Feast of St. Pius V - "The Cardinal of God"

S A I N T    P I U S    V

In 1563, Pope Pius IV, on the anniversary of his Coronation, gave a great banquet to the Cardinals and ambassadors who had come to congratulate him. As they were rising from table the Holy Father declared his intention of raising to the purple Ferdinand de Medici, a boy of thirteen, and Frederic di Gonzaga, a youth of twenty. Taken by surprise, the assembled Cardinals weakly assented. … All but Cardinal Alexandrin [the future Pius V]: “Most Holy Father,” he cried earnestly, “after the Council of Trent has taken such pains to reform abuses, especially among the clergy, and to establish discipline, hitherto so miserably relaxed, what will be thought, if the Vicar of Jesus Christ ignores one of its most important decrees, that of admitting to ecclesiastical dignities only those subjects of suitable age and worth? With all humility I declare to your Holiness that I for one will not wound my conscience by subscribing to this promotion! The Church does not want children in her Councils, she wants strong men. … Let them enter Holy Orders in the usual way, and with their birth and gifts it will surely not be long before they become Cardinals! Your Holiness must also permit me to say that this banquet is not a Consistory, at which alone such claims can be properly decided!”

This electrifying speech, no less remarkable for its courage than its sterling common sense, so impressed those present that the Cardinal of St. Angelo said afterwards: “I would have given all I possessed to have had the courage to speak like that!” The Pope, though startled, was not angry, but the negotiations were too far advanced for him to withdraw, and shortly after the two boys were created Cardinals. When the Florentine ambassador came, as was customary, to thank Cardinal Alexandrin [the future Pius V] for having with his fellows opened the Sacred College to his master, the intrepid answered: “Do not thank me! The promotion was absolutely against my desires! On the contrary, I opposed it with all my might, not out of hostility to the Medici family, but because my conscience would not allow me to approve of a child of thirteen becoming a Cardinal.” The father of the young Prince, when these words were repeated to him, instead of showing anger, exclaimed: “Cardinal Alexandrin [the future Pius V] is in very truth a Cardinal of God!”

Shield given to Juan of Austria by Pius V for the Battle of Lepanto

He exhorted to justice and holiness all grades of magistrates and rulers, and personally supervised their appointment. Numerous were the laws he made for the improvement of public morals —men and women of bad character, and Jewish usurers, being remorselessly banished— and for purity of life. Some of these laws, which sound curious to modern ears, were directed against innkeepers (who were forbidden to sell drink to their fellow citizens at what were houses of entertainment only for travelers and strangers); against brigands, wreckers, and pirates. ... The measures taken against blasphemy in any form were particularly strong.

These laws, at once put into force, were eminently successful. In less than a year the aspect of affairs had changed. Even three months after the Saint’s accession a German nobleman writes of the edifying piety of the whole city of Rome during Lent, and especially in Holy Week, when the churches could not contain the penitents, who slept on the bare ground and fasted rigorously. “As long as I live I shall witness, to the shame of Satan and all his ministers, that I saw in Rome at this time the most marvelous works of penitence and piety. . . . But nothing can astonish me under such-a Pope. His fasts, his humility, his innocence, his holiness, his zeal for the faith, shine so brilliantly that he seems a second St. Leo, or St. Gregory the Great. . . . I do not hesitate to say that had Calvin himself been raised from the tomb on Easter Day, and seen the holy Pope . . . blessing his kneeling people . . . in spite of himself he would have recognized and venerated the true representative of Jesus Christ!”

