Saint Charles Borromeo

At the same time that he was made a doctor at Pavia, his uncle, Giovanni Angelo Medici, was elected and crowned pope in Rome. He received this news with as much modesty and restraint as if it had been indifferent to him. And he immediately had recourse to the adorable sacrament of the Eucharist, in order to draw from it the strength not to lose himself in the greatness that seemed to be prepared for him. The new Pope, immediately after, called him to his side, made him a participating protonotary of both signatures, cardinal of Saint Vitus and Saint Modestus, and finally archbishop of Milan. He also gave him, as his dear nephew, although he was only twenty-two years old, the entire administration of the affairs of his pontificate. Charles took on these great employments, not out of ambition, but out of pure obedience; nor with confidence in his own strength, but relying only on the help of the divine Goodness. The Pope was happy to have such a just and faithful minister. He had no reason to fear that he would be corrupted by gifts, or won over by flattery, or that, to create creatures for himself, he would grant anything against his duty and against ecclesiastical rules. Nothing could shake him; and as he had no other view than the greater glory of God and the restoration of the ancient discipline of the Church, he could not bend when he was asked for favors that were opposed to them.

At first, however, yielding somewhat to custom, he lodged, dressed, and furnished himself with some magnificence, as if to support his quality as a prince, a cardinal, and a nephew of the Pope; but the death of Count Frederick, his brother, whom His Holiness had also called to Rome to heap upon him all the honors of which a lay prince is capable, disabused him entirely of these vanities. When it was believed that he would leave the hat to marry, there being only him who could maintain the greatness of his family, he received holy orders and even the priesthood, and thus consecrated himself to God in an irrevocable manner. Before celebrating his first sacrifice, he did the exercises under the guidance of the Reverend Father Ribera, a Jesuit, and received from him the necessary instructions to perform mental prayer well, not wanting to fail to do it twice a day. The Pope, recognizing thereby his constancy and firmness in the resolution to serve the Church, changed his cardinal title and gave him a priestly one, which was that of Saint Praxedes. He also made him Grand Penitentiary of the Roman Church, Archpriest of Saint Mary Major, protector of Lower Germany, the kingdom of Portugal, the provinces of Flanders, the Catholic Swiss cantons, and various religious Orders, namely: those of Saint Francis, the Humiliati, the Canons Regular of the Holy Cross of Coimbra, the Knights of Malta, and the Knights of the Cross of Jesus Christ in Portugal, and finally, legate of Bologna, Romagna, and the March of Ancona. These honors did not dazzle him, and although they divided his mind into an infinity of different and often very thorny affairs, they always left him enough application to discharge perfectly each one of them in particular. One of the main ones he took care of was the conclusion of the holy Council of Trent, which, having begun in 1545, under Pope Paul III, could only b e finished in 1563, und saint Concile de Trente Ecumenical council of the Catholic Church aimed at responding to the Reformation. er Pope Pius IV.

Unable to leave Rome, where the Sovereign Pontiff kept him for the good of the universal Church, he sent to Milan, as Vicar General, Nicholas Ormanete, a learned jurisconsult, a man of prudence and filled with the spirit of God. This excellent ecclesiastic, having found the diocese in a deplorable state of disorder, applied himself for some time to reforming it; but as the disease was too great to be cured in the absence of the physician, he wrote to our Saint that it was absolutely necessary that he visit his flock to remedy the disorders by which it was so disfigured. Charles, who until then had not been able to obtain the Pope's permission to go to Milan, asked him again with such pressing and, so to speak, importunate requests that he finally carried it as if by force. He therefore went to his metropolitan c ity, where he was re ville métropolitaine Italian city where the saint has an altar and an annual feast. ceived with extraordinary joy and pomp. He then celebrated his first provincial council, attended by some cardinals and all the bishops of his province, either in person or by deputies, and he had very wise regulations made for the correction of the morals of the faithful and for the re-establishment of ecclesiastical discipline. After this council, he undertook to visit his flock in order to know for himself its needs and what had to be done to prevent it from being entirely lost. But while he was occupied with this duty, he received a new order from His Holiness to travel to Trent to pay compliments to the most serene princesses Joanna and Barbara, sisters of Emperor Maximilian, who were coming to be married in Italy, and to proceed from there to Rome, where he was awaiting him. It was Divine Providence that called him to that city, not to continue his efforts in the universal government of the Church, but to assist his uncle at his death and to work in the Conclave to give him a successor. He did both with great success. He himself administered the last sacraments to His Holiness, and not having left him until his last breath, he closed his eyes and took care of his burial. Then, having entered the Conclave with no other view than to procure the glory of God, he had Cardinal Michele Ghisleri of Alexandria, a religious of the Order of Saint Dominic, elected Pope, who took the name Pius V.

As soon as the new Pope was crowned, Charles Borromeo asked for permission to return to his Churc Pie V Successor to Pius IV, he supported Charles Borromeo in his reforms. h, where, as he had known by his own experience, his presence was absolutely necessary. It was only with difficulty that he obtained it, because Saint Pius V, who esteemed and cherished him singularly, wished to have him always near him; but it was not possible to resist his reasons and his prayers. He therefore went to Milan as soon as possible, and without delaying a moment, he began to set his hand to the work of tearing from his field the briars and thorns that the negligence of the pastors had allowed to grow there. The use of the sacraments was almost banished from it; libertinism was public, without anyone taking the trouble to repress or punish it; the churches were profaned by the impieties committed there without any fear. The priests were even more disorderly than the people; their ignorance was so great that most did not know the forms of the sacraments; some even did not believe they were obliged to go to confession, because they heard the confessions of others. Drunkenness and concubinage were very common among them, and they constantly added to them execrable sacrileges by the administration of the sacraments and the celebration of the holy Mysteries in such a criminal and scandalous state. There was almost no regularity left in the cloisters: property, incontinence, and dependence had obscured their beauty. Most of the religious had nothing of their profession but the habit, and even then they belied its holiness by its entirely secular form and its worldly delicacy. The monasteries for women were open to all kinds of dissoluteness: everyone entered freely; magnificent dances and feasts were held there, and chastity was hardly more secure than in places of debauchery. Finally, ecclesiastical jurisdiction had been so neglected and had fallen into such contempt that no one took any trouble over its judgments or its censures.

