Vittoria Colonna and Pole's "Spirituali" after Trent

I've nearly finished reading Father Dermot Fenlon's book about Reginald Cardinal Pole, the Lutheran doctrine of Justification, the Council of Trent, and the Counter-Reformation in Italy (and in England, to a lesser extent). One figure among the spirituali Cardinal Pole gathered around him in Viterbo is Vittoria Colonna, who died on February 25, 1547. According to the old Catholic Encyclopedia:

She was the daughter of Fabrizio Colonna, lord of various Roman fiefs and grand constable of Naples. Her mother, Agnese da Montefeltro, was a daughter of Federigo da Montefeltro, first Duke of Urbino. In 1509 Vittorio was married to Ferrante Francesco d'Avalos, Marquis of Pescara, a Neapolitan nobleman of Spanish origin, who was one of the chief generals of the Emperor Charles V. Pescara's military career culminated in the victory of Pavia (24 February, 1525), after which he became involved in Morone's conspiracy for the liberation of Italy, and was tempted from his allegiance to the emperor by the offer of the crown of Naples. Vittoria earnestly dissuaded him from this scheme, declaring (as her cousin, Cardinal Pompeo Colonna, tells us) that she "preferred to die the wife of a most brave marquis and a most upright general, than to live the consort of a king dishonoured with any stain of infamy". Pescara died in the following November, leaving his young heir and cousin, Alfonso d'Avalos, Marchese del Vasto, under Vittorio's care.

Vittoria henceforth devoted herself entirely to religion and literature. We find her usually in various monasteries, at Rome, Viterbo, and elsewhere, living in conventual simplicity, the centre of all that was noblest in the intellectual and spiritual life of the times. She had a peculiar genius for friendship, and the wonderful spiritual tie that united her to Michelangelo Buonarroti made the romance of that great artist's life. Pietro Bembo, the literary dictator of the age, was among her most fervent admirers. She was closely in touch with Ghiberti, Contarini, Giovanni Morone, and all that group of men and women who were working for the reformation of the Church from within. For a while she had been drawn into the controversy concerning justification by faith, but was kept within the limits of orthodoxy by the influence of the beloved friend of her last years, Cardinal Reginald Pole, to whom she declared she owed her salvation. Her last wish was to be buried among the nuns of S. Anna de' Funari at Rome; but it is doubtful whether her body ultimately rested there, or was removed to the side of her husband at San Domenico in Naples.

She wrote many Petrarchan sonnets to Michelangelo on religious themes; here are two "Recomposed by Anna Key" on Dappled Things, and you may find a translation of a poem he wrote to her on this page ("XII/ To Vittoria Colonna/A Matchless Courtesy)

Here's another biographical source, focused on her poetry.

In Father Dermot Fenlon's Heresy and Obedience in Tridentine Italy: Cardinal Pole and the Counter Reformation, Vittoria Colonna appears last in Chapter 13, "The Tridentine decree and the end of the Viterbo circle", pages 213-217. Fenlon describes how she wanted to help protect Alvise Priuli so he could peacefully achieve "simple acquiescence in the doctrine [of Justification] put forward at the Council" and remain in the Church, as she had. On page 215, he comments that "With her death, the Viterbo circle came to an end". In later chapters, the effect of her death on Cardinal Pole's last years is mentioned, but her efforts to help Priuli is her last dated correspondence.

Image Credit (public domain): Sebastiano del Piombo - Vittoria Colonna (?)

For U.S. President's Day: Review Essay in the NCRegister

While the President's Day Sales are still being advertised, please allow me to announce my review essay of two books in the current issue of the National Catholic Register! After I'd submitted my copy, the editor asked me to add some words about "Prelates and Presidents", and they ended up at the top of the feature (and supplied the title for the article!):

Just in time for Presidents’ Day, take time to learn about how presidents interacted with Catholics.

Father Charles Connor, a theologian and historian who was ordained in the Diocese of Scranton, Pennsylvania, and is a popular EWTN host, focuses much of his narrative in Toil and Transcendence: Catholicism in 20th-Century America on the relationships between U.S. presidents, from Grover Cleveland to Ronald Reagan, and leading members of the hierarchy, from Baltimore Cardinal James Gibbons to Cardinals Joseph Bernardin of Chicago and John O’Connor of New York. Thus, major events like World Wars I and II, the Great Depression, The New Deal, the Cold War and others are seen mostly at the highest levels of decision-making and reaction.

