the glorious martyr for her last struggle.

She was tried and condemned at Newgate, her liberty being offered her if she would attend Protestant worship. [Note: Margaret Ward was canonized on October 25, 1970 as one of the Forty Martyrs of England.]

Painting by Daphne Pollen of the 40 Martyrs of England and Wales

YEPES, Historia Particular de la persecucion de Inglaterra (1590); CHALLONER, Memoirs of Missionary Priests (London, 1741-2); POLLEN, Acts of English Martyrs (London, 1891); Catholic Record Society, V, 323, 327; The Month (Jan., 1879).

EDWIN BURTON

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August 24 – Chancellor of the court

August 24, 2026

St. Ouen

(OWEN; DADON, Latin Audaenus).

Archbishop of Rouen, b. at Sancy, near Soissons about 609; d. at Clichy-la-Garenne, near Paris, 24 Aug., 683. His father, Autharius, and his mother, Aiga, belonged to the Gallo-Roman race. Shortly after Ouen’s birth they came to Ussy-sur-Marne, where he spent his childhood, with which tradition connects a series of marvelous events. Being afterwards sent to the Abbey of St. Medard he received an education which caused him to be welcomed at the court of Clothaire II a short time previous to the death of that prince. The latter’s successor, Dagobert I, made him his referendary or chancellor and profited greatly by his talents and learning. He charged him with important missions and, it is believed, with compiling the Salic Law. St. Ouen found at the royal court Eloi (Eligius), another holy person, whose life was very similar to his own. Both of them, despite the disorders of the Frankish king, served him faithfully. But when Dagobert was dead, they considered themselves released from all secular duties, and leaving the court they devoted themselves in seclusion to the theological studies which attracted them.

Saint Ouen Abbey Church, Rouen. Photo by Bert in England.

St. Ouen, who in 634 founded the Abbey of Rabais, was ordained priest by Dieudonne, Bishop of Macon. Some time later his virtues and great ability marked him out for the archepiscopal see of Rouen, left vacant by the death of St. Romain. Elected in 639 he was consecrated at Rouen, 21 May, 640, with his friend St. Eloi, who became Bishop of Moyon. The Diocese of Rouen, in which there were still barbarian districts from which paganism had not disappeared, was transformed under the administration of St. Ouen who caused the worship of false gods to cease, founded numerous monasteries, and developed theological studies. Occasionally the statesman reappeared in St. Ouen. For instance he upheld Ebroin the mayor of the palace in his strife against the aristocracy. After Ebroin’s death, at the invitation of Thierry I he went to Cologne and succeeded in restoring peace between Neustria and Austrasia. Shortly after he was attacked by the illness to which he succumbed. His body, which was brought to Rouen and interred in the Abbey of St. Pierre which thenceforth assumed his name, was translated several times, in 842, 918, and finally in 1890. St. Ouen, who survived St. Eloi, wrote the life of his friend. This biography, which is one of the most authentic historical monuments of the seventh century, contains a store of valuable information regarding the moral and religious education of that time. It was published for the first time by Dom Luc d’Achery in vol. V of his “Spicilegium”.

CEILLIER, Hist. gen. des aut. sacr. et eccles., XVII (Paris, 1750), 687-89; CHERUEL in Rev. de Rouen, II (1836), 251-64, I; (1837), 21-36; Hist. Litt. de la France (Paris, 1735-8), III, 623-28; IV, 74; LANOVIUS; SS. Franciae cancell. (1634), 21-79; PETIT, Histoire de S. ouen (Rouen, s.d.); REICH, Ueber Audoens Lebensbeschreib d. heilig. Eligius (Halle, 1872); VACANDARD, L’enfance de S. Ouen in Prec. trav. acad. Rouen (Rouen, 1896-97), 129-53; IDEM, S. Ouen avant son episcopat in Revue des questions historiques, XIX (Paris, 1898), 5-50.

LEON CLUGNET (Catholic Encyclopedia)

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August 24 – St. María Micaela of the Blessed Sacrament

August 24, 2026

Micaela Desmaisières López de Dicastillo was born in 1809 in Madrid during the War of Independence to Miguel Desmaisières Flores and Bernarda López de Dicastillo Olmeda; her brother was Diego (1806-55). Her father was a high-ranking officer in the armed forces and her mother was an attendant to Queen Maria Luisa de Parma. Her mother died in her childhood. Her brother’s daughter – her niece – was Maria Diega.

The Ursulines oversaw her education. Her social connections led her to having cordial relationships with the French and Spanish monarchs as well as Belgian monarchs. She spent most of her childhood with her brother Diego – the Spanish ambassador to the monarchs. Dances and all sorts of social gatherings and horse riding were the norms for her. She received the title of “Viscountess of Jorbalán. She tended to ill people during a cholera epidemic in 1834.

