"There is such poverty and destitution in this city" ~ Pope Pelagius I begs for desolate Rome following the Gothic Wars in Italy

A fanciful portrait of Pope Pelagius I based on the roundel portrait in the
Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls, Rome.

In the year of our Lord 556, on April 16, Pelagius I assumed the papal throne in Rome after an interregnum of about 10 months. His advent was not without controversy. His predecessor, Pope Vigilius, had died in Syracuse, Sicily, while on his way back to Rome from a long exile in Constantinople. Vigilius had spent the last ten years of his eighteen year reign as an unwilling captive in the Eastern capital, fighting a vain theological battle with Justinian over the so-called Three Chapters controversy. See this post for some details of Vigilius's reign: "I am receiving the reward for my deeds" ~ The Miserable Reign of Pope Vigilius, AD 537-555.

If Vigilius had inherited an untenable situation when assuming the papacy in AD 537, Pelagius’s situation was only marginally better. When he became Pontiff, the seemingly interminable war in Italy between the Romans and Goths had just drawn to a close. Rome had been taken and lost by both sides several times, leaving the Eternal City desolate, depopulated and in ruins. In fact, during one of these reversions, Pelagius in his role as deacon, had confronted the victorious Gothic king, Totila, as he entered St. Peter's Basilica. The Gothic soldiers, in their wrath, had begun slaying the soldiers and citizens that they found there. To arrest this unfolding slaughter, Pelagius approached Totila with the Sacred Scriptures in his hands, saying, "Spare thine own, O Master."

"Now at last you make yourself suppliant before me," Totila mocked. 

"Yes, at a time when God has made me your slave," Pelagius replied, holding the Sacred Scriptures up before him. "Nay, spare your slaves O Master, from now on."

Procopius records that Totila was pleased with this speech, and though he allowed his men to plunder the Romans of their possessions, he forbade them from killing the people. [Procopius, History of the Wars, Book VII, Chapter 20].

Fortunately, Justinian’s general, Narses, would crush the remaining Gothic armies at the battles of Taginae and Mons Lactarius. Though a tenuous peace would then exist in the war-ravaged peninsula, the entire country had been devastated by nearly two decades of brutal warfare.

As for his theological situation, that too was complicated. Pelagius had at first stood steadfast with Pope Vigilius against the demands of Justinian to condemn the Three Chapters. But when Vigilius later buckled, Pelagius did likewise. This created fierce opposition to Pelagius in Italy, the bishops in that forlorn province viewing their new Pope as little more than a toady for Justinian and his theological novelties.

Worse than this, Pelagius was viewed by some in Italy as having a hand in the death of Pope Vigilius in Sicily. So despite his noble birth and his history of putting his life and treasure on the line for Rome, Pelagius I found himself with very few friends upon attaining the Papacy.

His backstory established, here’s what the Liber Pontificalis, a near contemporary source, has to say about the reign of Pope Pelagius I:

Pelagius, by nationality a Roman, son of John, the vicarius, occupied the see 4 years, 10 months and 18 days. And there was no bishop to ordain him but two bishops were found, John of Perusia and Bonus of Ferentinum, and Andrew, priest of Ostia, and they ordained him pontiff. At that time there was no one among the clergy who could be promoted. The monasteries and the multitude of wise and noble devout withdrew from communion with Pelagius, saying that he had had a part in the death of Pope Vigilius and therefore was punished with such troubles. 

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Then Narses and Pope Pelagius took counsel and when the litany had been said at Saint Pancratius they proceeded with hymns and spiritual songs to Saint Peter, the apostle. And Pelagius, holding the Gospels and the cross of the Lord above his head, mounted the pulpit and thus he satisfied all the people that he had done no harm to Vigilius. Likewise Pope Pelagius continued and said: ''I beg of you to grant my request, that whoever deserves promotion in the holy church and is worthy of it, from a doorkeeper even to a bishop, should accept advancement, though not for gold nor any promises. You all know that that is simony. But whoever is taught in the works of God and leads a good life we bid him, not by bribes but by honest conversation, to rise unto the first rank." 

At that time Pelagius appointed Valentinus, who feared God, as his notary and had all the gold and silver vessels and the vestments restored in all the churches. Then he began to build the basilica of the apostles Philip and James. But when the building was begun he died and was buried in the basilica of blessed Peter, the Apostle, March 2. [Loomis, The Liber Pontificalis, Pelagius, pp. 160-162].