Some of Cardinal Gibbons’ contacts with U.S. presidents were better than others: Theodore Roosevelt (“T.R.”) was always ready to defend Catholics’ religious rights from the time he was the police commissioner in New York City to his presidency. Relations with President Woodrow Wilson were considerably cooler: “Chilly Wilson” had “anti-Catholic views” (p. 107) and rejected Pope Benedict XV’s peace plans in 1919 at the end of World War I. When Cardinal Gibbons died in 1921, President Warren Harding sent a letter of condolence and praise, commending him as a fine citizen and Churchman (p. 133).

Franklin D. Roosevelt’s four presidential victories, his efforts to aid recovery from the Great Depression, and his role as commander-in-chief during World War II provoked various Catholic responses. The radio priest Father Charles Coughlin, who promoted anti-communist and anti-Semitic views, first supported then protested against Roosevelt’s New Deal and other policies. The archbishop of New York, Cardinal Francis Spellman, remonstrated against Allied bombing of Vatican City in 1943 and 1944, especially since the Holy See was considered neutral.

Both Roosevelt and his successor, President Harry Truman, tried to establish diplomatic relations with the Holy See, but anti-Catholicism at the time meant, as Father Connor relates, that it would take 30 more years for it to happen.

The relationship between President Reagan and Pope St. John Paul II receives due coverage (pp. 344-358). Father Connor also describes the negotiations between Cardinal Bernardin and the Reagan administration regarding the U.S. bishops’ 1983 pastoral letter “The Challenge of Peace” (pp. 358-360), concluding his survey of contacts between prelates and presidents with the appointment of William Wilson as the first U.S. ambassador to the Holy See in 1984. . . .

I also reviewed American Pilgrimage: A Historical Journey through Catholic Life in a New World by Christopher Shannon from Augustine Institute/Ignatius Press. As the publishers' blurb states:

Histories of the Catholic Church in the United States abound. Most suffer from an excess of either scholarly detachment or popular triumphalism. American Pilgrimage seeks instead to draw on the best of current scholarship to tell the story of the Church as it understands itself: the Body of Christ, divinely ordained yet marred by sin, charged with the mission of spreading the Gospel and building up the community of the faithful.

In scope, American Pilgrimage narrates the story of the Church from the dramatic efforts at evangelization in the colonial period, to the Catholic urban villages of the immigrant Church, to the struggles to reimagine tradition in the late-20th century. In shape, it follows this story through the Augustinian contours of the ongoing struggle between the City of God and the City of Man—a struggle that takes place between the Church and the world, within the Church itself, and within the soul of every Christian.

I recommend both books (and the other books in Father Connor's trilogy) to anyone who loves to read Church History and well-written, well-researched studies of Catholicism in the United States from the Colonial era to the 20th Century.

I'm eager to see this in print!

Pole and Pate in Tridentine Italy on the Doctrine of Justification

As I'm reading Father Dermot Fenlon's Heresy and Obedience in Tridentine Italy: Cardinal Pole and the Counter Reformation, I just read about one Richard Pate, the Bishop of Worcester appointed by Pope Paul III in 1541 after Henry VIII dismissed the incumbent Italian bishop, Cardinal Jerome Ghinucci in 1535 (the Pope was acting as if nothing had changed!). Bishop Richard Pate would not really take up his see until Queen Mary I came to the throne and was one of the co-consecrators of of Reginald Cardinal Pole in 1556 as Archbishop of Canterbury.

