Blessed Benedict XI

The new General devoted himself entirely to the good of the Order. The General Chapters held under his presidency attest to his zeal and fervor, and one cannot tire of hearing the praises given to him by the monuments that have remained to us from that era. The Order of Preachers was then finishing the first century of its existence. The first generation, that galaxy of illustrious men who had cast so much brilliance upon the Church, had joined Saint D ominic in heave saint Dominique Founder of the Order of Preachers. n. Saint Thomas, Saint Hyacinth, Saint Peter Martyr, Saint Raymond, Albert the Great, Blessed Ambrose, Innocent V, and so many other great doctors already surrounded him with the halo of their genius and their holiness; the Friars Preachers were everywhere in Europe; the number of their martyrs in the East rose to several thousands; and already the congregation of the Friars Travelers for the love of Jesus Christ had received from the Holy See the crown and the red belt, insignia of martyrdom. It was this congregation which, aided by the Friars Minor, had just made Catholicism flourish again in the East, and converted the Tartar kings whom we shall see conquer Jerusalem. Bocasini, who had grown up in the midst of this strong generation, saw other doctors, other Apostles, and other Saints rise in its place. Blessed James of Voragine died under his generalate, and while this last memory of another age fell, Blessed Jordan of Pisa, Blessed Simon Convers, and the blessed Bishop Augustine illustrated this holy family with the brilliance of their virtues. At that time still lived that lovely flower of solitude, Agnes, so dear to men and to God, whom Saint Catherine visited later in her tomb, and whose bones showed themselves sensitive to the piety of the humble visitor. At that time lived Margaret of Castello, the austere lover of Jesus Christ, who, deprived of bodily light, merited to enjoy from this life the purer lights of heaven. The Order had just received from the hands of Charles, Prince of Salerno and son of the King of Naples, the custody of the relics of Saint Mary Magdalene; and already Blessed Dalmatius and the blessed Father Elias were preparing to imitate in the deserts of Sainte-Baume the penance of this Saint. It was also around this time that Brother Eckhart was founding in Germany a famous ascetic school from which would later emerge Tauler, the illuminated doctor, and Blessed Henry Suso.

Nicholas Bocasini proved himself worthy of governing these illustrious men, and his soon-recognized prudence led Pope Bonifac e VIII to ent Boniface VIII Pope who appointed Louis to the bishopric of Toulouse. rust him with the task of reconciling France and England. His mission was a complete success, and while he was visiting the convents of the Order upon his return from this legation, he learned of his promotion to the cardinalate. He had to hasten to Rome. "Holy Father," he said to the Pope, "why have you imposed such a heavy burden upon me?" — "God has a heavier one in store for you," replied Boniface with a prophetic instinct for the future. Soon he had to go to Hungary to calm the discord dividing that kingdom, and after other legations, he was back with the Sovereign Pontiff when Guillaume de N ogaret, deputy Philippe le Bel King of France who opposed the establishment of the diocese of Pamiers. of Philip the Fair, and Sciarra Colonna, a schismatic and rebellious R oman, Anagni City of origin of the saint in Italy. insulted him at Anagni, pillaged his palace, and held him captive for three days. Cardinal Bocasini remained alone with Cardinal Peter beside the outraged Pontiff, while the others, having taken refuge in their palaces, abandoned him to the insults of a band of profaners. Boniface VIII, delivered from their hands, touched the soil of Rome only to die there.

The state of the Church was alarming. The Turks, masters of Palestine, were attacking the Lower Empire and waiting only for a favorable opportunity to throw themselves upon Constantinople. The Greeks seemed to conspire among themselves against the Latins, so violent was their hatred for Rome. The Latin dynasty of Constantinople had no other representatives than Catherine of Courtenay, wife of Charles of Valois. It was these advances of Ottoman power that had preoccupied the great soul of Boniface VIII. He felt the need to unite all the States of Europe to halt its victorious course, and legates constantly went from Rome to all the capitals to impose his mediation and end disputes. The public law of the Middle Ages recognized this privilege for the Pope. But Philip the Fair, prejudiced against the Pontiff, impatiently endured his intervention: formidable accusations were, moreover, raised against Boniface; he was called a usurper, a heretic, and charged with every crime. This was not the case, as history has proven. But it remains that Boniface had treated his predecessor harshly after his abdication, and that the vigor and austerity of his character

THE BLESSED BENEDICT XI, POPE. 413 sometimes led him to push justice to its extreme limits. He had withdrawn from the universities of France the right to confer degrees; he had forbidden the filling of vacant churches and imposed censures on ecclesiastics who had not presented themselves in Rome according to his orders. His intent was misunderstood, his zeal treated as pride and ambition. A bull, falsified by traitors, pushed the King's anger to its final limits. He convoked the Estates General of the kingdom, refused to recognize the authority of Boniface, and appealed to a future Council and to the legitimate Pope. It was then that Nogaret, sent to signify this appeal, outraged the majesty of the Holy See in Anagni, while other ambassadors went to Rome to appeal to the General Council and beg the cardinals to assist the King in its convocation.