The Pope’s measures for the reform of the Church were drastic. All bishops were bidden on pain of deprivation to return to their sees within one month; to live there, and to become true Fathers of their people. Seminaries were everywhere established, and at Fribourg a great college. The Decrees of the Council of Trent were to be rigorously observed by all grades of clergy. The most severe laws were passed against the detestable practice of simony. In France, great benefices and even bishoprics were actually held by women, who received all revenues, and paid an ecclesiastic to perform all necessary functions. This terrible state of things was sternly swept away. Strict regulations were made for all religious houses; perpetual enclosure being enjoined upon all convents of nuns, “except in cases of fire, leprosy, or pestilence.” The recital of the Divine Office was strictly enforced in every church, and the strongest measures were taken against irreverence in church. Conversations of any kind, whispering, jokes and laughter were sternly prohibited, as offending Almighty God in the Blessed Sacrament, and most severely punished, in the first instance by a heavy fine; in the second, by prison or exile. Priests, sacristans and officials were charged to enforce this decree. The crowds of beggars which assembled within the churches were no longer allowed to pass beyond the porch, except to pray.

 

If sinners trembled, the saints were jubilant as they witnessed the edifying example of Pius V and the purifying of civic life in the papal domain. They saw in him the patriarchal majesty of the Hebrew prophets from whose penetrating eyes no sins could be hid. Like the old Biblical seers, he inveighed against wickedness in high places; and men of good will recognized in him the Sword of Saint Michael, his namesake and protector, who should “drive into hell Satan and the other evil spirits who wander through the world seeking the ruin of souls.” In him, the Church Militant had once again found a leader. God had raised him up for no other purpose. That he was a saint was evident as he went about doing good, washing the feet of the poor, embracing lepers, and visiting the afflicted.

When he died, he was sixty-six years of age and had filled Peter’s Chair with unfailing trust and patience and rigorous discipline for six years, seven months, and twenty-three days. He had fought the heresy of Luther and all its multitudinous off-shoots, the apostasy of England, the recalcitrance of France, the lethargy of Maximilian II, and the laxity of Sigismund Augustus of Poland. The seeds of missionary labor he planted have never ceased to bring forth abundant harvest for the Church. With holy zeal Pius V had dared to beard the Turk in his own lair on the sea. He broke the power of the Ottoman tyrants. He freed Christian slaves. He had, in fact, accomplished the impossible. For no matter how much acclaim Colonna and Don Juan received for their splendid exploits, nor what glory Venier, Doria, and Barbarigo had justly won, it was the indomitable will of Pius V that, in the face of a mountain of opposition, had made all these brave men’s achievements possible! Truly a great statesman and a mighty pontiff departed this earth when Pius V died!

“The great triumph of Lepanto,” says a French writer, “would alone have immortalized St. Pius V.” Its importance will be better realized when it is remembered the Turk had never hitherto been conquered by sea. “The Battle of Lepanto arrested for ever the danger of Mohammedan invasion in the South of Europe.” And Lepanto had been won by prayer! That he was a saint was conceded even by his enemies. It needed only the Church’s official recognition to proclaim his sainthood. … when this valiant soldier of Jesus Christ finally sheathed the sword of Saint Michael which he had wielded so gallantly all his life in defense of Christendom, he might well have uttered the words of the Apostle of the Gentiles: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the Faith.”

Holy Season of Lent - 2020

“Be converted to Me with all your heart, in fasting, in weeping, and in mourning. . . . Blow the trumpet in Sion, sanctify a fast, gather together the people, sanctify the Church” (Joel ii).

May this Holy Season of Lent bring about for you a time of true and salutary penance; may it lead you to forsake the false joys of earth and to be converted to God with all your heart; may your fasting take the place of feasting, your weeping take the place of mirth, and your mourning the place of joy; may your abstinence lead to a great expiation for sin and be practiced in obedience to the spirit of the general law of the Church.

May you follow not only the example of the penitent Ninevites, who, by a penitential fast, averted the destruction with which God had threatened them, but follow also that example of the Innocent Lamb of God, Who, prior to His Mission among men, was pleased to undergo a rigorous fast of forty days and forty nights in the wilderness.

May the holy fast be to you a spiritual springtide; may you polish your spiritual armor, may you breast the waves of evil passions, may you set out like a traveler on his journey heavenwards, and may you prepare like an athlete for the combat.

