The Life of St. Vincent Pallotti FOUNDER OF THE SOCIETY OF THE CATHOLIC APOSTOLATE by Rey. JoHN S. GAYNOR, Ph. D., DD. Priest of the Society of the Catholic Apostolate UTO S. VINCENZO T. R.oyna P13 /O36 PALLOTTINE FATHERS CLERKENWELL, LONDON Imprimi potest: Gulielmus Moehler, S.A.C. Index Rector Generalis Romae, die 19 Maii 1962 Nihil Obstat Nicolaus Ferraro, S.R.C. Adsessor Fidei Sub-Promotor G.ralis PROLOGUE 2 Julii 1962. 7 Imprimatur f Aloysius Card. Provicarius CHAPTER I The Background ........................ II E Vicariatu Urbis, die g Julii 1962. CHAPTER II First Steps in the Priestly Apostolate 34 CHAPTER III Foundation of the Society of the ® t 962 Society of the Catholic Apostolate Catholic Apostolate .................... 59 CHAPTER IV Vincent's Society under Trial . 86 CHAPTER V The Universal Apostolate . III CHAPTER VI The Closing Scenes .................... 141 CHAPTER VII Aspects of his Personality . 170 EPILOGUE ... 189 First published 1962 by the Mercier Press Cork and printed in the Netherlands by Drukkerij Bosch Utrecht Prologue One day in the month of January of the year 1848, four men in the city of Rome engaged in a conversation on the current affairs of that city, which was filled with unrest, Pius IX had recently created a Council of State for the Papal States and was meditating a Constitution. Hardly anyone was pleased with the reforms he projected: the liberals because these were not liberal enough; the reac- tionaries because it meant opening the door to the dema- gogues and the dark forces which were swiftly taking up position behind them. The four men were: Padre Gioacchino Ventura, an un- named Monsignor of the Papal Court, a certain Signor Marchetti and the Anglican Archdeacon of Chichester, and over two of them the hand of destiny hung heavy. Father Ventura was a former General of the Theatine Order, the famous counter-Reformation society, which in its early days played a part almost as brilliant as its great contemporary, the Company of Jesus, in the religious affairs of those times. Ventura was famed throughout Italy as a preacher; he was, too, a voluminous writer on theological and philosophical subjects. His views were coloured by the current Traditionalist philosophies and he was, at this time, a firm believer in a Liberal solution for the problems of Italian society. He was a kindly generous man who sincerely supported the Constitution- alists without examining very carefully their characters or their motives. In the event he was to flee the country in disgust and in the year 1861, die in exile in Versailles, disillusioned and under a cloud. The Archdeacon of Chi- chester was Henry Edward Manning, a close friend of such great English Liberals as the Wilberforces and Glad- stone, a steady member of the Oxford Movement, a sound 7 churchman, whose Romeward leanings were as yet not so The Anglican Archdeacon had already heard about pronounced as to alarm either himself or anyone else. Pallotti from other sources. After his arrival in Rome, in Four years later he was to renounce Anglicanism and his November, he called on Newman, who was finishing his Liberal views, go on to be ordained a Catholic priest, studies for the priesthood, and the great convert walked found a religious community of men, become Archbishop back with Manning to his lodgings. `Newman told me that of Westminster, play a commanding part in the Vatican there is a priest in Rome, named Pallotti, known for his Council, and finally die as a Cardinal of the Holy Roman sanctity, confessor to many of the chief people, cardinals, Church. We have no information as to the subsequent etc., and that he had a sort of community'. And a couple career of the Signor Marchetti, and, of course, that of the of weeks later, the Archdeacon's Roman mentor, a certain Monsignor, whose name does not appear in our source, Broecchi, who was conducting an English-language news- which is the Manning Diaries. paper in the city and often showed the sights to dis- These men, all of them churchmen with the exception tinguished visitors, told him that `the Abbate Pallotti is a of Marchetti, sat and talked of the progress of the liberal saint; a founder of regular clerks; he spends his life serving policies and their chances of whole-hearted acceptance by the sick and hearing confessions. He is the Pope's con- the important recalcitrants operating within the Catholic fessor'. Manning is interested. On his way home one Church; the Archdeacon listenend and took mental notes evening, he calls at Pallotti's church, takes note of the title for his Diary. They were agreed, we gather, that a great of the Society, informs himself of the number