The first thing Saint Charles did to remedy so many evils was to have the decrees of the holy Council of Trent and those of his first provincial Council, which had much conformity with each other, published throughout his diocese, so that no one could be ignorant of them and that it would not be taken amiss that he applied himself carefully to having them put into execution. To make this great and difficult enterprise succeed, he began his reform with his own person and his household; he got rid of a large number of officers and servants he had in his service, according to the eminence of his condition, and took in their place a fine company of ecclesiastics, most of them doctors of theology or canon law, and destined for the service of his diocese; he sold his most precious furniture, and kept only what was necessary for him. He changed his brilliant clothes, which he had only taken to conform to the other cardinals, and would no longer wear anything but simple and lusterless ones. He gave up all the benefices with which his uncle had wished to enrich him, except those he judged suitable for foundations, and from which, however, he distributed all the income to the poor. Of many pensions he had, he reserved only that which the King of Spain had granted him on the archbishopric of Toledo. He even sold part of his patrimony and handed over almost all the rest into the hands of his uncles, with the sole obligation of a life annuity for the assistance of seminaries, charity schools, hospitals, religious houses, and beggars. In the end, he had eighty thousand livres of income, which he reduced to twenty thousand, and he only retained this fourth part because he needed wealth for the establishments that his zeal and charity inspired in him.

The regulation he put in his house is admirable. Not only did he not suffer vice there, but he wanted everyone to live in singular restraint and modesty, and to study perfection there; swearing, debauchery, gambling, and quarrels were entirely banished from it. It was composed of about one hundred ecclesiastics, who all had their different jobs inside or outside, and some laymen for the menial tasks. The hours for vocal and mental prayer and for the examination of conscience were regulated, and no one would have dared to absent himself from these exercises without permission. The priests were obliged to go to confession every week and to say Mass every day: and those who were not priests were obliged to hear it, to give every month a written certificate that they had been to confession, and then to receive communion from the hand of their blessed master. They only ate in common, and during the meal, they always read a spiritual book, to nourish the soul at the same time as the body. The dishes served there were good and clean, but by no means delicate. They fasted every Wednesday of the year, and during Advent which began on Saint Martin's Day; they fasted every Friday, in addition to several days of devotion, such as the vigils of all the holy bishops of Milan, who were thirty-six in number. The clerics were all dressed in wool, and they were not allowed to wear silk or other precious fabrics. The laymen were dressed in black, and always in a very modest manner. The Saint admitted into this company only persons of recognized wisdom and piety. He took extreme care of them, visited them often in their rooms, and did not suffer them to lack anything in their illnesses; he rewarded them magnificently, but did not want them to expect to have any benefice from him. He frequently held conferences and congregations with them to know the state of his house and his flock, and to study the means to uproot evil from it, and to make new progress in good. Finally, this company was so honorable that several great men have come out of it, among others a cardinal and more than twenty bishops, most of whom have been employed by the Holy Apostolic See in the first nunciatures of Europe.

If Saint Charles applied himself with such prudence and zeal to the good regulation of his house, he had no less care for that of the house of God. As the city of Milan was his metropolis, he believed that it was with it that he had to begin the reform. He renewed it entirely by the exact visitation of his cathedral and the chapters, parishes, and monasteries of women that made up its ecclesiastical state. He re-established the divine office in his church and the splendor it should have, by increasing the prebends, by converting part of the bulk into ordinary distributions, to oblige the canons to give up their other benefices and to be assiduous in the choir. He was the first to show them the example, being present at the canonical hours as much as the weight of his great affairs could allow him. He tried to persuade them to live together, and he offered to put all his income in common for that purpose. Some agreed; but as the greatest number resisted, this beautiful design could not be executed. He notably embellished his cathedral, which is commonly called the Duomo; he had the high altar raised, all the chapels adorned, the nave properly accommodated, and a beautiful porphyry stone baptistery built. He corrected the chant and music, and made them more devout and more majestic. He increased the service by preachings, benedictions, and processions that he instituted there, to occupy the people holily on feast days and divert them from debauchery. He also created three new prebends: a theologian, to preach publicly every Sunday and give a theology lesson to the clerics twice a week; a penitentiary, to absolve from reserved cases and preside over the conferences on cases of conscience; and a doctoral, to teach the ecclesiastics canon law and teach them the ordinances of the Church.

He divided the whole city into quarters, and in each one he established persons who had the care of watching over the morals of those who lived there and over the needs of the shamefaced poor, so that they might be helped in their needs, both for the soul and for the body. He reformed the ancient confraternities that applied themselves to various works of piety, and reunited them in the first spirit of their institution, from which they had almost entirely fallen. He re-established his ecclesiastical tribunal and filled it with prudent and generous officers, to whom he ordered not only to punish the ecclesiastics who strayed from their duty, but also to imprison and punish the laymen who remained obstinate in public and scandalous disorders; but his principal care was to found Christian schools everywhere, where the elements of our religion were taught for free, and it was by this institution that ignorance was banished from Milan and the whole diocese, and that the children there became more learned in the truths of Christianity than the pastors had been before.

The monasteries for women changed their face through the care he brought to them. He made them enclosed gardens and sealed fountains, where seculars no longer had the liberty to enter to wither the flowers and take away their scent and beauty. The libertines who saw these chaste doves snatched from their claws made a lot of noise. Some of the women themselves murmured at first, under the pretext of their privileges, not considering that the holy archbishop had extraordinary powers and that, in the absence of their own superiors, he had the right to reduce them to the observance of their rules; but Charles conducted himself in this affair with so much prudence, wisdom, and gentleness that he won them all over; the liberty they had enjoyed before became a horror to them; their enclosure, ordered by the Council of Trent, did not seem to them a tiresome prison, but an honorable separation from the people of the world, and they finally found the perfect community more convenient than their former property.

Our Saint did not find the same ease in reforming the men. The canons of a collegiate church, called the Scala, under a false pretext of exemption, committed strange insolences against him. He endured them with a humility and patience that astonished everyone and filled his own enemies with admiration; but, as he forgave them the insults they had done to his person, he punished severely and by the rigor of canonical penalties those they had done to his dignity; finally, the rebels were forced to humble themselves and to submit to the yoke that he only wanted to impose on them to restore to their church its former luster that it had lost.