May you enter on the road which leads to heaven, the rugged and narrow road, and travel along it by buffeting the body and bringing it into subjection.

May your penance consist not merely in mortification of the body, but also in that of the soul, for sin is committed by the will, and therefore it is just that the will, as well as the body, should make atonement.

May you repress the waves of foolish passions and repulse the storm of wicked imaginations, so that your deeds may yield good and fruitful results. If you see a poor man have pity on him, if you see an enemy be reconciled, if you see a friend in good reputation, regard him without envy.

May you fast not only by your mouth by forbidding it to utter tales of slander, but also with your eyes by averting them from unlawful sights, and with your hands by restraining them from deeds of violence, and with your feet by not entering places of pernicious amusements, and with your ears by stopping them from listening to gossip and detraction.

Pilgrim Fatima Statue at Holy Innocents Church, NYC

 

This coming Friday, November 22nd, one of the Pilgrim Virgin Statues of Our Lady of Fatima will visit the Shrine and Parish Church of the Holy Innocents.

 

Please note that there will be two (2) traditional Solemn Masses to celebrate such event.

 

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11:45 a.m. - Arrival of the Statue and Joyful Mysteries of the Holy Rosary

 

12 noon – 1:30 p.m. - Confessions

 

12:15 & 1:15 p.m. - Holy Masses in English

 

2:00 p.m. - Exposition of the Most Blessed Sacrament and Mysteries of Light

 

3:00 p.m. - Chaplet of Divine Mercy

 

4:00 p.m. - Sorrowful Mysteries of the Holy Rosary

 

5:00 p.m. - Glorious Mysteries of the Holy Rosary

 

4:45 p.m. – 5:35 p.m. - Confessions

 

6:00 p.m. - Solemn High Tridentine Votive Mass of the Immaculate Heart of Mary followed by Outdoor Candlelight Procession of the Most Blessed Sacrament and Pilgrim Virgin Statue of Our Lady of Fatima  

 

 

Night Vigil consisting of 20 Mysteries of the Most Holy Rosary and prayers of reparation to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary

 

 

12 midnight - Solemn High Tridentine Votive Mass of Our Lady on Saturday followed by the singing of the Te Deum and traditional Fatima Farewell (please bring a white handkerchief to wave to Our Lady)

 

“Coffee Hour” and refreshments in the Parish Hall

 

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A number of statues of Our Lady of Fatima have been carved by the Sanctuary in Portugal to travel throughout the world in order to spread Our Lady’s Peace Plan and Message of Fatima which is one of prayer, especially the prayer of the Holy Rosary, sacrifice and penance in reparation for sin, and Consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary through the Brown Scapular. The Archdiocese of New York is privileged to receive the sixth statue carved for this purpose. Having been carved decades ago, the Pilgrim Virgin which will be vising us has traveled the world many times over and has been venerated by countless Faithful.

 

La Grande Chartreuse: A Lonely Island of Prayer

It is without doubt a very solitary life, that of a Carthusian father. On ordinary days he only leaves his cell three times—at night (10:30) for the great night service, in the morning for high mass, in the afternoon for vespers, and on these three occasions the cell is exchanged for the chapel of the monastery. At those hours you would see the white-robed monk with his white cowl shading his face, noiselessly coming from his house or cell into the cloister, passing silently into his stall in the chapel, and then without a word to any mortal, only the whispered or chanted words to God, returning after service all silent to the solitude of his cell.

Is he ever weary of this strange, prayer-filled, lonely life? What thoughts occupy him, as day after day, year after year, after that brief visit to the chapel, he comes back to that silent home of his? Does he regret the movement and stir of the life he has left behind? Does this solitude and silence pall upon him, weary him? They say not. The general of the Order spoke to me of the serene, quiet happiness of the fathers. There is never a vacant cell. There are many we know waiting for a chance to fill one of these strange, silent homes. Everyone connected with the Order with whom I have spoken, bears the same unanimous testimony. The happiness of these silent, praying men seems to be deep, unbroken, real.