Queen Maria Luisa of Parma

It was around this period that she searched to find the direction she should give her life. She had inherited from her father a warrior’s temperament which prepared her for the hard battles in her later life as well as a generous nature. Her heart was both sensitive and compassionate and her mother guided her towards charitable works towards the poor and the ill; she alternated between this apostolate and the normal life that her social class imposed upon her. She was also fond of spending time before the Blessed Sacrament and it was her love for Jesus Christ in this that it inspired the future of her work. Saint Antonio María Claret served as her confessor from 1857 until her death following the death of her Jesuit confessor José Eduardo Rodriguez who had served as such since 1847.

In 1844 she paid her first visit to the Saint John of God Hospital in Madrid on 6 February 1844 where she met a girl – a banker’s sole daughter – who had become drawn into prostitution through deception and was now marginalized and facing economic hardship. This girl’s experience – as well as others – convinced her that something had to be done to help these women. She began making use of her social connections and set about establishing a shelter where these women could come for help. The shelter was opened on 21 April 1845 and innumerable girls and women knocked at the doors seeking assistance. This uncovered a great need which lead her to found the Handmaids of the Blessed Sacrament on 21 April 1845; it received diocesan approval on 25 April 1858 and then papal approval from Pope Pius IX on 15 September 1860. From 1847 until 1848 she was in both France and Belgium and she tried to enter the Vincentian Sisters in Paris but she did not after the opposition of her confessor.

She died in Valencia on 25 August 1865 when she fell victim to the cholera epidemic whilst attending to some of the women – and fellow sisters – in the area infected.

The sainthood process opened under Pope Leo XIII on 19 August 1902 and she became titled as a Servant of God while the confirmation of her life of heroic virtue allowed for Pope Pius XI to name her as Venerable on 11 June 1922. The same pope also confirmed two miracles attributed to her and so beatified her on 7 June 1925 while the confirmation of two more allowed for him to canonize her as a saint on 4 March 1934.

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August 24 – Saint Bartholomew’s Day: the real story

August 24, 2026

Saint Bartholomew’s Day

This massacre of which Protestants were the victims occurred in Paris on 24 August, 1572 (the feast of St. Bartholomew), and in the provinces of France during the ensuing weeks, and it has been the subject of knotty historical disputes.

The first point argued was whether or not the massacre had been premeditated by the French Court – Sismondi, Sir James Mackintosh, and Henri Bordier maintaining that it had, and Ranke, Henri…

August 24 – St. Emilie De Vialar

August 24, 2026

Every child comes into the world with the message that God still loves the world.

Emilie De Vialar, Saint and Foundress, was born on September 12, 1797 in a family of noble descent.
Her father, Antoine Auguste Jacques, was the son of a renowned High Court Judge. Her mother, Antoinette Emilie de Portal, was the daughter of Monsieur De Portal, physician to King Charles and Louis XVIII. The small town of Gaillac is situated South-West of France, on the river Tarn. The daughter of Monsieur et Madame De Vialar was baptized as Anne Marguerite Adelaide Emilie De Vialar.

Emilie was the eldest of the three children. Her brother Augustine De Vialar remained all his life a true friend and devoted collaborator in all her admirable and charitable undertakings. The younger brother was Maximin.

Emilie was blessed to have been brought up by her mother, who at an early age inculcated in her children the Christian virtues and faith.
Unfortunately, Emilie lost her mother at the tender age of 13, and a new chapter opened in her life. Emilie was sent to Paris, where under the care of her grandfather and aunt, she began her education in the convent school where she studies. She was remembered as an industrious and serious minded pupil. Along with excellent academic study, Emilie received solid Christian formation.

According to the account she gives of her life, Emilie De Vialar received at an early age the inspiration to respond to God’s prevenient love by a generous love towards Him. Enlightened by God, she resolved to give herself whole-heartedly to him and yield to the attraction with which he inspired in her of practicing charity towards her neighbour.

In fact, the practice of this charity towards all, and the very keen feelings she experienced for the foreign missions, convinced her of her missionary vocation. God was calling her to engage in missionary ‘war’ which would serve Him and bring solace and relief to the suffering. Emilie stated, ‘How fulfilling for the heart that is given to making another happy and to bringing relief to suffering humanity!’

Despite the strong opposition at home, and the huge wealth she inherited from her maternal grandfather as her security, Emilie went ahead as the Lord directed her. Filled with zeal for accomplishing what she believed to be the will of God, and confident in His providence, she gathered together her first companions on Christmas night of 1832 and walked out of her father’s house to the house she had bought for the purpose of serving the Lord. When the sounds of festal cheer echoed from every home, four young girls made their way through the narrow streets to their new dwelling where they intended to lead a life consecrated to God in dedication to the poor.

Emilie named the institution ‘Sisters of St. Joseph of the Apparition’ and wished that all her daughters, like their patron – St. Joseph, would bring Christ into the world and into the lives of all people they lived and worked with. The work of the Sisters flourished, and the number of companions kept increasing with the years, though not without difficulties and opposition.