Like many during Henry VIII's reign, and beyond, he had an interesting career. According to the old Dictionary of National Biography (published 1885-1900), he had one great advantage: one of his uncles was Bishop John Longland of Lincoln, his mother's brother, as he was the:

son of John Pate by Elinor, sister of John Longland [q. v.], bishop of Lincoln, was born in Oxfordshire, probably at Henley-on-Thames, and was admitted on 1 June 1522 a scholar of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, whence he graduated B.A. on 15 Dec. 1523, according to Wood (Fasti, ed. Bliss, i. 63). This degree having been completed by determination, he went to Paris, and there graduated M.A. On 4 June 1523 he was collated by his uncle to the prebend of Centum Solidorum in the church of Lincoln, and he resigned it for that of Cropredy in 1525. He appears to have resided for some time at Bruges, as John Ludovicus Vivès, writing from that city on 8 July 1524 to Bishop Longland, the king's confessor, says: ‘Richard Pate, your sister's son, and Antony Barcher, your dependant, are wonderfully studious’ (Brewer, Letters and Papers of Henry VIII, vol. iv. pt. i. p. 203). In 1526 he was made archdeacon of Worcester. On 11 March 1526–7 he had the stall of Sanctæ Crucis, alias Spaldwick, in the church of Lincoln, and on 22 June 1528 the stall of Sutton cum Buckingham in the same church. On this latter date he was also made archdeacon of Lincoln upon the death of William Smith, doctor of decrees. . . .

He served Henry VIII as Ambassador to the Court of the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, and heard Katherine of Aragon's nephew express his complaints about "the course adopted by the king of England, and energetically defended his own action on behalf of his aunt, Catherine of Arragon (sic). Subsequently he accompanied the emperor to the Low Countries."

Peter Marshall, in Religious Identities in Henry VIII's England, according to Wikipedia notes that Pate in 1537 [perhaps influenced the Emperor?] ". . . was removed from that position, after he had advocated for the legitimate status of Princess Mary; but he was reinstated in 1540.[2]" He also notes that that Pate was thought lukewarm toward the king's marital matters, and was recalled to England soon after that reinstatement (p. 235). But he stayed on the Continent and went to Rome, where he was named the Bishop of Worcester as noted above. On page 238 of the same volume, Marshall notes that Pate and his chaplain, Seth Holland, were attainted as traitors by Parliament in 1542.

As Pope Paul III's Bishop of Worcester, Richard Pate attended the Council of Trent. When Reginald Cardinal Pole left the first session of the Council of Trent because of illness, Pate remained as one of the spirituali of Pole's community, and he argued for a more Lutheran doctrine of Justification. (Chapter 9. The 'spirituali' at Trent)

Fenlon states on page 149 that on 9 July 1546 Pate argued "'faith alone' was the instrument of justification, while seeming to imply as well, that good works performed after justification were not meritorious, although they remained necessary as being in accordance with the will of God." Later that month, on 20 July, Pate supported the statement that "justice increased to the extent faith increased; good works were the fruit of justification, and a sign to man that his salvation was assured." (pp. 149-150) Fenlon also comments that Pate was "significantly more opposed to the doctrine [on Justification] was about to define . . . [than] any other prelate present at Trent" (p. 150), and after a detailed survey of Pate's educational, clerical, and diplomatic career (pp. 149 to 160) concludes that Pate "was convinced of Luther's orthodoxy on the fundamental question of salvation". (p. 150).

How Pole and Pate will respond to the Doctrine of Justification as defined by the Council of Trent, I have yet to find out. This is a post in medias res. The next chapter is 10. Pole's Protest!

The Dictionary of National Biography continues his life story:

Pate attended the council of Trent as bishop of Worcester, his first appearance there being in the session which opened on 21 April 1547. He was also present at the sittings of the council in September 1549 and in 1551. He remained in banishment during the reign of Edward VI. In 1542 he had been attainted of high treason, whereupon his archdeaconry was bestowed on George Heneage, and his prebend of Eastharptre in the church of Wells on Dr. John Heryng.

On the accession of Queen Mary he returned to this country. His attainder was reversed, and on 5 March 1554–5 he obtained possession of the temporalities of the see of Worcester (Rymer, Fœdera, xv. 415). . . .

Historian Jack Scarisbrick describes how Pate finally took up the see of Worcester in this 2019 Catholic Herald article:

. . . Worcester was very complicated. For a while in 1554 there were four people with the title of bishop: the long-since-resigned Hugh Latimer; his successor Thomas Heath, future archbishop of York, who was deprived of his see in 1551 by the Protestant regime and replaced by one Thomas Hooper (who was eventually burnt, along with Latimer and Cranmer).