The fury of th e Humiliati Bro Frères-Humiliés Religious order suppressed after attempting to assassinate the archbishop. thers, of whom he was the protector, went further. They could no longer be called religious, since the superiors, whom they called provosts, had made themselves owners of all the houses' property, as if they were benefices, and the few inferiors who remained were people without a rule who, having been vicious in the world and almost all drawn from the dregs of the people, had embraced this state only to follow their passions more freely. To reform them, the Saint made very wise ordinances, by which all their property was to be held in common and their superiorates were to be only triennial. Most submitted to these regulations, and there was hope that this congregation would regain its former splendor; but some of the provosts, unable to tolerate this reform, resolved to get rid of the reformer. An assassin entered the chapel where he was saying evening prayers with his servants and fired an arquebus shot at him from only four fathoms away; one of the bullets struck him a great blow in the back, but, by a miracle of divine Providence, it only blackened his rochet and fell at his feet. Another bullet pierced as far as the flesh, but it only caused a swelling and did not enter. The Saint did not move any more than if the shot had struck someone else; he had the prayer finished and remained there constantly without being troubled, which allowed the assassin to escape secretly without anyone recognizing who he was at the time. This incident caused a great stir in the city and even in all the courts of Europe. The governor of Milan, although he had had great disputes with the Saint over the boundaries of ecclesiastical and royal jurisdiction, nevertheless came to offer him all his power for the safety of his person. He thanked him for his offers, but he protested that he neither asked for nor wanted any vengeance. Indeed, he did not have the assassin pursued, and, when he was caught, he used prayers and tears to obtain his pardon, which justice, however, could not grant him.

If the disorders of Milan were great, those of the countryside and the other cities of the diocese were even greater. To provide an effective and sovereign remedy, he used four different means that succeeded admirably. The first was the general visitation of all his parishes. He performed it so exactly and with such zeal and extraordinary labor that it is no wonder he reaped a great harvest from it. The visitation of the three valleys of Switzerland, which depended on his jurisdiction, was truly apostolic. Ignorance there was extreme, vice had taken deep roots, and the locations were dreadful and almost inaccessible; but he went everywhere, and everywhere he brought the light of the Gospel, the fear of God, the desire for salvation, and a holy renovation that set these barbaric and wild men on the paths of blessed eternity. He had even more difficulty in the other gorges of the Alps, where the venom of heresy had already crept in and brought with it the ultimate libertinism. He was obliged to go on foot and often with iron spikes on his shoes to climb the rocks or to hold himself firm between the precipices; sometimes also to crawl on his knees or to be carried in the middle of torrents to safely pass very dangerous places. After a thousand fatigues, he usually found for food only dry black bread, snow water, chestnuts, and some other coarse fruits of these mountains. However, nothing was capable of discouraging him, nor of preventing him from fulfilling all his duties of the visitation: he preached, taught the catechism, celebrated Mass pontifically, listened to the complaints of the people, instructed the parish priests, blessed the churches, cemeteries, bells, and altar ornaments, went into the cottages to see the sick, and administered the sacraments of Confirmation, Penance, and the Eucharist. Finally, he left everyone in astonishment at his courage, given that he had very little strength and his health was extremely fragile.

The second means he used, following the intention and ordinance of the holy Council of Trent, was the establishment of seminaries, to form and raise ecclesiastics capable of governing parishes and exercising the other ministries of the diocese. He founded a large one in Milan, where he displayed his magnificence, his charity, and his pastoral solicitude. He built it superbly, assigned it large revenues, and took particular care of its conduct. He often visited it, and it was so exact that there was no one whose progress in study and piety he did not examine. He spoke to all and exhorted them, through speeches full of the fire with which his heart was ablaze, to make themselves worthy of the state to which they aspired. He attended the public conferences held there, and he brought the cardinals and bishops who came to visit him. Finally, he made it his place of recreation and delight.

This seminary was for young men of great promise, who could study philosophy and theology. He established two others in the same city: one called the Canonica, for clerics who were not judged fit for these high sciences, but only for moral theology and cases of conscience; the other, named Saint-Marie-la-Falcorine, for priests and parish priests who had been found incapable or unworthy of their functions. But as these three seminaries could not provide him with as many ecclesiastics as he needed for the necessities of his flock, he erected three others outside the city, where children destined for the Church were instructed in grammar, rhetoric, and the lower functions of the Church. It was through the workers who were formed in these colleges that he changed the whole face of his bishopric in a short time. The skill of the pastors renewed the fold, the stray sheep returned in crowds, and the entire diocese of Milan became an earthly paradise, where God took pleasure in conversing with its inhabitants.

The third means that this holy cardinal employed was the foundation of several communities of learned and holy religious. Indeed, there are few prelates who have founded as many as he, and few who have drawn from them the services he drew from all sides, for the spiritual good of his sick sheep who were in danger of being lost. The first religious he brought to Milan were the Jesuits, to whom he gave the parish church of Saint-Fidèle; and as this church soon proved too small for the large concourse of people that their preaching and confessions attracted there, he had a larger and more magnificent one built for them, of which he laid the first stone in 1567. Later , he als Jésuites Religious order to which Peter Canisius belonged. o gave them the house of Brera, which previously belonged to the Humiliati Brothers, whose Order had been suppressed by Pope Saint Pius V, in order to make it a college to teach humanities, philosophy, and theology; and, for their subsistence, he resigned in their favor his abbey of Arona, which he had reserved only for a foundation useful to his people. The wonderful fruits they produced in Milan led him to give them two more houses in the Swiss country: one in Lucerne, the other in Fribourg, where he charged them not only with the instruction of the youth, but also with the inspection of the priests and parish priests of the country, whose ignorance and long habit of evil he knew well enough. After the Jesuits, he brought the Theatines to his metropolitan city, and he put them in possession of the church and abbey of Saint-Antoine (1570); and as he was admirably edified by their good examples and the spiritual help they continually rendered to his diocesans, he did not fail, throughout his life, to provide them with everything necessary for their living and housing. Moreover, he also placed Capuchins in Switzerland, and obtained from the Pope, notwithstanding their constitutions, the ability to hear the confessions of the faithful; which produced such a good effect that one soon saw piety and devotion introduced into this country, where there was almost no shadow of religion left. He gave the Capuchin nuns two convents in Milan: one of Saint-Praxedes, the other of Saint-Barbara. Having usefully worked for the reform of the Order of Saint Francis, of which Pope Pius IV had made him the protector, he made it, by this means, a powerful army to fight with him against Satan and against vice, and to establish perfect regulation throughout the extent of his bishopric.