Under the fatherly care and encouragement of Msgr. De Gualy – Archbishop of Albi, and with the support and friendship of many a friend.
Emilie went forward sailing safely through the troubled waters; but always allowing her to be led by the providence of God. She emerged victorious a heroic daughter of De Vialars.

‘My vocation is essentially for the missions,’ Emilie would often say. Her first option was to work in countries where Christ was not known; and this she carried out by daringly sending her Sisters among the Turks and Muslims—to Algeria, Tunis and other Middle Eastern regions.

After these African centers, she founded other houses in quick succession and sent her Sisters to far off missions in Australia, Myanmar (Burma), and Holy Land etc.

Wherever the Sisters went, they experienced the protection and care by St. Joseph – their patron, and love and guidance of Blessed Mother Mary; as a consequence the Sisters did wonderfully well. They taught in schools, took care of the orphans, visited the sick in their homes, opened dispensaries and hospitals, gave succor and refuge to all in need without distinction of colour, caste or creed.

At the age of 59, on August 24, 1856 Emilie left for her heavenly abode to join forever Him, whom she loved and served so well. The decree of praise, given on 6th May 1842 had established her Congregation as an Institute of Pontifical right.

The Holy See approved its Constitutions in 1862. Emilie De Vialar was declared “Blessed” by Pope Pius XII on 18th June, 1939, and the same pontiff canonized her a Saint on June 24, 1951.

[h/t Sisters of St. Joseph of the Apparition]

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The True Friends of the People Are Traditionalists

August 24, 2026

The True Friends of the People Are Traditionalists

From the apostolic letter Notre charge apostolique, August 25, 1910, of Saint Pius X:

Let not the priests be led astray in the maze of contemporary opinions, in the mirage of a false democracy. Let them not borrow from the rhetoric of the worst enemies of the Church and the people an emphatic language full of promises as sonorous as they are unattainable. Let them be persuaded that the social question and social science were not born yesterday, that the Church and the State, acting in concert, have always created productive organizations with this goal in mind; that the Church, which has never betrayed the happiness of the people with compromising alliances, has no reason to break away from the past and that it is enough for it to reconstruct, with the co-operation of the true builders of social restoration, the organizations destroyed by the Revolution, and to adapt them, in the same Christian spirit that inspired them, to the new milieu created by the material evolution of contemporary society; for the true friends of the people are neither revolutionaries nor innovators but traditionalists. (Acta Apostolicae Sedis [Rome: Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis, 1910], Vol. 2, p. 631).

Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira, Nobility and Analogous Traditional Elites in the Allocutions of Pius XII: A Theme Illuminating American Social History (York, Penn.: The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family, and Property, 1993), Documents VI, p. 491.

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Jesus Christ Did Not Teach a Chimerical Equality Nor Disrespect for Authority

August 24, 2026

[From the Apostolic Letter Notre charge apostolique of Pope Saint Pius X, August 25, 1910]:

Then, if Jesus was kind to those who went astray and to sinners, He did not respect their erroneous convictions, however sincere they might have appeared. He loved them all to instruct them, to convert them and to save them.

If He called to Himself, in order to comfort them, those who were in trouble and suffering, it was not to preach to them jealousy of a chimerical equality. If He lifted up the humble, it was not to inspire them with the sentiment of a dignity independent and rebellious against the duty of obedience.

(American Catholic Quarterly Review, Vol. 35 (October 1910), p. 708).

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Queen Blanche of France shapes the young Saint Louis IX for the trials of kingship

August 24, 2026

Sacre de Saint Louis (Louis IX de France) à Reims

Young St. Louis

When young Louis inherited the French crown at the age of twelve upon Louis VIII’s premature death, he also inherited a royal domain that was greatly expanded by his grandfather, Philip Augustus….

St. Isabel of France by Louis Desprez

The virtue of any young man is strengthened by grace achieved through prayer and obedience to his duties, but Saint Louis had the additional advantage of a strong-willed, pious mother who created the proper ambiance for spiritual and intellectual improvement. This influence was such that his sister Isabella also devoted her life to God and has been beatified.

Blanche of Castile

Blanche of Castile in an often-repeated remark told her son that she would rather see him die than commit one mortal sin. Although Louis from an early age practiced many devotions including the recitation of the Divine Office and assisting at least two Masses a day, he never neglected the affairs of state to which he applied himself vigorously, for he regarded his kingly duties as part of his Christian vocation.

Blanche took over the reins of government as regent during his teen years and valiantly opposed several rebellious barons who attempted to regain lost power. Although the inspiring youth rode at the head of the army, he profited much from the determination and wisdom of the Queen mother. The sight of the young king leading the vanguard nevertheless deterred most of the rebels from any large-scale insurrection, for there was still a sufficient amount of chivalric spirit alive in France.

Jeremias Wells, History of Western Civilization (n.p., n.d), pp. 263-264.

Short Stories on Honor, Chivalry, and the World of Nobility—no. 68

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August 25 – The King who would rather die than sin

August 24, 2026

Saint Louis IX

King of France, son of Louis VIII and Blanche of Castile, born at Poissy, 25 April, 1215; died near Tunis, 25 August, 1270.

