- Pope Celestine V
Infobox Pope
English name=Celestine V
birth_name=Pietro Angelerio
term_start=July 7 1294
term_end=December 13 1294
predecessor=Nicholas IV
successor=Boniface VIII
birth_date=1215
birthplace= nearIsernia ,Italy
dead=dead|death_date=death date|1296|5|19|mf=y
deathplace=Ferentino ,Italy
other=Celestine infobox popestyles
papal name=Pope Celestine V
dipstyle=His Holiness
offstyle=Your Holiness
relstyle=Holy Father
deathstyle=Saint |Pope St. Celestine V (c. 1215 –
May 19 ,1296 ), born Pietro Angelerio, also known as "Pietro da Morrone" (according to some sources Angelario or Angelieri or Angelliero or Angeleri), was electedPope in the year 1294. He was elected by thepapal election, 1292–1294 , the last non-conclave in the history of the Roman Catholic Church.Biography
According to tradition, he was born in 1215 in the village of
Sant'Angelo Limosano , inMolise , the son of Angelo Angelerio and Maria Leone. Recently, the towns ofIsernia and Sant'Angelo in Grotte, have been mentioned as his possible birthplaces. His date of birth has been also assigned to 1209.After his father's untimely death he started to work 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 just becoming a
farmer or ashepherd . From the time he was a child, he showed great intelligence, and love for his fellow beings. He became aBenedictine monk at Faifoli in thediocese of Benevento when he was seventeen. He showed an extraordinary disposition towardasceticism and solitude, and in 1239 retired to a solitary cavern on the mountain Morrone, whence his name. Five years later he left this retreat, and betook himself, with two companions, to a similar cave on the Mountain of Maiella in theAbruzzi region of southItaly , where he lived as strictly as was possible according to the example of St.John the Baptist . Terrible accounts are given of the severity of his penitential practices. While living in this manner he founded, in 1244, the order subsequently called after him, theCelestines .The cardinals assembled at
Perugia after the death ofPope Nicholas IV (1288–92) in April of 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 theCollege 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, asPetrarch says, attempted flight, until he was at length persuaded by a deputation of cardinals accompanied by the Kings of Naples andHungary . ElectedJuly 7 1294 , he was crowned atS. Maria di Collemaggio in the city of Aquila (now called L'Aquila) in the Abruzzi,August 29 , taking the name of Celestine V. He issued two decrees – one confirming that ofPope Gregory X (1271–76), which orders the shutting of the cardinals in conclave; the second declaring 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 onDecember 13 1294 .In the formal instrument of his renunciation he recites 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"; and having divested himself of every outward symbol of dignity, he retired to his old solitude.
Celestine V was not allowed to remain there, however. His successor,
Pope Boniface VIII (1294–1303), sent for him, and finally, despite desperate attempts of the former Pope to escape, got him into his hands, and imprisoned him in the castle of Fumone nearFerentino inCampagna , where, after languishing for ten months in that infected air, he died onMay 19 1296 . Some historians believe he might have been murdered by Boniface VIII, and indeed his skull has a suspicious hole. He was buried at Ferentino, but his body was subsequently removed to Aquila, where it still lies. Many early commentators and scholars of Dante have thought that the poet stigmatized Celestine V in the enigmatical verse "Colui che fece per viltade il gran rifiuto," "Who made by his cowardice the grand refusal" ("Inferno", III, 59). Most later commentators, however, refute such an identification and believe Dante might have intended the verse to refer toPontius Pilate or someone else. Celestine V, likePope Celestine I (422–432), is recognized by the Church as a saint. No subsequent Pope has taken the name "Celestine."Although generally deemed a saintly man Celestine V has received some criticism. As mentioned above, in the
Divine Comedy Dante might have placed him near the gates of Hell, but not in Hell precisely, because he deemed him indecisive, and also because his resignation led to the reign ofPope Boniface VIII . Others felt that his austere hermit-like life made him naive and unsuited for the job as Pope. This criticism may be more fair as he himself wished to retire due to the pressure. Others argue the opposite: his abdication of such immense power, wealth, and material comfort, in pursuit of austere, humble surroundings, was a most pious and admirable sacrifice demonstrating Celestine V's profound and rare degree of spiritual fortitude and virtue.Another thing he did which may be noted (it seems to be the only instance in the history of the Church) is that he empowered one Francis of Apt, a
Franciscan friar, to confer theclerical tonsure andminor orders on Lodovico (who would later becomeBishop of Toulouse ), the son of theKing of Sicily . However, this decree seems not to have been carried out.The life of Pope Celestine V is dramatised in the plays "
L'avventura di un povero cristiano " ("The Story of a Humble Christian") byIgnazio Silone in 1968 and "Sunsets and Glories" byPeter Barnes in 1990.See also
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Hermit References
External links
* [http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03479b.htm More in depth look at the Pope from the Catholic Encyclopedia.]
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