His charity and zeal led him to make a great number of other establishments, such as: the Company of the Oblates of Saint Ambrose, who were priests of exemplary life, ready at all moments to receive his orders for the various functions of the diocese (1578); the college of nobles, where children of quality were raised in the fear of God, in the practice of virtues, and in the study of letters; that of the Swiss, where the clerics of this country were instructed, to make them capable of bringing home Compagnie des Oblats de Saint-Ambroise Congregation of secular priests founded by Charles Borromeo in 1578. the light of doctrine and the solid principles of true piety; that of Saint Sophia, where many poor girls were received, fed, and maintained, and where they were formed in the exercises of the spiritual life; the house of Succor, where penitent women and girls were taken in, cared for by the Tertiaries of the Order of Saint Francis; the Assembly of the Ladies of the Oratory, which was an association of the leading ladies of Milan, for various practices of devotion and charity; finally, the great hospital for the beggars, where all persons who had no means of living found their subsistence, and were at the same time catechized and instructed in all the duties of Christianity. One cannot conceive how much these establishments have withdrawn people from disorder and contributed to making religion flourish again throughout the Milanese.

The fourth means, which was undoubtedly the most brilliant, and from which the universal Church derived the greatest benefits, was the celebration of provincial Councils and diocesan Synods. Never has a bishop, especially in the few years he held the episcopal see, assembled them in such great numbers and with such fruit, whether for the cutting off of abuses that had crept in among the faithful, or for the restoration of Christian and ecclesiastical discipline. As for the provincial Councils, he celebrated six, the decrees of which we have in the general collections of Councils and in the book entitled Acta Ecclesiae Me diolanensis, and there is no Acta Ecclesiae Mediolanensis Collection of decrees and acts of the councils and synods of Milan under Borromeo. one who does not admire their wisdom and their utility for the end for which they had been convened. And, for the diocesan Synods, he assembled eleven, which are of the same force as the provincial ones, and where one finds sovereign remedies against all the disorders that may be encountered in the morals of Christians and in the conduct of ecclesiastics. These Synods are also in the book of the Acts of the Church of Milan. Saint Charles always opened them with harangues full of the apostolic spirit and a certain unction that penetrated to the depths of hearts; and he knew so well how to win the minds of those who composed them, that there was not one who did not willingly incline toward what he wished for the perfect renewal of the diocese.

However, besides these Councils and these Synods, he also perpetually assembled Congregations, in order to know more perfectly the state of his flock, and to take from their counsel the salutary advice for the good government of his diocesans. There was almost no day when he did not hold several of these Congregations; there were some that he held every month, and others finally that he held only a few times a year: some were for temporal matters, others for spiritual. They treated exactly of all the points that offered some difficulty. They regulated what concerned the parish priests, the seminaries, the religious houses, the charitable schools, the ecclesiastical and lay colleges, the hospitals, the distribution of benefices, the execution of pious legacies, the pacification of lawsuits, and a thousand other things that the immense charity of our holy archbishop could not help but embrace. But, although these occupations seemed to demand a man entirely, this pastor did not fail, besides that, to apply himself with as much force to preaching, as if he had had only this single employment. His word persuaded his listeners, because it was animated by that celestial fire which carries light and unction into the depths of consciences. Many left his sermons bursting into tears and in the resolution to quit, at that very hour, the unfortunate engagements of their crimes. He did not seek beautiful audiences to preach, but he preached with as much fire in the small villages, where he made his tour, as in the pulpit of his cathedral of Milan. It is said that one day when the Forty Hours' prayers were being held in this church with an incredible concourse of people, he preached during all this time, starting over each time new processions arrived.

He also gave very abundant alms; and after the establishment of the great hospital of Milan and several others in the extent of his province, he still could not refuse to assist the beggars who presented themselves to him. It is assured that having sold his principality of Oria for the sum of sixty thousand crowns, he gave, in a single day, all this sum to the hospitals and to the ashamed poor, and that he did the same with a sum of twenty thousand crowns that Virginia de Rovera, widow of Count Frederick, his brother, bequeathed to him upon dying.

These great labors nevertheless and these immense charities did not prevent him from being perpetually persecuted by the governor and the senate of Milan. As he supported with an intrepid vigor the rights of his archiepiscopal jurisdiction and the ecclesiastical immunities; that he made no difficulty in having imprisoned adulterers and those known to be concubinary; that he forbade games and public dances on feast days and during divine service; that he could not suffer the follies of carnival in the great square of his cathedral church; and that he re-established the abstinence of the first Sunday of Lent, which had been changed into an execrable dissolution, these magistrates opposed these pious designs under the pretext that he was encroaching upon their power, and that he was making a breach in the royal authority. He saw himself accused by them, to the King of Spain, as a rash, imprudent man and an enemy of his jurisdiction. They arrested the ministers of his tribunal as prisoners; they prevented the freedom of his exercise; they forced him to hand over to the governor the castle of Arona, which was his paternal home, as if his fidelity had been suspect; they lodged companies of soldiers around his palace, and it was immediately deserted; they published very stinging and very injurious manifestos against him; they decried him to the Pope and obtained from His Holiness, by surprise, a brief carrying the power to absolve the governor from the excommunication he had fulminated against him. His relatives, his friends, and persons of signal piety tried to intimidate him by reporting the rumors that were circulating in Milan of his king's disgrace. Finally, in this storm, all things were conspired against him, and there was no appearance that he could save himself. But in the midst of this storm, the grace of Jesus Christ preserved peace and calm in his spirit. One never heard him utter a single word of anger or impatience. While his enemies shuddered against his orders, he did not open his mouth; or, if he opened it, it was only to pray to God for them. He answered their insults and their slanders only with blessings. He performed very harsh penances to obtain, from the divine Goodness, that He would touch their hearts. As in all his conduct he had not acted by a human movement, he also employed no human defense to sustain himself. Fervent prayers, groans and tears at the foot of the crucifix, continuous vigils, hair shirts, cilices, and disciplines were the weapons he used in this war. Finally, it ended to his advantage. The Pope approved his zeal, the King of Spain recognized his innocence, the magistrates themselves were convinced of the purity of his intentions. Some of his persecutors were punished by God with sudden deaths. Finally, by the order of the prince, he was left in peace in the free exercise of his episcopal functions.