Pelagius I has also left considerable correspondence which has come down to us from antiquity. Unfortunately, most of his letters have never been translated into English. If you can read Latin, you can find the complete corpus available here. For those not so inclined to dive into the Latin, Louise Ropes Loomis provides the following summary of Pelagius I’s epistles which are particularly useful in understanding the dire situation in Italy in the immediate aftermath of the Gothic Wars:

Pelagius' correspondence is full of allusions to the impoverished state of the Roman Church and of directions for collecting the rents and other revenues which had long been unpaid. In one instance he orders that a slave, the son of a slave woman belonging to the church, who was attempting to escape from servitude by calling himself a curial, should be returned to the ecclesiastical estates. He writes to the bishop of Arles, commending to his protection various Romans who had fled from their homes for fear of the enemy and asking that the garments bought with the dues paid by the local church should be sent by ship to Rome, "because there is such poverty and destitution in this city that we cannot look without grief and anguish of heart upon men whom we know to be meritorious and born to honorable position." Jaffe, Regesta, pp. 126-134, 943, 947, 949, 950, 951, 953, 956, 963, 1022, 1023. There is no mention of church  furniture in the letters now extant but Pelagius may probably have tried to replace what had been lost and destroyed.

Such was the situation in Rome that Pelagius was forced to beg for the city. Aside from the clothing requested from Gaul mentioned above, he also begged assistance from Africa in settling refugees. From the papal estates in Italy, he brought provisions into Rome for the relief of starvation. He also carried on a lively correspondence with King Childebert of the Franks and the bishops of Gaul, attempting to defend himself from charges of having compromised the faith while in Constantinople. 

Other of Pelagius's letters encouraged the secular authorities—both the Roman commanders in Italy and the Frankish king—to suppress theological dissenters by force. In a commonly cited letter to Valerianus, a Roman officer in northern Italy, Pelagius says that evil should be punished, and if the Church appears to be acting as a persecutor, it is rather acting as a father who chastises an erring son. See a summary of this letter in Tyrrell, Merovingian Letters and Letter Writers, p. 279. These appeals seem to have gone unheeded. 

Pope Pelagius I should not be confused with the early 5th century heresiarch of the same name.

Like his predecessor Pope Vigilius, Pope Pelagius I is not considered a saint.

"With great haste and tears, he fell down before Zephyrinus" ~ August 26, feast of Pope Saint Zephyrinus

Natalius falls at the feet of Pope St. Zephyrinus, seeking forgiveness.

August 26 is the feast of Pope Saint Zephyrinus on the traditional Catholic calendar. Following is the entry for Zephyrinus that appears in the Liber Pontificalis: 

Zephyrinus, by nationality a Roman, son of Habundius, occupied the see 18 years, 3 months and 10 days [or 8 years, 7 months and 10 days]. 

He was bishop in the time of Antoninus and Severus, from the consulship of Saturninus and Gallicanus (AD 198) to the year when Presens and Stricatus were consuls (AD 217). 

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He decreed that in the presence of all the clergy and the faithful laity every cleric, deacon or priest, should be ordained. He also made a regulation for the church, that there should be vessels of glass before the priests in the church and servitors to hold them while the bishop was celebrating mass and priests standing about him. Thus mass should be celebrated and the clergy should assist in all the ceremony, except in that which belongs only to the bishop. From the consecration of the bishop's hand the priest should receive the consecrated wafer to distribute to the people. He held 4 ordinations in the month of December, 14 priests, 7 deacons, 13 bishops in divers places. He also was buried in his own cemetery near the cemetery of Callistus on the Via Appia, August 25. [Liber Pontificalis, page 19]

Another anecdote regarding Pope Zephyrinus may be found in the Eccelsiastical History of Eusebius. This story regards a man named Natalius who was persuaded by heretics to accept a bishopric for the sum of 150 denarii per month. Eusebius explains:

When he had thus connected himself with them, he was warned oftentimes by the Lord through visions. For the compassionate God and our Lord Jesus Christ was not willing that a witness of his own sufferings, being cast out of the Church, should perish. But as he paid little regard to the visions, because he was ensnared by the first position among them and by that shameful covetousness which destroys a great many, he was scourged by holy angels, and punished severely through the entire night. Thereupon having risen in the morning, he put on sackcloth and covered himself with ashes, and with great haste and tears he fell down before Zephyrinus, the bishop, rolling at the feet not only of the clergy, but also of the laity; and he moved with his tears the compassionate Church of the merciful Christ. And though he used much supplication, and showed the welts of the stripes which he had received, yet scarcely was he taken back into communion. [Eusebius: Ecclesiastical History, Book V, Chapter 28]

It is also recorded by Eusebius that while Zephyrinus was Pope, Origin—the great theologian of Alexandria—visited Rome, "desiring, as he himself somewhere says, to see the most ancient Church of Rome."