The especial work of the monks of the Grande Chartreuse is not the care of the sick and afflicted, but they maintain homes for the suffering poor, their revenues being sensibly augmented by the great sale of their famous liqueur, manufactured at a distillery a few miles distant from the monastery, and into the composition of which many herbs growing on the slopes of the Alps largely enter. The secret of the liqueur is rigidly kept. But the raison d'etre of the life of a monk of the Chartreuse without doubt is prayer. Such a life, where all is sacrificed for this one end, may not be our ideal of life surely. The busy man of the nineteenth century seeks more definite, more tangible results than the Carthusian father: He would aim at the blessed guerdon of the honoured philanthropist, at the laurels of the great soldier, at the applause ever given to the successful writer.

The solitary believes that only in the silence of his cell—a silence rarely broken, save by the solemn chant and psalm of his more public services, shared in with his brother monks—comes that whisper of the Eternal, the vena divini susurri, which teaches him the language of communion with God, which dictates the words of those earnest, passionate prayers to his God, by which it is his belief he can best help his brothers and sisters struggling and suffering in the world.

 

Who among us who believe in the mighty power of prayer would dare to cast a stone at these devoted men, who, in pursuit of what they deem the highest ideal of life, have given up all that men hold dear and love—home, friends, love, rank, fame, ease, comfort. They have voluntarily cast all these prized things aside, and only live their grave, austere, perhaps joyless lives, to help in the way they deem most effective, their suffering, erring neighbours.

An Illegitimate Child's Question Regarding His Identity

 

 

Case. — Ximenes was born twenty-one years ago, outside of wedlock. His parents gave up all claim to him the day they left him, a helpless babe, with a foundling asylum in charge of Sisters. He was reared in a charitable institution, and is now a sober, steady worker at his trade, ably supporting himself. He is anxious to know who are his parents, and how he ever came to be under the care of the good Sisters. To give him the requested information would be to make known to him the facts of his illegitimate birth and the evil life of his parents.

Question.—Am I justified in refusing his request?

 

Solution.—In the abstract it would seem to us that the young man in search of his identity has a right to the information necessary to establish that identity. The natural relations existing between parents and child put forth a claim, as evidenced in the activity of Ximenes, which calls for satisfaction. We would not deny that he is following an instinct natural to the race, and that he could lay claim therefore to an instinctive right.

 

But the question on the whole must be considered from another viewpoint, and must be decided by the influence of other conditions. Granting that fundamentally he has a certain right to the knowledge he persists in obtaining, would it invariably follow that he should be put in possession of the facts concerning his origin? We do not think so.

 

We can conceive of cases, we know of some, where success in gathering such knowledge was not only of no benefit, but was eventually exceedingly harmful. A case in point was that of a young lady who had been adopted by an excellent Catholic, though childless widow. The child was brought up a strict Catholic and lived an exemplary life for twenty years. An accident led to the discovery of facts, and this so overwhelmed her with a sense of shame that she cursed her real mother, and despite the efforts of the widow, who had a real affection for her she grew lax, rejected the admonitions of her confessor, and ultimately abandoned herself to the allurements of the forbidden path.

 

This may be considered an isolated case, but such is not our view. At all events, it has to be reckoned with. So, in the case before us one would have to reflect upon the harm that would probably come to the child of such parents, and would likewise have to consider the present condition and circumstances of the parents, not forgetting to reckon with the rights of society itself. In almost every case, the child receives a severe shock, is broken in spirit by the appreciation of the “taint,” and cannot shake off the feeling of being an outcast. Continuous brooding, then, leads to pernicious results.