Rome itself was troubled: one of its most powerful families, that of the Colonna, had defied the Pope's obedience; the two cardinals of this illustrious house had been degraded and subjected to anathema, their fortified city ruined, and their goods confiscated.

Such was the situation of the Church at the death of Boniface VIII. The cardinals entered the conclave eleven days later, and the very next day they unanimously elected the dean of the Sacred College, Nicholas Bocasini. The first act of the new Pontiff was a testimony of gratitude for his outraged predecessor: he took the name that the latter had received at baptism, th e name Benoît Subject of the biography, a 14th-century Dominican pope. of Benedict.

Benedict XI was known and respected. While he was General of his Order, Philip the Fair had written to him to thank him for the part the Friars Preachers had taken in the canonization of Saint Louis, and to offer him a magnificent convent of nuns that he was having built at Poissy, the birthplace of his saintly ancestor. It was also at his request that he had made peace with England. As soon as he learned of his election, Philip wrote him a letter full of confidence and respect, in which he congratulated the Church for having received such a leader, and the Order of Friars Preachers for having given him to the world. Benedict XI replied to him in these terms: "Judge of our solicitude for your salvation and of our tenderness for you by the care we have taken to anticipate you and to give you what you did not ask for, the absolution of all the censures that you may have incurred. We do not regret having acted in this way... for we are the Vicar of Him who, in the parable of the feast, orders his servant to go into the roads and paths, and to compel them to come in to fill his house. We have done it: we have left the faithful sheep to run to the stray sheep, to take it on our shoulders and bring it back to the flock..." The holy Pontiff begs him to consider that Joash, King of Judah, had a glorious reign as long as he followed the advice of the high priest Jehoiada; but that having departed from it, he fell under the sword of his servants. "Listen then," he cries out, "to your father, lend an ear to his words, so that God, in His goodness, may deign to strengthen your reign, and to fill you in this world with glory and prosperity." This letter pleased Philip the Fair: the Pontiff, moreover, hastened to appease the discussions raised by his predecessor. He revoked all the bulls unfavorable to France, annulled the censures, restored to the universities the right to grant degrees, and to the whole kingdom the privileges it enjoyed before this quarrel. He lifted the prohibition on providing for vacant churches, and displayed such great activity that in the space of a few months all this affair was quieted.

Rome had its turn. To restore peace to it, he pardoned the Colonna, VIES DES SAINTS. — TOME VIII. 8 lifted the excommunication that weighed upon them, and opened the gates of their homeland to them; but he did not wish to restore the Roman purple to the two cardinals of that family, nor the confiscated goods. One felt in the kindness of the father who forgives, the justice of the sovereign. These preoccupations could not make Benedict XI forget the enemy of Catholicism. From the first days of his reign, he had congratulated Charles, King of Naples, for having expelled the Saracens from Lucera. A deputation from the East soon made him think of a general crusade against them. The Tartar kings, converted to Catholicism by the Order of Preachers and the Order of Friars Minor, had just seized a part of Palestine; but it was necessary to preserve the conquests and pursue them: they solicited the help of Rome. Benedict XI set to work: his legates, dispersed throughout Europe, were ordered to reconcile the various States among themselves to bring them into a common coalition; they succeeded in pacifying Denmark and the kingdoms of the North; but their efforts failed in Italy. Florence refused to hear the voice of the Pontiff, and it was necessary to subject it to the anathema.

Benedict XI, amidst so many affairs, had not forgotten the Order that had formed him. He wrote to his Brothers a letter full of affection, and commended himself to their prayers. He did more. Boniface VIII had believed it necessary to restrict the privileges of the mendicant Orders. Benedict XI, without fearing the blame that might fall upon the memory of his predecessor, annulled the effect of his bull and restored their privileges to his Order and to that of Saint Francis.