The Milanese, angry that the holy archbishop was cutting off their amusements on the days preceding Lent and forcing them to begin it from the first Sunday, whereas, by a strange abuse, they only wanted to begin it on the first Monday, sent deputies to Rome to have these holy ordinances broken. They were listened to, their complaints were examined, their reasons were weighed maturely; but, their cause being worth nothing, they brought back nothing from their trip but the name of Carnival ambassadors. Thus, Charles tamed this monster that had reigned so long in his city and which, by a misfortune that one cannot sufficiently deplore, still reigns in most Christian courts and cities.

One of the occasions that caused the incomparable virtue of our holy cardinal and his charity, devoid of resentment and bitterness, to shine with the greate st brilliance peste violente A major epidemic during which the saint demonstrated heroic devotion. was a violent plague that occurred in Milan (1576). There was no lack of pressure on him to leave, under the pretext of preserving himself for his people and not depriving the rest of his diocese, where the disease did not reign, of his care; but he rejected these counsels as unworthy of being followed by a true pastor. He remained in the midst of his episcopal city and even undertook the relief of all those afflicted by the plague. He gave the necessary orders so that they might be assisted, both in their own homes and in the houses of health. As the number of the poor became extreme and their misery went beyond anything that can be conceived, he sent what remained of his silverware to the mint and had it changed into coined money to help them. He also gave them all the furniture in his house that could be of use to them, even his clothes and his own bed, and sold the rest to be in a position to give them greater alms, so that he had nothing left but straw to sleep on. He had great collections made throughout the city and the entire diocese for the same purpose. His solicitude for the eternal salvation of his flock was no less than that which he had for the relief of their bodies. He went himself to hear their confessions, give them communion, and administer the sacrament of Extreme Unction, and among others, he gave the viaticum to one of his parish priests who died soon after. There was no hospital or house afflicted by the contagion that he did not console with his visit, and one day, when he caught sight of a child alive against the breasts of its mother who had just died, he threw himself among the dead to save the life of that innocent one.

In such a great scourge, he had particular recourse to devotions and public prayers. He gave powerful sermons to his people to lead them to penance. He ordered processions throughout the city, where, making himself the host and the victim for the sins of the entire diocese, he walked with a rope around his neck, the cross in his arms, and his bare feet often bloodied by the harshness of the roads. He encouraged the magistrates to make a vow to Saint Sebastian, as to one of their most powerful protectors. Finally, the things that were done during this illness are so admirable that they filled the entire Roman court and all of Christendom with astonishment. So many deceased preserved from the pains of the other life by the cares of charity; so many living healed of their illnesses, or saved from this almost general conflagration by the good order he established in the city and its surroundings; so many poor, who finally reached the number of seventy thousand, fed and maintained by his providence and his liberalities; so many widows and orphans helped in their necessities by his magnificence, offer his eulogy incomparably better than the most eloquent orators could do. His mercy did not end with the contagion (1578). He still provided for seven thousand indigent people whom the plague had spared, but whom poverty was casting into the depths of misery. He founded hospitals and houses of refuge for women and girls whom the death of their husbands or parents had reduced to begging. In a word, this generous cardinal was an inexhaustible source from which an infinity of goods flowed incessantly upon all his people.

The brevity we are obliged to maintain in this work does not allow us to follow him in all the journeys he made at various times for the assistance of his diocesans, for the good of the universal Church, and for his own spiritual advancement. He came again to Rome in 1572 for the election of Gregory XIII, and he finally obtained from him to be discharged from the Great Penitentiary and some other offices of the Roman court, from which Pius V had not wanted him to resign. He also came there in 1575 to participate early in the indulgences of the Holy Year jubilee; in 1579, to support his authority against the unjust pretensions of his adversaries; and in 1582, to pay his respects to the Holy See, and to apply himself there more at rest to the visitation of churches and to the exercises of the interior life. A year earlier, he went to Vercelli to honor the ashes of Saint Eusebius; to Turin to adore the Holy Shroud of Our Lord; and to Tisitis, in the Grisons country, to pay his respects to the relics of Saint Placid, martyr, and Saint Sigebert, confessor. He undertook the visitation of several dioceses in his capacity as metropolitan, and also had various apostolic missions to go and combat and repress heresy. He made a profound humility, an invincible patience, an intrepid courage and firmness, a heavenly prudence, a tender and generous devotion, and a truly divine charity shine forth everywhere. One could count his heroic actions by the hours and moments of his life. He slept very little, employing almost the entire night in praying, meditating, reading holy books, writing pastoral letters, and composing books for the instruction of his diocesans, or rather for the guidance of all prelates. As for his day, it was entirely occupied with preaching, hearing confessions, visiting prisoners and the sick, reconciling enemies, listening to those who requested an audience, holding congregations, and giving orders for everything concerning ecclesiastical discipline.

In the last year of his life, after having performed shortly before the translation of the relics of Saint Simplician, Saint John the Good, and some other Saints, and celebrated, with extraordinary piety, the funeral of the Queen and the little infant of Spain who had passed away, and after having also laid the foundations of some colleges, he began the apostolic visitation of the Grisons country, which could only be extre mely thorny, bec pays des Grisons Mission region where the saint fought against the influence of Calvinism. ause heresy had entered there and had made itself almost entirely master of it. He had to deal with Calvinists, apostates from congregations, sorcerers, the impious, atheists, public usurers, and all sorts of libertines. Snares were set for him, and they tried, by threatening him, to make him change his resolution. Moreover, the difficulty of the roads, the barbarity of the inhabitants, the attachment they had to their superstitions, and above all the opposition of the governors of the State to the Pope's people and the subjects of the King of Spain, were capable of causing this great enterprise to fail. But this blessed cardinal did not fail to succeed admirably. He converted several heretics who seemed to be waiting only for his arrival to abjure their errors, and brought several apostates back into the bosom of the Church. Notwithstanding the intrigues of the preachers who made every effort to hinder him in the exercise of his apostolic mission, he re-established faith and piety in the Mesolcina valley and in the county of Bellinzona, and sowed the seeds of the entire conversion of the whole country.