Marguerite of Provence, wife of St. Louis IX

He was eleven years of age when the death of Louis VIII made him king, and nineteen when he married Marguerite of Provence by whom he had eleven children. The regency of Blanche of Castile (1226-1234) was marked by the victorious struggle of the Crown against Raymond VII in Languedoc, against Pierre Mauclerc in Brittany, against Philip Hurepel in the Ile de France, and by indecisive combats against Henry III of England. In this period of disturbances the queen was powerfully supported by the legate Frangipani. Accredited to Louis VIII by Honorius III as early as 1225, Frangipani won over to the French cause the sympathies of Gregory IX, who was inclined to listen to Henry III, and through his intervention it was decreed that all the chapters of the dioceses should pay to Blanche of Castile tithes for the southern crusade. It was the legate who received the submission of Raymond VII, Count of Languedoc, at Paris, in front of Notre-Dame, and this submission put an end to the Albigensian war and prepared the union of the southern provinces to France by the Treaty of Paris (April 1229). The influence of Blanche de Castile over the government extended far beyond St. Louis’s minority. Even later, in public business and when ambassadors were officially received, she appeared at his side. She died in 1253.

Blanche of Castile Sculptor Antoine Etex located at Versailles

In the first years of the king’s personal government, the Crown had to combat a fresh rebellion against feudalism, led by the Count de la Marche, in league with Henry III. St. Louis’s victory over this coalition at Taillebourg, 1242, was followed by the Peace of Bordeaux which annexed to the French realm a part of Saintonge.

It was one of St. Louis’s chief characteristics to carry on abreast his administration as national sovereign and the performance of his duties towards Christendom; and taking advantage of the respite which the Peace of Bordeaux afforded, he turned his thoughts towards a crusade. Stricken down with a fierce malady in 1244, he resolved to take the cross when news came that Turcomans had defeated the Christians and the Moslems and invaded Jerusalem. Between the two crusades he opened negotiations with Henry III, which he thought would prevent new conflicts between France and England. The Treaty of Paris (28 May, 1258) which St. Louis concluded with the King of England after five years’ parley, has been very much discussed.

Treaty of Paris. King Henry III of England does homage to Saint Louis.

By this treaty St. Louis gave Henry III all the fiefs and domains belonging to the King of France in the Dioceses of Limoges, Cahors, and Périgueux; and in the event of Alphonsus of Poitiers dying without issue, Saintonge and Agenais would escheat to Henry III. On the other hand Henry III renounced his claims to Normandy, Anjou, Touraine, Maine, Poitou, and promised to do homage for the Duchy of Guyenne. It was generally considered and Joinville voiced the opinion of the people, that St. Louis made too many territorial concessions to Henry III; and many historians held that if, on the contrary, St. Louis had carried the war against Henry III further, the Hundred Years War would have been averted. But St. Louis considered that by making the Duchy of Guyenne a fief of the Crown of France he was gaining a moral advantage; and it is an undoubted fact that the Treaty of Paris, was as displeasing to the English as it was to the French. In 1263, St. Louis was chosen as arbitrator in a difference which separated Henry III and the English barons: by the Dit d’Amiens (24 January, 1264) he declared himself for Henry III against the barons, and annulled the Provisions of Oxford, by which the barons had attempted to restrict the authority of the king. It was also in the period between the two crusades that St. Louis, by the Treaty of Corbeil, imposed upon the King of Aragon the abandonment of his claims to all the fiefs in Languedoc excepting Montpellier, and the surrender of his rights to Provence (11 May, 1258). Treaties and arbitrations prove St. Louis to have been above all a lover of peace, a king who desired not only to put an end to conflicts, but also to remove the causes for fresh wars, and this spirit of peace rested upon the Christian conception.

Saint Louis IX, the Crusader-King, Was a Peacemaker Among Christians

August 24, 2026

St. Louis IX and the prisoners freed at his coronation.

Differences arose between the Greek clergy and the Latin clergy of the isle of Cyprus. Louis succeeded in putting an end to them. The Templars and Hospitallers appealed to him as judge in their constantly reviving quarrels; he made them swear to be reconciled, and to have no other enemies than those of Christ. The Genoese and Pisans resident at Ptolemaïs, had long and serious disputes, both parties having recourse to arms, and nothing appeared able to check the fury and scandal of a civil war in a Christian city. The wise mediation of Louis reestablished peace. Aitho, king of Armenia, and Bohemond, prince of Antioch and Tripoli, implacable enemies, both sent ambassadors to the king of France; he induced them to conclude a truce; thus Louis IX appeared among the nations of the East as an angel of peace and concord.

Joseph François Michaud, History of the Crusades, trans. W. Robson (London: George Routledge and Co., 1852), 2:371 – 2.