When the most pressing matters were thus calmed, when he had, by his prudence and gentleness, prevented schism, pacified Europe, and restored peace to Rome, he remembered the outrages committed against his predecessor and launched this bull against the authors of the outrage at Anagni: "An infamous wickedness has been committed by impious men who dared the greatest of crimes against the person of our predecessor of good memory, Pope Boniface VIII. Until now, just causes have made us defer its pursuit. We can no longer delay. We must rise, or rather God must rise within us, so that his enemies may be scattered, and those who hate him may flee before his face; let them be scattered, I say, if they repent of their crime, as the impiety of Nineveh was at the preaching of Jonah; otherwise, let them be confounded. For, while the same Boniface was residing with his court at Anagni, his homeland, sons of perdition, first-born of Satan, children of iniquity, took him by armed force, he their Prelate, their lord and their Father; in their insolence, they laid impious hands upon him, and covered him with outrages and blasphemies; and this publicly, before the people, in the sight of all and even before our eyes. Rebellion, lèse-majesté, sacrilege, violence, rapine, theft, felony, such were their crimes, and so many others that we have fallen into stupor. What fierce soul would not melt into tears? what hatred would not soften into pity? what judge so cowardly would not hasten to vengeance? what mercy would not change into rigor? Security is violated, immunity infringed; the homeland has no more safeguard, the dwelling has no more asylum; the supreme pontificate is outraged, and by the captivity of its head, the Church itself is reduced to chains. What place of safety now, what sanctuary still respected, after the Pontiff of Rome has been violated? O inexpiable crime! o unheard-of outrage! o unhappy Anagni that suffered these things within you: may dew and rain no longer fall upon you, may they descend upon the neighboring hills and forget you, since, under your gaze, when you could have prevented it, the hero fell and the strong was struck down! O most unfortunate and most criminal of men, who did not imitate the one we take as a model, the holy king David: his enemy, his persecutor, his rival was at his feet, but he would not strike him, because the Lord had said: Do not touch my anointed; and he put to death by the sword the one who had laid his hand upon him. Cruel pain! pernicious example! inexpiable evil and manifest confusion! Intone, O Church, a mournful song, flood your face with tears, and to aid your just indignation, may your sons come from afar and your daughters rise at your side..." The Pontiff adds that Guillaume de Nogaret, Sciarra Colonna, others named in the bull, and all those who aided them with their help, counsel, or credit, have, in the opinion of the cardinals, incurred the excommunication carried by the canons, and he cites them to appear personally before him for the feast of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, in order to hear the just sentence that their crimes deserve, and to submit to it humbly; otherwise, he continues, without taking account of their absence, we shall proceed against them.

The voice of the Pontiff was not heeded, the guilty did not present themselves; but God seemed to take charge of the vengeance. Anagni, under the weight of the holy Pope's curse, declined rapidly, and in the year 1526, according to the testimony of a traveler, it already offered heaps of ruins. The three sons of Philip the Fair had no heirs and succeeded one another in the space of fourteen years, finally leaving the throne to the posterity of Charles of Valois, a friend of Boniface VIII and brother of Philip the Fair. France, which had forgotten itself with regard to the Holy See, was soon to see, under a king in dementia, its provinces invaded by foreigners, until, reduced to the territory of a single city, it finally owed its deliverance to a young girl inspired by heaven. Rome, ungrateful towards the sovereign Pontiff, whose one of the most powerful families had just betrayed him, claimed its share; it saw the Popes prefer the stay in Avignon to it for more than half a century, and in this period of abandonment, it believed it would fall, like Anagni, until it was no more than a heap of ruins.

Benedict XI could have prevented many of these misfortunes; the short time he lived on the throne of Saint Peter made the Church hope for one of its most glorious Pontiffs. God did not will it. After eight months a nd a fe Pérouse City where the saint studied law and began his career before entering the convent there. w days of reign, Benedict XI died in Perugia, on July 7, 1304.

The love of the people followed Benedict XI into his tomb. They remembered his virtues, his zeal, his gentleness, and his simplicity. His mother, it is said, wanted to visit him one day during his pontificate; she was a poor old woman, humbly dressed; the ladies of Rome thought they should adorn her with precious finery. She was therefore announced to Benedict XI who asked: "What are her clothes?" and when he was told that out of respect for the first throne in the world, she had been covered in silk: "That is not my mother," he exclaimed; "my mother is a poor woman." She had to resume her humble clothing, and the Pope, running then to meet her, showered her with testimonies of affection and respect. The poor loved the Pontiff who had so cherished poverty, and remembered his tomb. He had wanted his body to be placed in a humble sepulcher, in the church of the Friars Preachers of Perugia; but numerous miracles raised its glory; his name was inscribed in the Roman Martyrology, and Pope Clement VII authorized his cult. His feast is celebrated under the double rite, with office and mass, throughout the Order of Friars Preachers.

Année Dominicaine.