There is some confusion as to whether Zephyrinus died a martyr under Caracalla or not. This obscurity has led to a general suppression of his cult in modern times and his feast was moved to December 20 after 1969, as this date is considered to be more reliable as the anniversary of his death.

"Inspired by penitence, he was beheaded." ~ The mysterious last days and death of Pope Saint Marcellinus

Pope Saint Marcellinus from Shea's Pictorial Lives of the Saints.

April 26 is the feast day of one of the most enigmatic Popes, Saint Marcellinus, who perished at the height of the Great Persecution in AD 304. Because his reign took place during a time when the Church was under extreme duress, the facts surrounding his pontificate are hazy. Similarly hazy is his fate. 

Following is the complete brief biography of Pope Saint Marcellinus as contained in the Liber Pontificalis, that useful if occasionally confused catalog of all the ancient popes prior to Saint Gregory the Great that was compiled in the late 6th century:

Marcellinus, by nationality a Roman, son of Projectus, occupied the see 8 years, 2 months and 25 days (or 9 years, 4 months and 16 days). 

He was bishop in the time of Diocletian and Maximian, from July 1 in the 6th consulship of Diocletian and the 2nd of Constantius (AD 296) until the year when Diocletian was consul for the 9th time and Maximian for the 8th (AD 304). At that time was a great persecution, so that within 30 days 17,000 Christians of both sexes in divers provinces were crowned with martyrdom. 

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For this reason Marcellinus himself was haled to sacrifice, that he might offer incense, and he did it. 

After a few days, inspired by penitence, he was beheaded by the same Diocletian and crowned with martyrdom for the faith of Christ in company with Claudius and Cyrinus and Antoninus, and the blessed Marcellinus on his way to his passion abjured Marcellus, the priest, that he should not fulfill the commands of Diocletian. 

And afterwards the holy bodies lay in the street for an example to the Christians 26 days by order of Diocletian.  

Then the priest Marcellus and the other priests and deacons took up the bodies by night with hymns and buried them on the Via Salaria in the cemetery of Priscilla in a chamber which is well known to this day, as Marcellinus himself had commanded, when in penitence, he was being haled to execution, in the crypt near the body of holy Criscentio, April 25.  

He held 2 ordinations in the month of December, 4 priests, 2 deacons, 5 bishops in divers places. 

From that day the bishopric was empty 7 years, 6 months and 25 days while Diocletian was persecuting the Christians.

In Loomis's edition of the Liber Pontificalis, a further passage is included, drawn from a single manuscript, which refers to a councils of bishops which took place in Italy during the Persecution:

And after a few days, a synod was held in the province of Campania in the city of Sessana [Sinuessa], where with his own lips he professed his penitence in the presence of 180 bishops. He wore a garment of haircloth and ashes upon his head and repented, saying that he had sinned. Then Diocletian was wroth and seized him and bade him sacrifice to images. But he cried out with tears, saying, "It repenteth me sorely for my former ignorance," and he began to utter blasphemy against Diocletian and the images of the demons made with human hands. So, inspired by penitence, he was beheaded.

Needless to say, these passages have inspired controversy ever since. Consensus seems to be that the so-called Synod of Sinuessa where St. Marcellinus professed his guilt before his brother bishops, was a fabrication. This seems likely as it would have been inconceivable for a synod of 180 bishops to be held in southern Italy during the apogee of the Great Persecution. Mentions of Diocletian, the Augustus of the East who ruled from Nicomedia, also seem to lend doubt to these accounts. However, a curious passage in Lactantius's work, On the Deaths of the Persecutors, may shed some light:

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Diocletian, whom prosperity had now abandoned, set out instantly for Rome, there to celebrate the commencement of the twentieth year of his reign. That solemnity was performed on the twelfth of the kalends of December; and suddenly the emperor, unable to bear the Roman freedom of speech, peevishly and impatiently burst away from the city. The kalends of January approached, at which day the consulship, for the ninth time, was to be offered to him; yet, rather than continue thirteen days longer in Rome, he chose that his first appearance as consul should be at Ravenna. [Lactantius, On the Deaths of the Persecutors, Chapter 17]

The twentieth year of Diocletian's reign would have been AD 304, so this passage refers to events late in the year 303. This makes it clear that Diocletian was in Italy near the time assigned to the death of Saint Marcellinus, and he was in Rome specifically for about a month. Furthermore, the Augustus was, if not wroth, at least peevish during this his only visit to the Imperial City during his reign. Why Lactantius doesn't mention the acts of the persecutors while in Rome, particularly with regard to Saint Marcellinus, is an interesting question. However, Lactantius is hardly alone in his silence. None of the key ecclesiastical historians of the subsequent generation mention this event, and several of the early compilers of lists of the ancient popes exclude Marcellinus's name all together. One important exception is the Liberian Catalog of AD 354 which lists all of the Popes up to that time, Marcellinus included.

Scholars over the centuries have attributed this lack of information about Saint Marcellinus to the shame associated with his name in antiquity. However, it is equally likely that because the death of Marcellinus coincided with the most intense period of persecution, that the records were lost or purposely destroyed. As we have seen in other posts, the destruction of Christian literature was one of key aspects of Diocletian's effort, leading later Christians like Prudentius to lament the "oblivion of a silent age," and Pope Damasus to seek out assiduously the stories of the persecution by those who had lived through it even decades later. Also telling is that after Marcellinus's death, there was an unprecedented papal interregnum of some seven years during which time the Church in Rome had no visible head.

A century after the death of Marcellinus in the time of Saint Augustine of Hippo, the name of Marcellinus would re-appear as part of his debates with the Donatists. One of his opponents, a Donatist bishop named Petilianus, would invoke Marcellinus among those who offered incense to the pagan gods and handed over the sacred texts to be burnt by the heathens:

Maximian also perished, at whose command that men should burn incense to their gods, burning the sacred volumes, Marcellinus indeed first, but after him also Mensurius of Carthage, and Cæcilianus, escaped death from the sacrilegious flames, surviving like some ashes or cinders from the burning. [Answer to Petilian the Donatist, Book II, Chapter 93:202]

Augustine answered this charge as follows:

For now you go on to make mention of the bishops whom you are wont to accuse of having delivered up the sacred books, concerning whom we on our part are wont to answer: Either you fail in your proof, and so it concerns no one at all; or you succeed and then it still has no concern with us. For they have borne their own burden, whether it be good or bad; and we indeed believe that it was good. But of whatever character it was, yet it was their own; just as your bad men have borne their own burden, and neither you theirs nor they yours. [Answer to Petilian the Donatist, Book II, Chapter 93:208]

This is far from an absolute denial of the accusation, specifically with regard to Marcellinus. Augustine well knew that some Catholic bishops in Africa had indeed surrendered the sacred books, as noted in a previous post. So he had to fall back to a position saying he doesn't believe all of the accusations, but that even if they are true, the sins belong to the men in question, not to the whole Church.

Based on our rather limited knowledge, it seems possible that Marcellinus managed to retain his position during the early days of the Great Persecution perhaps by temporizing, compromising or negotiating with the vacillating figure of Maximianus Herculius who was the Augustus of the West. We know from Lactantius and other sources that Maximian was a rather crass, greedy fellow who was not above having his policies influenced by favors, flattery or an influx of gold. Perhaps Marcellinus was able to achieve a sort of secret coexistence with Maximian that was only broken when Diocletian arrived in Rome late in AD 303 to celebrate his vicenalia. Perhaps one thing that made Diocletian peevish on his visit was the discovery that his colleague, Maximianus, had been less assiduous in his rooting out of the hated Christians than expected.

If Saint Marcellinus had indeed taken some questionable measures to help preserve his flock during the persecution, or even secretly abjured under torture, the sources seem to agree that he later suffered bravely for the Faith, likely having been martyred. The fact that the pontifical seat remained empty after the death of Marcellinus provides mute testimony to status of the Christian population of Rome in AD 304 as they hid in fear of the tempest, not even daring to name a leader for the Church for seven full years.

