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Pious Postmortems. Bradford A. Bouley
Читать онлайн.Название Pious Postmortems
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isbn 9780812294446
Автор произведения Bradford A. Bouley
Жанр История
Издательство Ingram
In addition to managing access to the body of a prospective saint, supporters could engage almost in a sort of multimedia campaign to encourage belief in an individual’s holiness.49 Those who sought to forward the cult of Girolamo Mani in Verona in the 1650s, for example, began to print and distribute vitae depicting the prospective saint with holy rays of light coming from his head, implying that he already was a saint. This use of the printing press soon helped to create a sizeable local following for Mani.50 In 1632 in Benevento, in Campania, the local Jesuits unearthed and displayed the body of Caterina Margiacca, whom they believed to be holy.51 They then distributed her bones as relics and printed portraits of her holding a halo-like crown.52 In this case, the circulation of both relics and imagery helped spread and enlarge her cult. Portrait statuary was also made of prospective saints and displayed publicly to stir devotion. Such was the case for one prospective saint who had the name “venerable” placed underneath a statue carved in his likeness, which was then strategically located above the central altar in his parish church.53 In each of these examples, the promoters of sanctity clearly sought to encourage and focus the veneration of deceased individuals whom they deemed holy. A variety of media was thus employed to convey the message. These cases, which are among a few dozen that appear in the archives of the Roman Inquisition, are likely just the tip of the iceberg and represent generally how saints were promoted.54
The effort expended to canonize Ignatius of Loyola (d. 1556) probably represents the most elaborate attempt to promote a saint’s cult in this period. After Pope Clement VIII denied Loyola’s canonization process in 1599 on the grounds that too few miracles had been attributed to the Jesuit founder, several supporters undertook a campaign to generate belief in Loyola’s saintliness. They sought to fashion a reputation for him as a miracle worker. Cardinal Cesare Baronio (1538–1607), author of the famous Ecclesiastical Annals, along with the first Jesuit cardinal, Francisco Toledo, conducted displays of devotion at Loyola’s tomb. These displays focused on the healing powers of the holy man’s relics.55 The campaign extended into other media as well, with the cardinals and the Jesuits commissioning new vitae and even portraits by Peter Paul Rubens that cast Ignatius as a miracle worker. These actions were successful and the promoters of Loyola’s sanctity persuaded Pope Paul V to open the process of canonization just a few years later, in 1605. Loyola was canonized in 1622.56
Although Loyola’s case was successful, this crowd-fueled promotion of sanctity became suspect in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and most cases discussed here come from Inquisition trials. Such concern was not without basis: the promotion of an individual’s sanctity by inflaming the masses did not necessarily dovetail with official, papal views on how the faith should be promulgated and could be counterproductive, leading to resistance to central authority. In 1655, for example, a woman named Francesca da Montimaggiore from the diocese of Fano, part of the Papal States on the Eastern coast of Italy, claimed to have enjoyed a vision in which the locally venerated saint Oliver (d. ca. 1050) revealed to her that he was buried under a large stone in a nearby parish church.57 He had been there for some time, but now “no longer wanted to be buried.”58 News spread within the local community, and based on the strength of Francesca’s vision, a large group of believers began to worship at the rock in the small church. The bishop, concerned about this growing cult, ordered that the rock be removed so that “the truth could be made clear.”59 Once the bishop’s agents moved the stone, the gathered faithful found no body. The cavity that the rock covered was left open for several hours, permitting the worshipers to use the evidence of their own eyes to recognize that Francesca’s vision was false.
The cult of “Saint” Oliver became a rallying point for local believers against the Church hierarchy. Undeterred by the lack of a body, the faithful came up with two theories: either the body had been moved secretly by the bishop at night or, given the lack of veneration shown to him by the religious authorities, Saint Oliver chose to hide his remains when the stone was moved.60 In short, when the bishop did not support their faith in Saint Oliver, the local parishioners became convinced that he was either attempting to deceive them or was perhaps not a very faithful Catholic. Lacking the corporeal remains of the saint, believers took pieces of the rock as “relics.”61
Oliver’s absent remains catalyzed old divisions in the community and accentuated a preexisting divide between the bishop and his parishioners. Indeed, the cult acted to support Francesca’s claims to sanctity through her ability to prophesy—an ability viewed with skepticism by local ecclesiastical leaders. The inquisitor, who had now been deputed to deal with this case, quickly brought the matter to a close by sealing the doors of the church and preventing access to the stone.62 There is no coda explaining what the parishioners of that church did when it was sealed, but it is likely that they either ceased going to services or dispersed to other nearby churches. In either event, the suppression of this burgeoning cult disrupted local patterns of worship and quelled growing religious enthusiasm.
Much of the initial phase of canonization, therefore, entailed encouraging and then managing the cult of a saint. The Curia, however, viewed such activities with increasing concern. The Roman Inquisition was already tasked with suppressing any such unapproved veneration. These efforts, which were somewhat ineffective, were aided in the 1620s, when Pope Urban VIII promulgated a series of decrees designed to deal with the problem of unapproved veneration. In particular, in 1628 he forbade the canonization of any holy person until fifty years had elapsed since his or her death.63 Thereafter, the opening move in any canonization proceeding was to establish that no cult had existed sooner than fifty years after the saint’s death.64 This served a double purpose: such a time lag was assumed to lead to a more careful consideration of the saint’s merits, as enthusiasm waned, and by forcing the promoters of sanctity to ensure that no public cult had formed prior to canonization, authorities thereby ensured that no unapproved veneration counted for official canonization.
Given these changes and innovations, why was Loyola’s case, which clearly represented unapproved veneration, allowed to go forward whereas so many others were not? The answer lies in patronage. Political and economic support determined to a great extent how nearly any aspect of a canonization unfolded. In Loyola’s case, there were two eminent cardinals and the entire Jesuit order that pressed forward approval for his canonization. The next section examines how such patronage worked in a number of other cases.
THE IMPORTANCE OF PATRONS
As we have seen, “unapproved veneration” first won a degree of approval when a local authority—usually the bishop—opened the ordinary phase of the process of canonization. The success of this preliminary evaluation depended heavily on the strength of the patron in the local community. If the bishop was absent or disliked, old religious or political divisions were often reignited. For instance, in 1612 a metropolitan canon opened the canonization of Francisco Girolamo Simon in Valencia because the episcopal seat was temporarily vacant and thereby sparked riots in the city.65 Shortly after the opening of the ordinary process, conflicts between Dominicans and Franciscans in the city exploded, with the former decrying the veneration of Simon as excessive and unjustified. In response, some of Simon’s supporters—i nspired by Franciscan preaching—marched to the Dominican convent and demonstrated—even firing arquebuses at the building in protest.66
Even when there was not a great deal of acrimony in the opening of a process, the bishop or other official still needed a fair amount of locally accepted support to begin this extended undertaking. Canonizations began with a sermon in which the bishop or one of his agents announced that he would collect testimony about the holy life and miracles of the prospective saint. A location—usually