Short Stories on Honor, Chivalry, and the World of Nobility—no. 729

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August 25 – He opened the first public free school in Europe

August 24, 2026

St. Joseph Calasanctius

(Calasanz)

Called in religion “a Matre Dei,” founder of the Piarists, born 11 Sept., 1556, at the castle of Calasanza near Petralta de la Sal in Aragon; died 25 Aug., 1648, at Rome; feast 27 Aug.

His parents, Don Pedro Calasanza and Donna Maria Gastonia, gave Joseph, the youngest of five children, a good education at home and then at the school of Petralta. After his classical studies at Estadilla he took up philosophy and jurisprudence at Lerida and merited the degree of Doctor of Laws, and then with honours completed his theological course at Valencia and Alcalá de Henares. His mother and brother having died, Don Pedro wanted Joseph to marry and perpetuate the family. God interfered by sending a sickness in 1582 which soon brought Joseph to the brink of the grave. On his recovery he was ordained priest 17 Dec., 1583, by Hugo Ambrose de Moncada, Bishop of Urgel. Joseph began his labours as priest in the Diocese of Albarracin, where Bishop della Figuera appointed him his theologian and confessor, synodal examiner, and procurator, and when the bishop was transferred to Lerida his theologian followed him to the new diocese. In 1586 della Figuera was sent as Apostolic visitator to the Abbey of Montserrat, and Joseph accompanied him as secretary. The bishop died the following year and Joseph left, though urgently requested to remain.

Altar dedicated to St. Joseph Calasanz at the Monastery of Montserrat. Photo by Amadalvarez.

He hurried to Calasanza only to be present at the death of his father. He was then called by his Bishop of Urgel to act as vicar-general for the district of Trempe. In 1592 he embarked for Rome, where he found a protector in Cardinal Marcantonio Colonna who chose him as his theologian and instructor to his nephew. Rome offered a splendid field for works of charity, especially for the instruction of neglected and homeless children, many of whom had lost their parents. Joseph joined a Confraternity of Christian Doctrine and gathered the boys and girls from the streets and brought them to school. The teachers, being poorly paid, refused to accept the additional labour without remuneration. The pastor of S. Dorotea, Anthony Brendani, offered him two rooms and promised assistance in teaching, and when two other priests promised similar help, Joseph, in November, 1597, opened the first public free school in Europe.

The Last Communion of St. Joseph Calasanz, painted by Goya.

Pope Clement VIII gave an annual contribution and many others shared in the good work, so that in a short time Joseph had about a thousand children under his charge. In 1602 he rented a house at S. Andrea della Valle and commenced a community life with his assistants and laid the foundation of the Order of Piarists. Much envy and opposition arose against him and his new institute, but all were overcome in time. In 1612 the school was transferred to the Torres palace adjoining S. Pantaleone. Here Joseph spent the remaining years of his life in his chosen calling. He lived and died a faithful son of the church, a true friend of forsaken children. His body rests in S. Paltaleone. His beatification was solemnized on 7 Aug., 1748, and his canonization by Clement XIII, 16 July, 1767.

The life of St. Joseph Calasanctius has been written by – Timon-David (Marseilles, 1883); Hubert (Mainz, 1886); Tomaseo (Rome, 1898); Heidenreich (1907). Cf. Hist. polit. Blatter, CXX, 901; Fehr in Kirchenlexicon, s. v.

FRANCIS MERSHMAN (Catholic Encyclopedia)

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August 26 – This noblewoman survived the Terror and founded the Sisters of the Cross

August 24, 2026

Saint Elizabeth Bichier des Ages

She was born of a rich, noble family on July 5, 1773, at the Château des Ages, France. Raised in a pious home, she developed at an early age a close relationship with God and a genuine love for the poor.

She was twenty-five when she first met André Hubert Fournet at one of his clandestine masses at Les Marsillys. He soon enlisted her help in teaching the faith and caring for the sick and needy. Her magnetic personality and her cause soon attracted other young women to join her. After a few years, the group became a religious congregation known as Les Filles de la Croix (The Sisters of the Cross). Sister Jeanne Elisabeth, commonly known as “la Bonne Soeur” (the Good Sister), died at La Puye, France on August 26th, 1838, at the age of sixty-five. At the time, there were 600 sisters working in 99 different parts of France. On July 6, 1947, the Church officially proclaimed Jeanne Elisabeth Bichier des Ages a saint.