 

Again, the parents may be dead, and charity would ask that they be allowed to rest in peace. Or, if not dead, they have wantonly abandoned their child, and it could hardly be expected that they could exercise the wise control, the uplifting influence, of a good parent on their offspring. Nor can the unhappy child be expected to love and reverence the parent who conceived and abandoned it in sin. It will more likely hate its progenitors and repay disgrace by disgrace. Of course, some may act otherwise, but exceptions are rarities. Society does not gain by the knowledge supplied to illegitimates. Experience proves that in ignorance of their natal conditions, such children acquire better moral control over themselves, and lead more useful and more contented lives.

 

Why, then, should they be told the concrete facts? We think that whatever right they may have it must yield to the greater good that is apt to follow ignorance of their illegitimacy.

 

~~TAKEN FROM The Casuist, Volume V, 1917.

Absolving Penitents without Admonition

ABSOLVING PENITENTS WITHOUT ADMONITION

 

 

 

Question. A certain confessor enjoys quite a reputation for expediting matters in the confessional. As a rule, he pays no attention to the different classes of penitents who approach his confessional. He rarely asks a question; He allows the penitent to tell his sins without interruption, and then if he thinks him at all disposed, he absolves him immediately, without any word of instruction or admonition. On the vigils of great feasts, when the number of penitents is very great, he does not permit his penitents to make a full confession, but when they have told one or the other sin, he admonishes them to tell the rest of their sins in their next confession, and then absolves and dismisses them. He maintains that he is justified in acting thus, because otherwise he would never be able to hear all the people who come to him. To instruct or to admonish penitents in the confessional is not an essential part of the Sacrament of Penance, he says, nor is the confessor strictly bound to interrogate the penitent, provided the penitent confesses “materiam suficientem.” What must be thought of his method of action?

 

Answer. —The practise of this confessor is certainly blameworthy, because he is neglecting certain strict obligations that are binding on the confessor's conscience.

 

First, as regards the practice of dismissing all penitents indiscriminately, without admonition or instruction. Benedict XIV, in his encyclical letter, Apostolica Constitutio, of July 26, 1749, issued for the jubilee of the following year, admonishes all confessors that they do not discharge the obligations of their office, but, on the contrary, that they are guilty of mortal sin, if, while sitting in the sacred tribunal of Penance, they show no solicitude for their penitents, but, without admonition or instruction, absolve them immediately they have finished the recital of their sins. The words of the Encyclical are as follows:

 

Ut meminerint suscepti muneris partes non implere, imo vera gravioris criminis reos esse eos omnes, qui cum in sacro Pœnitentiæ tribunali resident, pœnitentes audiunt, non monent, non interrogant, sed expleta criminum enumerations, absolutionis formam illico proferunt.

 

 

Every priest who exercises the ministry of the Sacrament of Penance is, according to the uniform teaching of the theologians, a teacher, a physician and a judge. As a teacher he is bound to instruct the penitent concerning the things that are, hic et nunc, required for the worthy reception of the Sacrament, as well as in the things he ought to know, in order to be able to lead a Christian life. As a physician of souls, he is required to investigate the causes of the spiritual illness of his penitents, that is to say, the nature and causes of their sins, in order to apply suitable spiritual remedies in each and every case. And, finally, as every judge is obliged to hear and to study the whole case of the culprit before him, to consider its various phases and to weigh justly all extenuating or aggravating circumstances before he renders a final judgment; so likewise does the office of the confessor require of him, as a judge in the court of conscience, that he study the state of the penitent’s conscience, and consider his dispositions and judge of his firm purpose of amendment, and then only to give or deny him absolution.

 

Now it is evident that the confessor mentioned in this case does not and cannot fulfil this threefold duty of teacher, physician and judge. His purpose is not to instruct and to heal and to judge; his purpose is to hear and to absolve as many penitents as possible. It stands to reason, of course, that where the number of those desiring to confess is very great, and they are for the most part pious souls, who are accustomed to approach the sacred tribunal of Penance frequently and have at the most only venial sins to confess, and the confessor knows that they are sufficiently instructed concerning the Sacrament of Penance, and rightly disposed, it stands to reason, I say, that the confessor may dispatch his work expeditiously, because such penitents do not need the spiritual care and help of the confessor in order to receive the Sacrament of Penance worthily and with profit.