of members, obstacle stood in the way of the reforms: the Abbate Vin- and notes, without comment, that there is a branch in cenzo Pallotti, whom they catalogued amongst the Ob- London. And now at this meeting he hears Pallotti dis- scurantists. His influence, it can be inferred from this talk, cussed from quite another angle. was not drawn from any political source, for he occupied The casual conversation of these men on that January no commanding position of power in the great city; in day was nothing less than a re-statement of a great and fact, no position at all, except the rectorship of an obscure everlasting debate; whether goodness, or sanctity, if you little church, the headship of a little organization of will, should be employed as a means to an end rooted in ecclesiastics and of some charitable societies which he had human society, of whether its true issue is no other than founded. His influence came from the fact that he was Religion and the Divinity. We know now that these men regarded as a saint. `He sanctifies Obscurantism' said the were utterly mistaken in their opinion that Pallotti was un-named Monsignor. And the Padre Ventura com- concerned with the politics of his day. There is no trace of plained that Pallotti had been seeing the Pope lately and any political opinion in his voluminous writings and had disturbed him by pointing out that the number of correspondence. His only concern was religion, the confessions and communions was dropping off alarming- Church, the means of grace and the union of men with ly. By some convolution of inner logic, the Padre Ventura God — sanctity. Because he achieved it himself and was able to persuade himself that this was a good thing, showed others how they too could do so, the Church has under the circumstances. `Now hypocrites declare them- raised him to her altars: St. Vincent Pallotti, the nine- selves' he pointed out. teenth-century Apostle of Rome. 8 9 The life of a saint is worthy of examination, not only because of the influence he may have had on his con- temporaries, but even more because he has succeeded in CHAPTER I meeting successfully and heroically the greatest challenge with which man is faced: the subduing of his own nature, The Background and, under God, his self-elevation into the high and serene regions where the Divinity peculiarly dwells. To give some idea of the factors involved, the means employed The particular branch of the Pallotti family from which and the results achieved, is the purpose of this little book. St. Vincent was descended can be traced back to the And since Vincent Pallotti's path to sanctity is of the middle of the 16th century and is unremarkable. They apostolic variety, his external achievements must also were residents from that period in the village of San Gior- come into our story. gio, which is a section of the commune of Cascia in Um- bria, the hilly country made famous by the names of St. Francis of Assisi and St. Rita. These Pallotti were farming folk, owning their own land, which successive subdivisions gradually reduced into uneconomic holdings. It was part of a general process in the Italian countryside that the sons and daughters of the impoverished farmers must emigrate, those of them who could, to Rome and the other large centres of population, to make another way of life for themselves and to send back help to the relatives who stayed on the homestead. Years after Vincent's death, when his name and fame began to grow as a result of the proceedings for his beatifi- cation, some of his biographers, following the example of some of the ancient hagiographers, timidly tried to es- tablish that these Pallotti were really a noble family come down in the world; the assertion appeared to gain some credence when Luigi Pallotti, Vincent's cousin, was made a Cardinal and assumed a coat-of-arms. But there is no justification for the story. The Pallotti were people of the soil. The Umbrian peasants — and in particular the peasants of Norcia — have always been skilled not only in the tilling of their soil but in the preservation of food. We are, of If II course, writing about a period before the industrial age; rounds the splendid palaces of the Chancellery of Holy there were no factories to absorb the emigrants to the Church. All their married life was spent in this house, cities, who were accordingly forced to seek their sub- which still exists much as it did then. Here Vincent Pal- sistence in the trades, if they possessed one, or in whatever lotti was born on the 21st of April, 1795, and here he occupation they could show some proficiency. The Um- continued to live until his father's death in 1837.