St. André-Hubert Fournet

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August 20 – Saint Philibert of Jumièges and Recipes for Hazelnuts Named in His Honor

August 20, 2026

Saint Philibert of Jumièges (c. 608–684) was the only son of a Frankish noble, a courtier of Dagobert I. He was educated at court by Saint Ouen and entered monastic life at Rebais and was elected abbot at the age of 20. In 654, St. Philibert received a gift of land from Clovis II on […]

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August 20 – The Knights Templar owe him

August 20, 2026

St. Bernard of Clairvaux Born in 1090, at Fontaines, near Dijon, France; died at Clairvaux, 21 August, 1153. His parents were Tescelin, lord of Fontaines, and Aleth of Montbard, both belonging to the highest nobility of Burgundy. Bernard, the third of a family of seven children, six of whom were sons, was educated with particular […]

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August 21 – La Vallete

August 20, 2026

Jean Parisot de La Valette Forty-eighth Grand Master of the Order of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem; born in 1494; died in Malta, 21 Aug., 1568. He came from an old family of Southern France, several members of which had been capitouls (chief magistrates) in Toulouse. When still young he entered the Order […]

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August 22 – Venerable John Wall

August 20, 2026

Blessed John Wall Martyr, born in Lancashire, 1620; suffered near Worcester, 22 August, 1679; known at Douay and Rome as John Marsh, and when on the Mission under the aliases of Francis Johnson, Webb, and Dormore. The son of wealthy and staunch Lancashire Catholics, he was sent when very young to Douai College. He entered […]

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August 22 – The Queenship of Mary

August 20, 2026

Pope Pius XII in the Papal Encyclical Ad Coeli Reginam proposed the traditional doctrine on the Queenship of Mary and established this feast for the Universal Church. Pope Pius IX said of Mary’s Queenship: “Turning her maternal Heart toward us and dealing with the affair of our salvation, she is concerned with the whole human […]

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August 21 – What Saint Pius X says about equality

August 20, 2026

In the motu proprio Fin dalla prima, of December 18, 1903, Saint Pius X summarizes the doctrine of Leo XIII on social inequalities: 1. Human society, as God established it, is composed of unequal elements, just as the members of the human body are unequal. To make them all equal would be impossible, and would […]

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August 23 – St. Rose of Lima

August 20, 2026

St. Rose of Lima Virgin, patroness of America, born at Lima, Peru 20 April, 1586; died there 30 August, 1617. Saint Rose was born Isabel Flores y de Oliva in the city of Lima, the Viceroyalty of Peru, then part of New Spain. She was one of the many children of Gaspar Flores, a harquebusier […]

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August 23: He brought peace to Italy’s war-torn city-states in the Middle Ages

August 20, 2026

Saint Philip Benizi, Servite Priest (1233-1285) Saint Philip Benizi was born in Florence on the Feast of the Assumption, 1233. That same day the Order of Servites was founded by the Mother of God. As an infant one year old, Philip spoke when in the presence of these new religious, and announced the Servants of […]

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August 17 – St. Clare of Montefalco

August 17, 2026

Born at Montefalco about 1268; died there, 18 August, 1308. Much dispute has existed as to whether St. Clare of Montefalco was a Franciscan or an Augustinian; and while Wadding, with Franciscan biographers of the saint, contends that she was a member of the Third Order of St. Francis, Augustinian writers, whom the Bollandists seem […]

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August 17 – Her great beauty aroused the jealousy of the queen

August 17, 2026

St. Beatrix da Silva A Portuguese nun, died 1 September, 1490. In Portuguese she is known as Blessed Brites. She was a member of the house of Portalegre and descended from the royal family of Portugal. She accompanied the Portuguese Princess Isabel to Spain, when she married John II of Castile. There Beatrix seems to […]

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August 18 – She led the search for the True Cross

August 17, 2026

Saint Helena (also known as Saint Helen, Helena Augusta or Helena of Constantinople) The mother of Constantine the Great, born about the middle of the third century, possibly in Drepanum (later known as Helenopolis) on the Nicomedian Gulf; died about 330. She was of humble parentage; St. Ambrose, in his “Oratio de obitu Theodosii”, referred […]

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August 19 – St. John Eudes

August 17, 2026

French missionary and founder of the Eudists and of the Congregation of Our Lady of Charity; author of the liturgical worship of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary; born at Ri, France, 14 Nov., 1601; died at Caen, 19 Aug., 1680. He was a brother of the French historian, François Eudes de Nézeray. At […]

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August 19 – The prince who was made bishop at age 22

August 17, 2026

St. Louis of Toulouse Bishop of Toulouse, generally represented vested in pontifical garments and holding a book and a crosier, b. at Brignoles, Provence, Feb., 1274; d. there, 19 Aug., 1297. He was the second son of Charles II of Anjou, called the Lame, King of Naples (1288- 1309), and nephew of St. Louis IX […]

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August 18 – Soldier in every battlefield

August 17, 2026

Théophile-Louis-Henri Wyart (In religion DOM SEBASTIAN). Abbot of Cîteaux and Abbot-General of the Order of Reformed Cistercians, b. at Bouchain, Department of Nord, France, 12 Oct., 1839; d. in Rome, 18 Aug., 1904. Of a pious and studious disposition, he made rapid progress in the usual branches of learning, under private tutors and at both […]

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August 13 – St. Maximus of Constantinople

August 13, 2026

St. Maximus of Constantinople Known as the Theologian and as Maximus Confessor, born at Constantinople about 580; died in exile 13 August, 662. He is one of the chief names in the Monothelite controversy one of the chief doctors of the theology of the Incarnation and of ascetic mysticism, and remarkable as a witness to […]