 

But to proceed in the same manner with all penitents indiscriminately, whether they be known or unknown to the confessor, even with the ignorant and the poorly instructed, whether they confess mortal sins or venial sins, is certainly not to administer the Sacrament of Penance as we are bound by grave obligations to administer it. For experience proves that there are those who approach this holy tribunal unprepared, who have not sufficiently examined their conscience, who through false shame hesitate to confess certain sins, who are lacking in true contrition, though believing themselves contrite, because they have repeated orally the act of contrition. Now the prudent and careful confessor, whose earnest desire is to fulfil this holy ministry validly and licitly, with fruit and with profit, as the Church ordains that it shall be fulfilled, will endeavor to discover and correct the faults and defects and shortcomings of his penitents, by prudently questioning and instructing and disposing them, lest their confession be fruitless or even sacrilegious.

 

If the penitent confess mortal sins, he ought to be admonished of their heinousness, in order that he may be moved to realize his spiritual condition and abhor his sins and take the necessary means of shunning them in the future. If such penitents be absolved and dismissed incontinently from the sacred tribunal without a word of admonition or advice, they will very likely consider their sins of little consequence and never come to a realization of the necessity of correcting them, and thus will they speedily fall into them again.

 

Every confessor who has had experience of souls in the tribunal of Penance appreciates the gravity of this danger. For this very reason the Roman Ritual admonishes confessors to be careful to instruct their penitents regarding the condition of their souls, endeavoring to make them realize the number and gravity of their sins and to dispose them to contrition and a firm purpose of amendment.

 

“Demum, audita confessione, perpendens peccatorum, quae ille admisit, magnitudinem et multitudinem, pro eorum gravitate, ac penitentis conditione, opportune correptiones ac monitiones, prout opus esse viderit, paterna charitate adhibebit et ad dolorem et contritionem efdcacibus verbis adducere conabitur, atque ad vitam emendandam ac melius instituendam inducet, remediaque peccatorum tradet.”

 

 

The great number of penitents waiting to be heard does not excuse the confessor from the obligation of admonishing, correcting and disposing them, so that the reception of the Sacrament of Penance may be of benefit to them. St. Francis Xavier was accustomed to say that it was better to hear a few confessions, and to hear them well, than to hear a great many and to only half hear them. And St. Alfonsus says that it matters little whether there be others waiting to confess or whether some will be obliged to depart without being heard; for on the day of judgment the confessor will have to render an account of those he actually heard, and not of the others.

 

“Parum refert, quod alii expectant aut inconfessi discedant; confessarius enim de hoc tantum, qui sibi nunc confitetur, non vero de aliis, in die judicii rationem reddere debet” (Praxis confess. n.7).

 

Again it is quite blameworthy that the confessor, on the eves of great festivals, when the number of confessions is very great, should permit the penitent to confess only one or two sins and then absolve him, with the admonition to confess his other sins in his next confession. It is expressly stated in all moral theologies that the number of penitents desiring to be heard in confession can never be a valid or just reason for making only a partial confession, even though many must depart unheard and unshriven.

 

Under all such circumstances, a full and integral confession of all mortal sins is required of the penitent, sub gravi. The practice of absolving penitents without permitting them to confess all their mortal sins, because otherwise many must depart without absolution, is expressly condemned by Pope Innocent XI, in the 59th proscribed proposition.

 

“Licet sacramentaliter absolvere, dimidiate tantum confessos, ratione magni concursus penitentium, qualis v. g. potest contingere in die magnae alicujus festivitatis vel indulgentiæ.”

 

The reason why this proposition was condemned, says Billuart, is that the harm done by sending some penitents away unheard is not so great, as to justify a partial confession, especially when there is danger of absolving the unworthy, by reason of the precipitation with which the confessions are heard and the omission of a part of one’s sins.

 

 

~The Casuist, Volume II, 1908.