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Pope Celestine V

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Pope Celestine V
The coronation of Pope Celestine V
Papacy began5 July 1294
Papacy ended13 December 1294
PredecessorNicholas IV
SuccessorBoniface VIII
Orders
Consecration19 August 1294
Personal details
Born
Pietro Angelerio

1215
Near Isernia, Kingdom of Sicily
Died19 May 1296 (aged 80–81)
Ferentino, Papal States
Sainthood
Feast day19 May
Canonized5 May 1313
Other popes named Celestine
Papal styles of
Pope Celestine V
Reference styleHis Holiness
Spoken styleYour Holiness
Religious styleHoly Father
Posthumous styleSaint

Pope Saint Celestine V (1215 – 19 May 1296), born Pietro Angelerio (according to some sources Angelario, Angelieri, Angelliero, or Angeleri), also known as Pietro da Morrone and Peter of Morrone, was a monk and hermit who founded the order of the Celestines. In 1294, after two years of deliberations, he was elected Pope in the last non-conclave papal election in the history of the Roman Catholic Church. He abdicated the papacy five months later. He was canonized in 1313 and is a saint of the Roman Catholic Church. No subsequent pope has taken the name Celestine.

Early life

According to tradition, Pietro Angelerio was born to parents Angelo Angelerio and Maria Leone in a town called Sant'Angelo Limosano, in the Kingdom of Sicilia (Sicily). Sant'Angelo Limosano is now part of Provincia di Campobasso, in Molise, Italy.

After his father's death he began working in the fields. His mother Maria was a key figure in Pietro's spiritual development: she imagined a different future for her deeply-beloved son than becoming just a farmer or a shepherd. From the time he was a child, he showed great intelligence and love for others. He became a Benedictine monk at Faifoli in the Diocese of Benevento when he was 17. He showed an extraordinary disposition toward asceticism and solitude, and in 1239 retired to a solitary cavern on the mountain Morrone, hence his name. Five years later he left this retreat, and went with two companions to a similar cave on the Mountain of Maiella in the Abruzzi region of central Italy, where he lived as strictly as possible according to the example of St. John the Baptist. There are accounts of the severity of his penitential practices.

Founding of the Celestines

While living like this he founded, in 1244, the order subsequently named after him, the Celestines. A new religious community was formed, and Pietro di Morrone gave them a rule formulated in accordance with his own practices. In 1264 the new institution was approved by Urban IV. The founder, having heard that it was probable that Pope Gregory X, then holding a council at Lyon, would suppress all such new orders as had been founded since the Lateran Council, having commanded that such institutions should not be further multiplied, went to Lyon. There he succeeded in persuading Gregory to approve his new order, making it a branch of the Benedictines and following the rule of Saint Benedict, but adding to it additional severities and privations. Gregory took it under the Papal protection, assured to it the possession of all property it might acquire, and endowed it with exemption from the authority of the ordinary. Nothing more was needed to ensure the rapid spread of the new association and Pietro di Morrone lived to see himself "Superior-General" to thirty-six monasteries and more than six hundred monks. Pietro, however, cannot be accused of ambition or the lust of power when a monastic superior, any more than when he insisted on divesting himself of the Papacy, to which he was subsequently raised.

As soon as he had seen his new order thus consolidated he gave up the government of it to a certain Robert, and retired once again to a still more remote solitude to give himself up more entirely to solitary penance and prayer. Shortly afterwards, in a chapter of the order held in 1293, the original monastery of Majella being judged to be too desolate and exposed to too rigorous a climate, it was decided that the monastery which had been founded in Sulmona should be the headquarters of the order and the residence of the General-Superior, as it has continued to be to the present day.

Election as Pope

Main article: Papal election, 1292–1294

The cardinals assembled at Perugia after the death of Pope Nicholas IV in April 1292. Morrone, well known to the cardinals as a Benedictine hermit, sent the cardinals a letter warning them that divine vengeance would fall upon them if they did not quickly elect a pope. Latino Malabranca, the aged and ill dean of the College of Cardinals cried out, "In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, I elect brother Pietro di Morrone." The cardinals promptly ratified Malabranca's desperate decision. When sent for, Morrone obstinately refused to accept the papacy, and even, as Petrarch says, tried to flee, until he was finally persuaded by a deputation of cardinals accompanied by the kings of Naples and Hungary. Elected on 5 July 1294 at age 79, he was crowned at Santa Maria di Collemaggio in the city of Aquila in the Abruzzo on 29 August, taking the name of Celestine V.