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August 13 – The Pope Who Resigned

August 13, 2026

Pope St. Pontian Dates of birth and death unknown. The “Liber Pontificalis” (ed. Duchesne, I, 145) gives Rome as his native city and calls his father Calpurnius. With him begins the brief chronicle of the Roman bishops of the third century, of which the author of the Liberian Catalogue of the popes made use in […]

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August 14 – Founding Father

August 13, 2026

Pierre Chastellain Missionary among the Huron Indians, born at Senlis, France, in 1606; died at Quebec, 14 August, 1684. He entered the Society of Jesus in 1624 and at the age of thirty sailed from France with two future martyrs, Fathers Isaac Jogues and Charles Garnier, and the new Governor of Canada, Montmagny, the successor […]

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August 14 – St. Eusebius, Roman patrician and priest

August 13, 2026

St. Eusebius of Rome A presbyter at Rome; date of birth unknown; d. 357(?). He was a Roman patrician and priest, and is mentioned with distinction in Latin martyrologies. The ancient genuine martyrology of Usuard styles him confessor at Rome under the Arian emperor Constantius and adds that he was buried in the cemetery of […]

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August 15 – Prester John

August 13, 2026

Prester John Name of a legendary Eastern priest and king. FIRST STAGE The mythical journey to Rome of a certain Patriarch John of India in 1122, and his visit to Callistus II, cannot have been the origin of the legend. Not until much later, in a manuscript dating from the latter part of the fifteenth-century […]

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August 15 – The Knights of St. John capture Rhodes and establish their sovereignty

August 13, 2026

On 15 August, 1310, under the leadership of Grand Master Foulques de Villaret, the Knights of St. John captured the island in spite of the Greek emperor, Andronicus II. The Knights of Rhodes, the successors of the Hospitallers of St. John, were distinguished from the latter in many ways. In the first place, the grand […]

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In order to have the spirit of chivalry, love the sublimity of the fight

August 13, 2026

by Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira The problem is, for you to have the spirit of chivalry you need to be fully imbued with the sublimity of what you do, and to love this sublimity. If you do not do that, you will not have the true spirit of the knight. You may say: “If we […]

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August 16 – His incorrupt right hand is treasured as the most sacred relic in Hungary

August 13, 2026

St. Stephen of Hungary First King of Hungary, born at Gran, 975; died 15 August, 1038. He was a son of the Hungarian chief Géza and was baptized, together with his father, by Archbishop St. Adalbert of Prague in 985, on which occasion he changed his heathen name Vaik (Vojk) into Stephen. In 995 he […]

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August 16 – Apostle of the North

August 13, 2026

St. Hyacinth Dominican, called the Apostle of the North, son of Eustachius Konski of the noble family of Odrowacz [or Odrowaz]; born 1185 at the castle of Lanka, at Kamin, in Silesia, Poland…; died 15 August, 1257, at Cracow. Feast, 16 Aug. A near relative of Saint Ceslaus, he made his studies at Cracow, Prague, […]

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August 10 – Defiant under torture, he inspires noble souls until today

August 10, 2026

St. Lawrence Martyr; died 10 August, 258. St. Lawrence, one of the deacons of the Roman Church, was one of the victims of the persecution of Valerian in 258, like Pope Sixtus II and many other members of the Roman clergy. At the beginning of the month of August, 258, the emperor issued an edict, […]

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August 10 – His sister founded the Conceptionists

August 10, 2026

João Mendes de Silva Better known as Amadeus of Portugal, O.F.M., (1420–1482), was a Portuguese nobleman who became first a monk, then left that life to become a friar of the Franciscan Order. Later he became a reformer of that Order, which led to his founding of a distinct branch of the Friars Minor that […]

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Many members of the Society of the Cincinnati were killed during the Terror

August 10, 2026

One of the more agreeable duties that took [the Count of] Rochambeau to Paris was the organization of the French members of the Society of the Cincinnati…. Some difficulties had to be ironed out, since no foreign order was then allowed in France, but the King was so much interested in the whole proceeding that […]

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Paris pours out its heart in welcoming the brother of the King it executed

August 10, 2026

Meanwhile, Monsieur [the Count of Chambord, the future Charles X], invested with the Lieutenancy-general of the kingdom, slowly advanced from Nancy to Paris. The formation of a royal guard greatly occupied the capital. Such devotion was shown that it was improvised in a week. In seven days seven hundred men belonging the best families in […]

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August 11 – St. Attracta

August 10, 2026

St. Attracta (Or ST. ARAGHT). A contemporary of St. Patrick from whom she received the veil. She is known as the foundress of several churches in the Counties of Galway and Sligo, Ireland. Colgan’s account of her life is based on that written by Augustine Magraidin in the last years of fourteenth century, and abounds […]

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August 11 – Feast of the Crown of Thorns and the Five Sacred Wounds