An even more detailed examination of the possible apostasy and repentance of Pope Marcellinus may be found at the excellent Unam Sanctam Catholicam blog here.

Pope Vigilius Celebrates Christmas by Jumping from a Window to Escape Justinian's Henchmen ~ December 23, AD 551

Scene from the life of Joseph the Patriarch as taken from the mid-6th century
throne of Maximian, bishop of Ravenna. The late-Roman garb of the figures,
particularly the soldiers, is notable.

Two days before Christmas, on 23 December 551 AD, a most curious scene took place which involved a Pope squeezing out of a palace window in the middle of the night, boarding a boat, and fleeing pell-mell across the Bosporus to seek sanctuary from the menaces of the Christian Roman emperor.

In a previous post, I provided a summary of the miserable reign of Pope Vigilius, who reigned from AD 537 to 555. At the time of the abovementioned episode, Vigilius had already been detained in Constantinople by the emperor Justinian for several years. The Pope and the Emperor had been squabbling over the so-called “Three Chapters” controversy—part of a debate over the nature of Christ during which accusations, threats and excommunications had roiled the Church for decades. Elected to the papacy as a pawn of the empress Theodora, Vigilius had been spirited away to Constantinople when he had refused to do the bidding of the Empress and lift the excommunications on her monophysite allies.

Vigilius was no stranger to Justinian’s strong-arm tactics. A few years before, he had been man-handled by the emperor’s guardsmen who attempted to remove him physically from a place of sanctuary at the church of Saint Peter in Constantinople. He was only saved by the reticence of Justinian’s soldiers who felt the duty unseemly and fled, spurred on by an angry mob that had gathered in support of the Pope. Vigilius had later been convinced to emerge and negotiate with the emperor again, taking up residence in the Palace of Placidia after oaths were given ensuring his personal safety. But after additional diplomacy produced no good fruit, Justinian again lost patience. Writing in the late 19th century, Thomas Hodgkin describes the situation of Vigilius, drawn directly from the Pope’s encyclical letter to the Catholic world written a few months after the event:

Notwithstanding all this swearing, the situation of the Pope after his return became daily more intolerable. His servants and ecclesiastics who remained faithful to him were publicly insulted. Every entrance to the palace was blocked by armed men. He had reason to think that a violent attack was about to be made upon his person. After making a vain appeal to the imperial envoys whose plighted oath was thus being violated, he quitted the palace again by night two days before Christmas-day. The shouts of men-at-arms penetrated even to his bed-chamber, and only the urgent terror, as he himself says, could have impelled him to the hardships and dangers of a nocturnal expedition. [Hodgkin, Italy and Her Invaders, p. 599]

According to Hodgkin’s footnote on the above passage, it seems that the Roman Pontiff was forced to squeeze his not inconsiderable person through a small window or hole in order to escape. Once out of the palace, Vigilius boarded a boat and made a perilous night-crossing of the Bosporous, taking refuge at the church of Saint Euphemia in Chalcedon. This was a symbolic move on the Pope’s part – Saint Euphemia was the Church where the Council of Chalcedon had met nearly a century before. It was this Council that Vigilius was defending against attempts by the emperor to water down its authority.

The Pope remained in St. Euphemia for a little over a month before Justinian sent a delegation of the most illustrious Romans to attempt to coax him forth. These included no less than the master of soldiers Belisarius, the Roman senator Cethegus, Peter the Patrician, the emperor’s great-nephew Justin, and the emperor’s secretary Marcellinus.

A few days after this meeting, Pope Vigilius wrote the encyclical letter mentioned above. Here are the Pope’s own words from the introduction of the encyclical, as translated in Fr. Hugo Rahner’s book, Church and State in Early Christianity:

We sought asylum in this church for no financial or personal reasons but solely because of the scandal afflicting the Church, which, because of our sins, is known to all. Therefore, if the controversy rending the Church is resolved, and the peace which our most religious sovereign negotiated in his uncle’s [Justin I] time is restored, then I have no need of oaths—I will leave immediately. But if the controversy is not ended, then oaths are of no avail, for I will never agree to leave the Church of St. Euphemia until the Church is rid of this scandal. [Rahner: Church and State in Early Christianity, p. 175]

The balance of this letter is well worth reading. Regardless of what one thinks of Vigilius and his subsequent knuckling-under to the emperor’s wishes, one is forced to admire his steadfastness here in the face of an irresistible political will and threats of physical compulsion. The letter also gives us an idea of the complexity of the political and religious situation in the Roman Empire at the time—when Christian doctrine could be confected and enforced using the most naked partisan tools including threats, intimidation, bribery, intrigue, forgery and even brute force.