What served much for this change was the way of life of the holy cardinal, which belied the impostures that the preachers were spreading about the lives of cardinals and ecclesiastical prelates; for he was dressed very poorly and ate only once a day: bread and water were his only food, notwithstanding the incredible fatigues of his visitations, except on feast days when he added some vegetables. He slept very little and had for a bed only a little straw or boards on which he lay down fully dressed. He often chastised his body with harsh disciplines and suffered the rigor of the cold, which was then almost intolerable in that snow-covered country, with invincible courage and patience, without ever approaching the fire or using stoves and heaters. Moreover, he gave great alms, visited the sick, consoled widows, assisted orphans, and listened to everyone, even the poorest and coarsest, with a marvelous kindness. Finally, he made himself all things to all men to win them all.

Upon his return to his Church, he instituted new devotions for the time of Carnival, which diverted the people so much from the ordinary follies and debaucheries that they were no longer seen except at sermons, processions, benedictions, and spiritual exercises. He also began the magnificent basilica of Our Lady of Rho, which is a pilgrimage eight miles from Milan, the collegiate church of Legnano for a parish priest and canons, and a hospital for convalescents in his own episcopal city. Then, wishing to perform the spiritual exercises and his general confession, which he never failed to do every year, he retired to Mount Varallo, which is a place of great devotion, in the diocese of Novara, where the different subjects of the Passion of Our Lord are depicted in very touching paintings. There, seeing himself a little free from that burden of affairs that his pastoral office gave him, he abandoned himself to the contemplation of the perfections of God and the sufferings of his sovereign master Jesus Christ. He performed each day, in the devout chapels of this Calvary, six hours of mental prayer, and the night that preceded his general confession, he remained eight hours in continuous prayer on his knees and without support, as if he had been motionless.

On October 24, he felt a bout of fever that did not surprise him at all, because he had already received warnings from heaven that this year 1584 would be the last of his life. He did not cut back on any of his devotions, by which he was preparing himself for the most important affair of his life, which was to die well. But the first attack having been followed, two days later, by a second more violent one, his confessor moderated his austerities and his long prayers, which he accepted without resistance. He did not, however, cease to say Mass, just as he said it every day at all other times. And, because he wished to celebrate it once more pontifically in his cathedral on All Saints' Day, he left on the 29th from that mountain and went to Arona, which was the place of his birth and the principal inheritance of his house. From there he took the path by water to Ascona, to go and complete the foundation of a college intended for the instruction of the children of the Swiss: which he did with marvelous zeal and diligence. He then returned on his steps to Arona by the same route; and, as he was in a boat, notwithstanding his weakness, he recited his office on his knees, performed his mental prayer, and entertained the company with spiritual discourses; he catechized the boatmen and their children, and dispatched various affairs for the conduct of his diocese. He could not arrive in that city until the eve of All Saints' Day in the evening. He stayed there with the Jesuits, said Mass there, gave communion to the novices and many people, and spent the feast there in great sentiments of devotion. The next day, which was All Souls' Day, after having confessed and communicated at the church, for he could not say Mass because of the extreme violence of his attack, he embarked on the Ticino and arrived at two o'clock at night in Milan. He retired immediately to his oratory, according to his custom, to perform his prayer; and then, getting into bed, he abandoned himself entirely to the guidance of the doctors and the advice of his confessor, who allowed him only to hear one of his chaplains recite the office on his knees beside his bed. An altar was set up in his room, on which he had a painting of the burial of the Savior placed; he had a similar one placed on his bed, with another that represents him in the Garden of Olives. The next day, at his request, the archpriest of the Duomo, accompanied by the canons, administered the Viaticum and Extreme Unction to him, which he received dressed in his rochet, his mozzetta, and his stole, with admirable fervor: he then had one of his hair shirts covered with blessed ashes, and put it on his body to be armed, by this holy breastplate of penance, against the last assaults of the enemy of salvation.

Meanwhile, the news of the danger of his illness having spread in the city, all the Companies and Confraternities held processions to ask God, with humility and tears, for the life of their incomparable prelate, and all the rest of the people remained almost all night in the churches to offer the same prayer to the sovereign Shepherd of souls. Some cried out with a plaintive voice: "Prayer, prayer for the health of our bishop." Others went through the streets barefoot, covered in sackcloth, and wounding themselves with disciplines to appease the divine Mercy. Finally, the gathering of all sorts of people at the archbishopric was so great that the doors had to be guarded by the governor's Swiss guards. But divine Providence, which has counted our hours and our moments, and whose dispositions are always just, although the reasons for them are unknown to us, willed that the great Charles Borromeo, cardinal and archbishop of Milan, after having remained for three hours in a fairly peaceful agony, casting a gentle look at the crucifix, and maintaining a tranquil face, rendered his beautiful soul, laden with trophies, to Him. The sound of the bells of the Duomo and the other churches of Milan let the people know of the death of their most holy pastor. Nothing was heard then but groans, lamentations, and cries. Some regretted the loss of a Saint; others wept for that of a father; these grieved for that of a great protector of the fatherland; all, finally, asked for mercy, as if they had been guilty of his death and he had been taken from them because they had not rendered themselves worthy of possessing him.

His servants collected as precious relics everything that had served him. His hair shirt was cut into several pieces and distributed to all the assistants who requested some fragments with great insistence. While washing his body, one could see the mark of the blow he had received out of hatred for his desire to restore regular discipline. He was then dressed in his pontifical vestments and exposed for two days in the pontifical chapel for the veneration of all the people. There was such a great concourse of people that the palace was too small to contain those who entered and left. It was like the ebb and flow of a sea agitated and in turmoil. Everyone believed themselves happy to be able to touch their rosary or some object to this precious relic.