Papacy

Shortly after assuming office, Celestine issued a papal bull granting a rare plenary indulgence to all pilgrims visiting Santa Maria di Collemaggio through its holy door on the anniversary of his papal coronation.[1] The Perdonanza Celestiniana festival is celebrated in L'Aquila every 28–29 August in commemoration of this event.[2]

His notable acts as pope include the unprecedented privilege of empowering Francis of Apt, a Franciscan friar, to confer the clerical tonsure and minor orders on Louis of Toulouse (who would later become Bishop of Toulouse), the son of the King of Sicily. However, it seems this decree was not carried out. He issued two other decrees: one confirmed an earlier decree of Pope Gregory X that ordered the shutting of the cardinals in a conclave to elect a new pope; the second declared the right of any pope to abdicate the papacy, a right that he himself exercised at the end of five months and eight days at Naples on 13 December 1294. In the formal instrument of renunciation he recited as the causes moving him to the step, "the desire for humility, for a purer life, for a stainless conscience, the deficiencies of his own physical strength, his ignorance, the perverseness of the people, his longing for the tranquility of his former life".[3] Having divested himself of every outward symbol of papal dignity, he retired to his old solitude.

Although it was often said that Celestine was the only pope to resign voluntarily (prior to Benedict XVI doing so in 2013), in fact, other popes have similarly abdicated of their own will. These are John XVIII in 1009 and Benedict IX in May 1045 (although he regretted it and was soon back). There was also Gregory XII in 1415 who agreed to quit at the request of the Council of Constance. Benedict XVI announced his resignation in February 2013.

Retirement, death, and canonization

St Peter Celestine by Niccolò di Tommaso, Castel Nuovo

Celestine V was not allowed to remain in solitude, however. His successor Pope Boniface VIII sent for him, and finally, despite the former pope's desperate attempts to escape, captured him and imprisoned him in the castle of Fumone near Ferentino in Campagna where, after languishing for 10 months in infected air, he died on 19 May 1296. Some historians[who?] believe Boniface might have had him murdered, a belief partly based on a hole found in the pope's skull.[better source needed][4][5] He was buried at Ferentino, but his body was subsequently removed to the Basilica Santa Maria di Collemaggio in Aquila. Pope Clement V canonized Celestine in 1313 at the urging of King Philip IV of France, who saw it as an opportunity to demean Pope Boniface VIII, whom Philip despised.[citation needed]

Legacy

Most modern interest in Celestine V has focused on his decision to resign the papacy.[6] A 1966 visit by Pope Paul VI to Celestine's place of death in Ferentino along with his speech in homage of Celestine prompted speculation the pontiff was considering retirement.[7][8]

Celestine's remains survived the 2009 L'Aquila earthquake with one Italian spokesman saying it was "another great miracle by the pope".[9] They were then recovered from the basilica shortly after the earthquake.[10] While inspecting the earthquake damage during a 28 April 2009 visit to the Aquila, Pope Benedict XVI visited Celestine's remains in the badly damaged Santa Maria di Collemaggio and left the woolen pallium he wore during his papal inauguration in April 2005 on his glass casket as a gift.[11]

To mark the 800th anniversary of Celestine's birth, Pope Benedict XVI proclaimed the Celestine year from 28 August 2009 through 29 August 2010.[12]

His entry in the Martyrologium Romanum for 19 May reads as follows:

Ad Castrum Fumorense prop Alatrium in Latio, natalis sancti Petri Caelestini, qui, cum vitam eremeticam in Aprutio ageret, fama sanctitatis et miraculorum clarus, octogenarius Romanus Pontifex electus est, assumpto nomine Caelestini Quinti, sed eodem anno munere se abdicavit et solitudinem recedere maluit.
At Castrum Fumorense near Alatri in Lazio, the birth of Saint Peter Celestine, who, when leading the life of a hermit in Abruzzo, being famous for his sanctity and miracles, was elected Roman Pontiff as an octogenarian, assumed the name Celestine V, but abandoned his office that same year and preferred to return to solitude.