Heath was restored to Worcester by Mary – only to be soon translated to York, thus making way for Pate – and enabling the latter at last to take up residence in the see of which he had been pastor in absentia for 13 years.

The Dictionary of National Biography entry concludes:

Queen Elizabeth deprived him of the temporalities in June 1559, and cast him into prison. He was in the Tower of London on 12 Feb. 1561–2, when he made his will, which has been printed by Brady. On regaining his liberty he withdrew to Louvain, where he died on 5 Oct. 1565. Mass is still said for him every year at the English College, Rome, on the anniversary of his death. 

One of the figures in Holbein's celebrated picture of ‘The Ambassadors,’ now in the National Gallery, is believed to represent Pate (Times, 8 Dec. 1891).

I wonder if that annual Mass is still celebrated at the VEC in Rome? 

The identity of the figures in Holbein's The Ambassadors I think is settled now (and one of them is not Pate!) according to The National Gallery in London.

The Cult of St. Thomas of Canterbury in Music

The Cambridge Core website recently announced:

British Catholic History, the journal of the Catholic Record Society, is delighted to announce the winner of its Best Article Prize in 2022:

Katherine Emery, ‘Destruction, Deconstruction, and Dereliction: Music for St Thomas of Canterbury during the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, 1530-1600’

Katherine’s article was described by the judges as follows:

‘This is an impressive piece of innovative and interdisciplinary scholarship at the forefront of the 'sonic turn’ in the study of lived religion. Focusing on music written and performed in honour of St Thomas of Canterbury, this carefully researched article looks back to the pre-Reformation world but concentrates on the Tudor period, offering a new narrative of English cultural and religious history. Interleaving rich manuscript research with the parsing of a substantial historiography on devotion to the saint, it offers an original angle on pre-Reformation and Counter-Reformation music making and liturgical performances. This is an outstanding article from an early career scholar which eloquently attests to, and will further advance, the expansion and diversification of British Catholic studies.

The article is available for free now (don't know how long) and here is the abstract:

Between the late-twelfth and early-sixteenth centuries, much music (both liturgical and non-liturgical) was written in honour of St Thomas of Canterbury. However, in the 1530s his cult became a major target for reformers and, in 1538, Henry VIII (1491-1547) ordered the destruction of his shrine and the obliteration of all music written in his honour. This article will examine how music composed to memorialise St Thomas was treated during the Reformation and Counter-Reformation. It explores the process of self-censorship prompted by Henry’s proclamation on the cult of St Thomas that led to his erasure from liturgical books in England. It analyses the attempts by reformers to discredit music concerning St Thomas, particularly by radical reformer John Bale (1495-1563). Finally, it examines music that was composed by Catholics for St Thomas during the Counter-Reformation and asks what it can tell us about the state of the cult in the late sixteenth century. This approach results in an overview of St Thomas’ cult during the later sixteenth century and contributes to our understanding of changing conceptions of the saint by Catholic communities in the post-Reformation world.

I'm still reading the article now, but one thing we should keep in mind is that St. Thomas of Canterbury was and is not just a saint in England--he was and is a saint honored by the whole Catholic Church (and he is recognized on the Church of England sanctoral calendar)! For example, in 2016 a relic of St. Thomas was brought back to Canterbury from Hungary. As a British Museum article stated in 2019: "In death Becket remained a figure of opposition to unbridled power and became seen as the quintessential defender of the rights of the Church. To this end you can find images of his murder in churches across Latin Christendom, from Germany and Spain, to Italy and Norway. Becket was, and remains, a truly European saint." That's why Pope Paul III finally issued the Bull announcing Henry VIII's excommunication in 1538 after the King ordered the destruction of St. Thomas's shrine and the desecration of his remains. 

So, for example, when Emery writes: "Yet Becket’s paramount cultural position was not to last forever. Although reformer James Bainham was burnt at the stake partly for daring to question Becket’s saintly status in 1532, by the late 1530s the mood had turned decisively against St Thomas.", her comment applies to England at that time--not to the Catholic Church as a whole.