He had died on a Saturday, and the following Wednesday all the ecclesiastical Orders began his funeral rites. Cardinal Sfondrate, Bishop of Cremona, who later became Pope under the name Gregory XIV, performed the ceremony. The bishops of Alexandria, Vigevano, and Castro attended. The governor of the State, the senate, and the magistrates, with the princes, his relatives, also accompanied him, and he was followed by such a great multitude of people that it seemed as if all the companies of the country had gathered in the city for this purpose. The ladies and virgins held their procession separately. They placed themselves under the banner of the crucifix and the arms of the deceased prelate, and they went to the seven churches he had designated, as in Rome, to offer their prayers for his soul; which they continued to do every year thereafter, on the first Sunday of each month. François Panigaroie, of the Order of Saint Francis, and later Bishop of Asti, delivered his funeral oration with such eloquence and sentiments of grief that, while weeping himself, he made all his listeners weep.

We leave it to our readers to make an ample reflection here on the eminent virtues of this blessed cardinal, and we content ourselves with touching upon the main points so as not to make this notice too long. He manifested his faith through the care he took for the conclusion of the holy Council of Trent and for the printing of the catechism of the same Council, addressed to parish priests; through the immortal war he waged against schismatics, heretics, and all the enemies of the Church; and through his tireless application, both to instruct his people in the truths of Christianity and to purge his diocese of the superstitions, witchcraft, errors, and pernicious books that were widespread there.

He made his hope and his great confidence in God shine forth by exposing himself to dangers that seemed insurmountable, and by undertaking things that were beyond human strength, with the sole support of divine Providence. Thus, he often experienced its miraculous help in times and occasions where everything seemed hopeless: as when the royal ministers of the State of Milan, who had gathered to proceed against him, were changed in an instant and turned their aversion into a singular admiration for his holiness; when his alms, having exhausted his funds without leaving him anything for the subsistence of his household, a bill of exchange arrived from Spain for three thousand crowns that were not yet due to him; and when, having fallen into torrents and deep ditches, he emerged happily without having felt any discomfort.

His life was but a continuous exercise of the love of God; he said and did nothing but for His glory. He desired it with such ardor that he would have given a thousand lives to win one heart for Him and to make Him known and served in a town or a village. This is what made him walk on foot and fasting, and sometimes all bloody through waters, torrents, and snows to visit a hamlet or a peasant's house. This is what made him despise the cold, the heat, the rains, and the storms when there was hope of converting a soul and making it enter the paths of salvation. This is what so often put flaming words on his lips, by which he kindled the fire of charity in the people who saw him and who had the honor of his conversation. This is, finally, what made him love prayer, where one approaches God, and sigh incessantly after the other life, where one enjoys His blessed embraces.

There would be wonders to tell of his religion toward God, his devotion to the Blessed Sacrament of the altar, his tenderness for the holy Virgin, his respect for the Angels and Saints, his submission to the Apostolic See, and his veneration for all sacred or blessed things. He was so attentive and so full of reverence while saying his office or performing his ecclesiastical functions that it was easy to see that his spirit was entirely penetrated by the sight and taste of the presence of God. Thus, he thought of nothing else at those times, and he did not want to be interrupted for any business whatsoever. His prayer was eminent, and he often spent several hours in it by night and by day; but one can say that he prayed incessantly, since even in his travels his soul was so absorbed in the contemplation of heavenly things that he did not notice the ditches and precipices that surrounded him.

We have seen throughout the course of this history admirable effects of his charity toward his neighbor. If it is the property of charity to procure spiritual and temporal salvation, what else did he do through his alms, his foundations, his visits, his preachings, his conferences, and all the other actions of his ministry, than to help those who were in need? If it is the duty of charity to lay down one's life for one's friends, did he not put himself a thousand times in danger of perishing to pull his sheep from the wolf's mouth and bring them back to the fold? And can we not say that he notably shortened his days by the incredible fatigues he took for the reformation and sanctification of his diocese? Finally, if charity loves enemies and easily forgives injuries, was Charles not a man without resentment and without gall? Did he not ask for the pardon of the one who had wanted to assassinate him, and did he not act as a mediator with the King of Spain for a lord who had persecuted him the most, both in Milan and in Rome, regarding his jurisdiction? He loved his relatives, but it was for heaven, not for earth. He left them only the goods that the ancient compromise of his family gave them, but he took care to correct them of their faults, to animate them to virtue, to form them in devotion, and to inflame them with the same fire with which his heart was inflamed. He was so detached from them that he urgently begged Pope Gregory XIII to allow him to leave the arms of his house to take only ecclesiastical ones, and he had them removed from several places where they had been engraved.

One cannot speak worthily enough of his gentleness, his patience, and his humility. He was sensitive only to the interests of the glory of God and to the correction and amendment of those whose conduct divine Providence had given him; for his own person, he made no account of it and, believing he deserved only insults and persecutions, he received them with meekness and endured them with a peace and tranquility of mind that nothing was capable of breaking or even altering. He had such low sentiments of himself that he looked upon himself only as the sweepings of the world, and, with this spirit, he hated praises and honors; he loved to converse with the poor and to lodge with them; he hid his good works as much as he could; he was always dressed very poorly, to the point that one of his robes that he gave away having been presented to a beggar, the beggar found it too worn and too torn and would have none of it. Finally, he went on foot and without a retinue in the city of Milan. He knew, however, how to act with magnificence on occasion, and it is in this manner that he behaved toward King Henry III, when, coming from Poland to take possession of his kingdom of France, he passed through the Milanese. Those who wrote that he received and feasted him in his palace in Milan were mistaken; but it is certain that he went to greet him at Monza, that he had two conferences with him, and that he gave him beautiful gifts, as well as to all the princes who accompanied him.

This great prelate died in his forty-seventh year, with the same purity he had in his childhood; thus, he treated his body with such severity that he had no thought of pleasures and did not incline toward dishonest actions. We have already spoken of his fasts, his vigils, his hair shirts, and his disciplines; it must be added that he had reduced himself to sleeping almost not at all and to practicing such abstinence, notwithstanding his immense and continuous labors, that he spent entire weeks without taking anything other than dried figs or lupins, which even obliged Pope Gregory XIII to command him to moderate his rigors.