One might also wish that our modern Church leaders would show even a fraction of this type of steadfastness when defending traditional Christian doctrine against diabolical innovations.

"That the seat of Peter might not be dishonored by the occupancy of two bishops"

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"This event [the death of (anti) Pope Felix] was, no doubt, ordained by God, that the seat of Peter might not be dishonored by the occupancy of two bishops; for such an arrangement is a sign of discord, and is foreign to ecclesiastical law." 

 ~Ecclesiastical History of Sozomen, ca. AD 440

This quote is taken from a curious bit of history when the Church was torn by the Arian heresy.

After the death of Constantine the Great in AD 337, sole rule of the empire eventually devolved upon his son, Constantius II. While Constantius was just as devoted to achieving unity within the Church as was his father before him, he unfortunately lacked his father’s patience and light touch when dealing with ecclesiastical affairs. In AD 355, Constantius was so fixated on unifying the Nicean orthodox, semi-Arian and Arian parties, that he deposed and exiled Pope Liberius when the latter refused to sign a condemnation of Saint Athanasius, the champion of orthodoxy who steadfastly opposed the heresy of Arius.

While Liberius was in exile, the Roman clergy elected a new pope—Felix II. Felix reigned for a little over a year, but it seems that the people of Rome never accepted him. In fact, they agitated loudly for the recall of Pope Liberius. In AD 357, Constantius gave in and ended the exile of Liberius. Why this happened is a matter of vigorous scholarly debate even to this day, and the ancient sources are quite confused. Did Liberius give in and sign documents assenting to a semi-Arian formula and condemning St. Athanasius? Did he recant upon his return to Rome? Or did he remain steadfast until the emperor simply ended his exile to appease the people of Rome?

These questions are probably not answerable, but once Constantius allowed Liberius to return to Rome, a curious thing happened, according to the 5th century ecclesiastical historian, Sozomen:

The bishops who were then convened at [a synod in] Sirmium wrote to Felix, who governed the Roman church, and to the other bishops, desiring them to receive Liberius. They directed that both should share the throne and discharge the priestly duties in common, with harmony of mind; and that whatever illegalities might have occurred in the ordination of Felix, or the banishment of Liberius, might be buried in oblivion.

Having two popes at the same time was a radical, unworkable solution to the problem. For the people of 4th century Rome, the idea of two popes was a complete non-starter. They welcomed Liberius back like a conquering hero. Felix, in the meantime, was chased out of the city, but it seems he never renounced the papal office. Sozomen concludes this episode, saying:

The people of Rome regarded Liberius as a very excellent man, and esteemed him highly on account of the courage he had evinced in opposing the emperor, so that they had even excited seditions on his account, and had gone so far as to shed blood. Felix survived but a short time; and Liberius found himself in sole possession of the church. This event was, no doubt, ordained by God, that the seat of Peter might not be dishonored by the occupancy of two bishops; for such an arrangement is a sign of discord, and is foreign to ecclesiastical law.

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To read the entire passage from Sozomen in context, visit NewAdvent.com here. You can also read it in book form in the forthcoming new edition of The Ecclesiastical History of Sozomen which should be published within the next month or so.

Interestingly, Liberius is the first pope in the 350 year history of the Church to that point who was not considered a saint of the Latin Church, though he is revered as such in the East. Felix II, however, was considered a saint, at least for a time.

Pope Saint Pius V and the excommunication of Queen Elizabeth I

"All the evils of the world are due to lukewarm Catholics."
~Attributed to Pope St. Pius V, source unknown
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Today is the feast day of one of the great popes, Pius V, now recognized as a saint. Though perhaps best known as the Pope whose call for prayer to all of Christendom helped the Holy League destroy the Turkish fleet at Lepanto, Pius V's short but eventful pontificate (1566-1572) also featured the standardization of the Mass following the Council of Trent (see Quo Primum) and the excommunication of the English queen, Elizabeth I.

