Posted on 12/18/2024 3:31:35 PM PST by ebb tide
Francis approved today the Equipollent Canonization of the Sixteen Carmelite Martyrs of Compiègne, who can now be honored as saints.
Mother Marie: Sister Blanche...First Commissary: I forbid you to continue...Mother Marie: You have the power to force me to silence, but none to command me to it. I represent here the Reverend Mother Prioress and I shall take no orders from you.A Commissary: Confounded old hag! She cannot be made to hold her tongue, fellow Citizen, but remind her that the Republic has a machine at its disposal that will leave her somewhat short of breath!First Commissary: Enough! I repeat that you must behave as a true representative of the people! [He turns to Sister Blanche:] Young citizen, you have nothing to fear from us, who are your liberators! Say but one word, and you will find yourself beyond the sway of those who, to better put you in their power, have not feared to offend nature in usurping even the sacred name of "mother". Henceforth, you are under the protection of the Law.Mother Marie: But she is first under my protection. Do you think I shall permit you to take any further advantage of the terror of a child? I shall take great care to avoid a language that you cannot understand. You know nothing of that which holds us here and keeps us united unto death - or, if once you knew it, it is now certainly forgotten. But there are still perhaps words which are common to us, and which can touch your conscience. Well, sir, you must know that to the poorest daughter of Carmel, honor speaks louder than fear.
Ping
Hi ebb tide:
Glad someone got around to presenting this. I read this on 2 sites today, Rorate Caeli and Catholic News Agency.
This is actually an act of the Ordinary and Universal Magisterium hence by my count, the first act of Papal Infallibility by Pope Francis.
As the CNA article by Courtney Mares from earlier today (18 December 2024) notes “equipollent canonization is an invocation of papal infallibility in which the pope declares that a person is among the saints in heaven. It avoids the formal process of canonization as well as the ceremony, since it occurs by the publication of a papal bull.”
So prayers for Pope Francis might have been answered as this is a very powerful act by him given the French Revolutionaries beheaded this 16 Carmelite Nuns when they would not renounce Christ and the Catholic Church.
Cheers.
Thank you, I had never seen that dialogue. I do know that the martyrdom of these nuns helped precipitate the end of the Reign of Terror.
I need to watch the opera. I’ve been meaning too.
It’s about time! It took only 200 years! 😡
I agree, this is the first thing in a while that I can 100% say thank God for what Pope Francis did.
Every town is named after a Saint, or a Sacrament, or the Trinity, or an episode of Catholic Church history.
Yet Communism and atheism thrive, the people are agnostic and indifferent to Christianity, and the hatred of the Church is evident everywhere in the history of France, and in contemporary society and politics.
The great irony of this wonderful canonization is that the pope, by all accounts, is a Communist, in word and deed. Maybe he is undergoing a conversion and recognizing the evil of Communism. Or maybe this is someone else's agenda and he is rubber-stamping it.
One thing that makes sense: satan always attacks the faithful where he sees they are strong and productive: a frontal assault. The scandals in the Church, the attack on the Mass by Vatican 2, Pachamama, and the Synodal Synod, the vigor of the proponents of Communism in murdering millions and dehumanizing so many. It makes sense that he would infiltrate the Church hierarchy with his agents.
Thank you for posting this.
Ashamed to say I knew nothing about this episode.
Maybe this is a huge event in the ongoing revival we are witnessing. Coming a week after the rebirth of Notre Dame, it portends perhaps a rebirth of the faith in France.
I can highly recommend the book “To Quell the Terror” by William Bush (can be found on Amazon). It is thoroughly researched and tells the true story of the Nuns’ sacrifice, not the factionalized version of “Dialogues of the Carmelites.” It also describes many details of the laws and decrees of the organizers of the French Revolution. (One factoid which I found interesting and disturbing - which I did not know before reading this book - is that the leaders decreed the week to have 8 days - so that it would be “different” and not what God created. Such hubris!). Reading this book makes one understand just how far from “liberty, equality, fraternity” the French Revolution really was. The reality has been totally whitewashed and romanticized. It was a gory, violent mob-controlled rebellion against God and his Church - all faithful Catholics, priests, and religious. I had been taught in school that it was a rebellion against the Monarchy, but that was only a secondary result. The real reason was to obliterate the Faith, because doing that would remove the notion of the Divine Right of the Monarchy. This aspect was never taught in school and was a true eye-opener for me.
It is not someone else’s agenda. This was done by the Pope’s own power and not through the normal Canonization process which starts with the local Bishop who was first petitioned by a local priest to start an investigation. Then the Local Bishop does an investigation with the help of other priests. After the local Bishop and his group of theological advisors have finished their investigation it does to the Vatican Dicastery for the Congregation for Causes of Saints which has been around since Pope Sixtus V. The Pope after the Congregation has sent its investigation to the Pope, the Pope then decides to approve the person as Venerable then they are only canonized if a miracle is attributed to the Venerable Persons intercession.
Think of Venerable Bishop Fulton Sheen’s case for beatification. He was declared Venerable by Pope Benedict XVI back in 2012, in 2019 approved for canonization but some anti Sheen forces wanted to make sure how he as Bishop handled an abuse case against a priest back in the early 1960’s so it held it up. Pope Francis agreed to have an additional investigation and Venerable Bishop Fulton Sheen is now back on track for canonization, but I have not heard if a date has been set.
In the case of the 16 Holy Carmelite Nuns and Martyrs, Pope Francis used what is called a rare process called “equipollent canonization.”
This is like a case where the Pope acted similar to defining a Dogma ex cathedra rather than a Dogma being defined by an Ecumenical Council that the Pope then approves the Councils Solemn Decree.
Thanks very much for your explanation, CTrent1564.
Antediluvian France with its excessive and spoiled monarchy, which had ruined the nation's finances and cultivated the ire of the lower classes, indeed was in need of drastic reform, even revolution.
But the French Revolution and The Terror was obviously a fugue state... a complete departure from sane behavior by a huge, murderous, bloodthirsty, mad, mob of Communists, led by some real satanists like Robespierre.
Yes the lot were arrogant to try to get eight days in a week and do super-vain things like rename the months of the year.
(But I confess calling July 'Thermidor' shows some real Gallic flair and un certain 'don de la cuisine'). LOL.
But I totally agree with you that the revolutionaries' hatred of the Monarchy was also a hatred of the Almighty and the Divine Right of Kings (which I still believe in... and I think the Almighty believes in it, too. The only persons who disregard the concept are the world's kings and presidents).
I appreciate your book recommendation and I will seek it out. Since I last posted I read about Picpus Cemetiere in Paris and the deaths of the Carmelites. It seems incomprehensible that they would all go to the guillotine with such decorum, but knowing many old-school religious in my life, if anyone could do so, it would be them. They are super hard-core, and were even more so back then.
On a personal note, it may surprise you that I remember picking up a newspaper (Ouest-France in 1976, if memory serves, and I read a headline about a child molester/murder, who had been executed by guillotine the day before: It was still used for capital punishment.)
The French have not lost their sang-froid, nor have they extinguished their contempt for the Catholic Church, I am sad to say.
Very strange indeed the schizophrenic affection toward the Church shown by French culture over the centuries, as well as its defiant secularism and anticlerical laws and attitudes.
I hope for the sake of the nation that they are on the verge of a wonderful Christian renewal. The French, who, being rational and possessing self-discipline and a superb educational heritage and understanding of history and philosophy, ought to have discovered how terrible and hopeless communism is and abandoned it long ago.
Indeed they are wise enough to know that their real destiny is with the Catholic Church, not with Communism and Humanism.
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