August 10, 2026

Feast of the Crown of Thorns The first feast in honour of the Crown of Thorns (Festum susceptionis coronae Domini) was instituted at Paris in 1239, when St. Louis brought thither the relic of the Crown of Thorns, which was deposited later in the Royal Chapel, erected in 1241-8 to guard this and other relics […]

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August 11 – Charcoal Burner

August 10, 2026

Alexander, Saint, known as “The charcoal burner,” was Bishop of Comana, in Pontus, Whether he was the first to occupy that see is open to discussion. The Bollandists have also a long paper as to the exact location of Comana as there were several places of that name, but decide for Pontus, near Neo-Cæsarea. The […]

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Columbus, and how to make Key Lime Pie

August 10, 2026

When Christopher Columbus discovered the New World on October 12, 1492–a feat that earned for him the title of Admiral of the Indies and for his grandson Louis and his descendants in perpetuity the noble title of Duke of Veragua–he introduced into the Americas the greatest treasure possible: the Catholic Faith. However, his epic Atlantic […]

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August 12 – St. Jane Frances de Chantal

August 10, 2026

Born at Dijon, France, 28 January, 1572; died at the Visitation Convent Moulins, 13 December, 1641. Her father was president of the Parliament of Burgundy, and leader of the royalist party during the League that brought about the triumph of the cause of Henry IV. In 1592 she married Baron de Chantal, and lived in […]

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August 12 – His pontificate was spent in opposing royal absolutism

August 10, 2026

Pope Blessed Innocent XI (Benedetto Odescalchi) Born at Como, 16 May, 1611; died at Rome, 11 August, 1689. He was educated by the Jesuits at Como, and studied jurisprudence at Rome and Naples. Urban VIII appointed him successively prothonotary, president of the Apostolic Camera, commissary at Ancona, administrator of Macerata, and Governor of Picena. Innocent […]

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Battle of Petrovaradin

August 6, 2026

The Battle of Petrovaradin also known as the Battle of Peterwardein, took place on 5 August 1716 during the Austro-Turkish War when the Ottoman army besieged the Habsburg-controlled fortress of Petrovaradin on the Military Frontier of the Habsburg monarchy (today Novi Sad, Vojvodina, Serbia). The Ottomans attempted to capture Petrovaradin, the so-called Gibraltar on the […]

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August 6 – He told his assassins “God does not die!”

August 6, 2026

Garcia Moreno Ecuadorean patriot and statesman; born at Guayaquil, 24 December, 1821; assassinated at Quito, 6 August, 1875. His father, Gabriel García Gomez, a native of Villaverde, in Old Castile, had been engaged in commerce at Callao before removing to Guayaquil, where he married Dona Mercedes Moreno, the mother of the future Ecuadorean martyr president. […]

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August 6 – Garcia Moreno: Heroic President of Ecuador

August 6, 2026

by José Maria dos Santos Manly Catholic of intransigent principles, slain by the enemies of the Faith because of his consistency and courage in defense of the Church and Papacy Gabriel Garcia Moreno was born in Guayaquil, in southern Ecuador on December 24, 1821. His father, Gabriel Garcia Gómez was Spanish, while his mother, Doña […]

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August 7 – Octogenarian martyr

August 6, 2026

Ven. Nicholas Postgate English martyr, b. at Kirkdale House, Egton, Yorkshire, in 1596 or 1597; d. at York, 7 August, 1679. He entered Douay College, 11 July, 1621, took the college oath, 12 March, 1623, received minor orders, 23 December, 1624, the subdiaconate, 18 December, 1827, the diaconate, 18 March, 1628, and the priesthood two […]

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August 7 – Three martyrs of Lancaster

August 6, 2026

Ven. Edward Bamber (Alias Reading). Priest and martyr, b. at the Moor, Poulton-le-Fylde, Lancashire; executed at Lancaster 7 August, 1646. Educated at the English College, Valladolid, he was ordained and sent to England. On landing at Dover, he knelt down to thank God, which act, observed by the Governor of the Castle, was the cause […]

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August 7 – Pope St. Sixtus II

August 6, 2026

Pope St. Sixtus II (XYSTUS) Elected 31 Aug., 257, martyred at Rome, 6 Aug., 258. His origin is unknown. The “Liber Pontificalis” says that he was a Greek by birth, but this is probably a mistake, originating from the false assumption that he was identical with a Greek philosopher of the same name, who was […]

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August 8 – They hated him because he enforced celibacy of the clergy

August 6, 2026

Bl. Altmann The friend of Gregory VII and Anselm, conspicuous in the contest of the Guelphs and Ghibellines, as Bishop of Passau and Papal Legate. He was born at Paderborn about the beginning of the eleventh century, presided over the school there, was chaplain at the court of Henry III, and then became Bishop of […]

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From the apostolic letter Notre charge apostolique, August 25, 1910, of Saint Pius X:

[From the Apostolic Letter Notre charge apostolique of Pope Saint Pius X, August 25, 1910]:

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