The short document setting out the rationale for the excommunication, Regnans in Excelsis, is worth reading. Most Catholics in the US, with our deficient, protestantized Catholic education, have absorbed a positive view of Elizabeth I, not realizing that "Good Queen Bess" was an inveterate persecutor of Catholics, directly responsible for deaths of many martyrs, including saints Edmund Campion and Margaret Clitherow. In Regnans in Excelsis, Pius unleashes some tough language at the so-called "virgin queen" of England:

"...The number of the ungodly has so much grown in power that there is no place left in the world which they have not tried to corrupt with their most wicked doctrines; and among others, Elizabeth, the pretended queen of England and the servant of crime, has assisted in this, with whom as in a sanctuary the most pernicious of all have found refuge. This very woman, having seized the crown and monstrously usurped the place of supreme head of the Church in all England to gather with the chief authority and jurisdiction belonging to it, has once again reduced this same kingdom—which had already been restored to the Catholic faith and to good fruits—to a miserable ruin."

Pius then proceeds to ennumerate her various crimes which compel him, as pastor and guardian of the deposit of faith and of all Christians, to take drastic action:

"Prohibiting with a strong hand the use of the true religion, which after its earlier overthrow by Henry VIII (a deserter therefrom) Mary, the lawful queen of famous memory, had with the help of this See restored, she has:

• followed and embraced the errors of the heretics;
• removed the royal Council, composed of the nobility of England, and has filled it with obscure men, being heretics;
• oppressed the followers of the Catholic faith;
• instituted false preachers and ministers of impiety; 
• abolished the sacrifice of the mass, prayers, fasts, choice of meats, celibacy, and Catholic ceremonies;
• ordered that books of manifestly heretical content be propounded to the whole realm and that impious rites and institutions after the rule of Calvin, entertained and observed by herself, be also observed by her subjects.
• dared to eject bishops, rectors of churches and other Catholic priests from their churches and benefices, to bestow these and other things ecclesiastical upon heretics, and to determine spiritual causes;
• has forbidden the prelates, clergy and people to acknowledge the Church of Rome or obey its precepts and canonical sanctions;
• has forced most of them to come to terms with her wicked laws, to abjure the authority and obedience of the pope of Rome, and to accept her, on oath, as their only lady in matters temporal and spiritual;
• has imposed penalties and punishments on those who would not agree to this and has exacted then of those who persevered in the unity of the faith and the aforesaid obedience;
• has thrown the Catholic prelates and parsons into prison where many, worn out by long languishing and sorrow, have miserably ended their lives.

All these matter and manifest and notorious among all the nations; they are so well proven by the weighty witness of many men that there remains no place for excuse, defense or evasion."

Having exhausted the usual means of correction, Pius imposed the penalty of excommunication on Elizabeth I, and not only on her but on any of her courtiers and countrymen who remained bound to her by choice and obeyed her commands. He also absolved her subjects from any obligations to her that they owed due to sworn oaths, and stripped her of her "pretended title to the crown."

Read all of Regnans in Excelsis here.

In our current age, when statements from the Vatican are normally pronounced in obscure language varnished over with layer after layer of incomprehensible nuance, it's refreshing to read a document couched in such clear and emphatic terms.

Prayers for the Conclave

The Conclave is scheduled to begin on Tuesday, March 12 on the traditional calendar feast of Pope St. Gregory the Great. The faithful are called to pray for the conclave, that the assembled cardinals be receptive to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. What better way to do this than to remind ourselves of the glorious heritage of the office of the Papacy and some of the brilliant, wise and godly men who have occupied the Roman cathedra.

Too often, those who think poorly of the Church focus on the "bad" Popes. But one need only glance through the 2,000 year history of the papacy--stretching all the way back to the time of Jesus--to see that the good far outnumber the "bad". Here are some memes to help us focus on the outstanding virtues of some of the most noble early Popes. Let us pray to Almighty God that He sends His Holy Spirit to inspire these virtues in the man who will become the next Pontiff--the next Servant of the Servants of God.

Saint Peter, the First Pope

"Dearly beloved, think not strange the burning heat which is to try you, as if some new thing happened to you; But if you partake of the sufferings of Christ, rejoice that when his glory shall be revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy. If you be reproached for the name of Christ, you shall be blessed: for that which is of the honor, glory, and power of God, and that which is his Spirit, resteth upon you." [First Epistle of Saint Peter, 4:12-14]

Read more about St. Peter the Liber Pontificalis, an amazing early work that every Catholic should own.