King Henry III said of him that, if all the prelates of Italy resembled him, he would not want to appoint any others to the bishoprics of his kingdom. Philip II, King of Spain, kept his portrait in his cabinet with singular respect. The Dukes of Savoy had a great veneration for his person and his memory. Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma, being on the point of taking the government of the provinces of Flanders, implored the help of the holy Prelate's prayers to conduct himself well in such a thorny commission. We have already spoken of the high esteem that the blessed Pope Pius V had for his merit, and of the paternal affection he bore him. Gregory XIII, successor to Pius V, always supported his innocence against his persecutors and, having learned of his death, he exclaimed: "The light is extinguished in Israel." Sixtus V, in testimony of the veneration he bore him, made his cousin, Frederick Borromeo, a cardinal and gave him the archbishopric of Milan to occupy his place. Gregory XIV, who had performed the ceremony of his burial while still only a cardinal, always maintained a deep respect for his eminent holiness.

Saint Charles Borromeo is represented: 1st healing the sick; 2nd praying for the plague-stricken: the holy Virgin presents his prayers to her Son; 3rd giving communion to plague-stricken people; 4th holding a large cross and walking at the head of his clergy to help the plague-stricken; 5th standing, embracing Saint Philip Neri, in the middle of a public square; 6th in prayer and crowned by two angels.

CULT AND RELICS. — HIS WRITINGS.

Saint Charles Borromeo was buried in a tomb, under the first steps of the high altar, just as he had ordered out of great humility, in order to be trampled under the feet of all those who would go up and down these steps. Nothing delayed in glorifying His servant through a great number of miracles performed at his tomb. Pope Clement VIII, informed of the universal concourse of peoples to his sepulcher, a concourse which it was impossible to oppose, had it written to Milan, in 1601, by Cardinal Baronio, his confessor, that his anniversary be changed into a solemn mass of the Saint, and three years later, he gave a commission to the Sacred Congregation to work on the matter of his canonization. Leo XI was no sooner elected to the sovereign pontificate than he had this matter pursued and had the intention of having a church built in Rome in his honor and even making it a cardinal's title, but his pontificate having been only twenty-seven days, he could not execute this enterprise. Finally, Paul V solemnly canonized him on November 1st of the year 1610 and, in testimony of his altogether extraordinary merits, he gave on this day the greatest indulgences that have ever been given per year by the sovereign Pontiff. This canonization was done on the proof of more than twenty very authentic miracles that Saint Charles had performed during his life and after his death.

Since that time, several churches and chapels have been built in his honor, and several confraterni ties h Paul V Pope who approved the bull of erection of the Oratory. ave been erected under his protection. There was a very famous one in the parish church of Saint-Jacques-la-Boucherie, in Paris, where the stole he used at the holy sacrifice of the mass was sent in 1607, by Cardinal Frederick Borromeo, his cousin and successor. Charles of Lorraine, Duke of Aumale, had obtained, the previous year, from this same cardinal, his maniple matching this stole, and had given it to the convent of Anderlecht, near Brussels, built and founded by his liberality under the name of Saint-Charles. The convent of the Minims of Paris possessed the small bed that was carried for him on his visits.

The cathedral of Nancy possesses a stole of Saint Charles Borromeo, which was saved during the Revolution by M. de Malvoisin, canon of this church, and was canonically recognized and approved on August 30, 1803, by Mgr Osmond; it is kept in the reliquary of Saint Gauzlin; it is made of cloth of gold and measures two meters fifteen centimeters in length.

The relics of Saint Charles are in a magnificent underground chapel, built under the dome of the great church, in Milan. The altar of this chapel is of solid silver, and the greater part of the vault is covered with plates of the same metal. Several gold and silver lamps are maintained there night and day. The body of the Saint is enclosed in a superb silver reliquary, closed on the front by a rock crystal that allows it to be seen in its entire length. He is lying down and dressed in pontifical vestments; he is preserved without any corruption.

Saint Charles Borromeo had been a man of action; he took an active part in the Roman Catechism, a true manual of the faith for the clergy; he also took part, somewhat less actively, in the publication of the corrected Breviary (1568) and the Missal (1570) as well as in the begun revision of the Vulgate. All his writings are practical and consist, with few exceptions, of 1st Pastoral Instructions; 2nd Homilies and Discourses; 3rd Letters. Among the main writings of the first category, one notes his incomparable Instruction to the confessors of the city and diocese of Milan; the Statutes and rules of the Society of the Schools of Christian Doctrine; and two writings entitled: Souvenirs for the people of the city and diocese of Milan, to serve for a Christian life, for all states; and Souvenirs of the sufferings of the days of plague. Their ensemble forms a true pastoral theology founded on experience. Three of these instructions relate to the administration of the sacrament of penance; another deals with preaching and another with the administration of the Eucharist. The general assembly of the clergy of France (1657) had printed at its own expense, to serve as a rule in the exercise of the holy ministry, the Instructions to Confessors.

The Homilies were printed in Milan (1747), in two volumes, by J.-A. Sax, and in Augsburg (1758), in-fol., with a Latin translation of the homilies which, until then, had only appeared in Italian. The same Sax published the discourses delivered at provincial and diocesan synods or in meetings of convents, Milan, 1748, and Augsburg, 1758. In the homilies, the didactic part dominates. Charles wanted first to convince and then to move the heart and the will. He frequently used analogies drawn from natural facts and human life. The style of his synodal discourses is classical and the movement very oratorical. The complete collection of his letters is found in the library of the Holy Sepulcher, in Milan (31 volumes of letters), and in the complete edition of his works, in 5 vol. in-fol., Milan, 1747.

The Life of Saint Charles Borromeo was written by different authors, namely: J.-B. Guissano, priest of the Congregation of the Oblates of Saint-Ambrose of Milan; Augustin Valerius, Bishop of Verona, and Charles Buscapo, General of the Barnabites and Bishop of Novara. We have used them to compose this biography, which we have completed with Notes due to the Abbé J.-F. Deblaye, parish priest of Imling, and with the Encyclopedic Dictionary of Catholic Theology, by Gauthier.