In literature

A persistent tradition identifies Celestine V as the nameless figure Dante Alighieri sees among those in the antechamber of Hell, in the enigmatic verses:

I saw and recognized the shade of him
Who by his cowardice made the great refusal.

— Inferno III, 59–60

The first commentators to make this identification included Dante's son Jacopo Alighieri,[13] followed by Graziolo Bambaglioli in 1324. The identification is also considered probable by recent scholars (e.g., Hollander, Barbara Reynolds, Simonelli, Padoan). Petrarch was moved to defend Celestine vigorously against the accusation of cowardice and some modern scholars (e.g., Mark Musa) have suggested Dante may have meant someone else (Esau, Diocletian and Pontius Pilate have been variously suggested).

In 1346, Petrach declared in his "De vita solitaria" that Celestine's refusal was as a virtuous example of solitary life.[14]

Pope Celestine V is referenced in Chapter 88 of Dan Brown's Angels & Demons, where he is referenced as an example of a murdered pope. Celestine V is also mentioned in the film version.

The life of Pope Celestine V is dramatised in the plays L'avventura di un povero cristiano (The Story of a Humble Christian) by Ignazio Silone in 1968 and Sunsets and Glories by Peter Barnes in 1990.

Pope Celestine V's life is the subject of the short story Brother of the Holy Ghost in Brendan Connell's short story collection The Life of Polycrates and Other Stories for Antiquated Children.[15]

See also

References

  1. ^ Pope John Paul II (23 August 2001). "Address of John Paul II to the Jury Members of the 'Premio Internazionale Perdonanza'". Retrieved 19 May 2011.
  2. ^ "The Perdonanza". Abruzzo Heritage. Summer 2002. {{cite news}}: |first= missing |last= (help)
  3. ^ Walker, Jesse (2013-02-11) The Ones Who Walk Away From the Holy See, Reason
  4. ^ "Medieval pope slain, monk says". Associated Press. Austin American Statesman. 23 August 1998. Retrieved 19 May 2011.
  5. ^ "Pope Celestine V". List of Roman Catholic Popes. Retrieved 19 May 2011.
  6. ^ Johnston, Bruce; Jonathan Petre (8 February 2005). "Cardinal hints that ailing Pope may resign". The Telegraph.
  7. ^ Cf. Pope Paul VI's speech of 1 September 1966
  8. ^ "Roman Catholicism: Retirement for 200 Bishops". Time Magazine. 30 September 1966. Retrieved 19 May 2011.
  9. ^ "Pope's bones survive earthquake". United Press International. 9 April 2009. Retrieved 19 May 2011.
  10. ^ Kington, Tom (14 April 2009). "Italy earthquake focus shifts to saving Abruzzo's heritage". The Guardian. Retrieved 19 May 2011.
  11. ^ Owen, Richard (28 April 2009). "Pope Benedict XVI visits Abruzzo earthquake zone to pray for victims". The Times. Retrieved 19 May 2011.
  12. ^ "Homily of Card. Tarcisio Bertone for the opening of the Holy Door on the occasion of the Feast of Celestinian Forgiveness and the beginning of the Celestinian Year" (in Italian). The Roman Curia. 28 August 2009. Retrieved 19 May 2011.
  13. ^ Alighieri, Jacopo (1848). Chiose alla cantica dell'Inferno (in Italian). Florence: Tipografica di Tommaso Baracchi. p. 12.
  14. ^ Petrarca, Francesco (1879). De vita Solitaria (in Italian). Bologna: Gaetano Romagnoli.
  15. ^ The Life of Polycrates and Other Stories for Antiquated Children, Chomu Press,2011
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Catholic Church titles
Preceded by Pope
5 July – 13 December 1294 		Succeeded by

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