HER CANONIZATION
In reading the wonderful and miraculous facts of the life of St. Rita
and the very many prodigious works done by God through her
intercession, the reader must have asked himself more than once how it
is that so grand a soul, whose heroic virtues shine so brightly, and
who was, like the greatest saints of the Church, favoured by God with
most singular graces and sublime privileges, should be adorned with the
aureole of a saint and raised to highest honours of the altars only
after more than four centuries had passed since she had gone to
immortal glory in heaven.
The only reasonable answer to this question, the only explanation of a
delay not by any means unique in the history of the canonization of the
great heroes of the Church, is that the judgments of God are
incomprehensible and His ways unsearchable, and the Divine wisdom which
in His own time makes each cause produce its effect, and all things
regulates in number, weight, and measure, so disposes it that the
exaltation of His servants on earth then takes place when it is for the
greater glorification of His Church and the greater spiritual advantage
of Christians. This just reflection ought to console us in the sorrow
we naturally feel at the long delay that has occurred in bringing to a
happy termination the process of the canonization of our heroine.
After the privilege of reciting the office and celebrating Mass in
honour of the saint had been granted to the Augustinian Order and the
Diocese of Spoleto in 1627, as soon as the solemn festivals we have
described were brought to an end, devotion to St. Rita increased to
such an extent, and the desire of the faithful became so fervent to
have their great advocate enrolled by the Church's supreme authority in
the catalogue of the Blessed and afterwards of the Saints, that in
August, 1737, her cause was resumed in the state and terms in which it
was found. On the 3rd of August in that year an ordinary session of
the Congregation was held to debate the point whether the case excepted
in the decrees of Pope Urban VIII. was fully established, and in the
result the Congregation found the answer to be in the affirmative, and
Pope Clement XII., on the 13th of the same month, confirmed the finding
of the Congregation. On the 25th of July in the following year
remissorial letters were therefore sent to the Ecclesiastical Courts of
Spoleto, in whose jurisdiction Cascia then was, authorizing them to
institute an Apostolic process of inquiry regarding the virtues and
miracles of Blessed Rita, it being the unbroken practice of the Holy
See not to grant the supreme honours of the altars unless it be shown
that the theological and moral virtues were practised in a heroic
degree. But the process then begun was interrupted by various events,
and was not resumed until 1851. Without further interruption it was
finally perfected in 1855, and its validity was approved in 1856 in
Rome by Pius IX., of happy memory. Meanwhile the fame of the
extraordinary graces and miracles granted by God through the saint's
intercession was everywhere increasing, but it is hard to collect the
proofs and institute a process that will satisfy the rigorous
requirements which the Church exacts in those matters.
Nevertheless, juridical proofs of some of these miraculous occurrences
were not wanting. In fact, in the years 1851 and 1852 there was held
by Apostolic permission in the Ecclesiastical Courts of Nursia, under
the jurisdiction of which Cascia had passed, a process of inquiry into
the reported case of instantaneous curing of a girl--Elisabetta
Bergamini, who had been suffering from conjunctivitis complicated with
ulcerous keratitis. Owing to the efforts of the Most Rev. Mons.
Casimiro Gennari, then Bishop of Conversano, and at present titular
Archbishop of Lepanto and Assessor of the Inquisition, who is most
zealous, as we have said, in spreading devotion to St. Rita, the
authorization of the Holy See was asked for and obtained in 1887 to
institute a formal Apostolic process of inquiry into the case of Cosimo
Pelligrini, of the town of Conversano, who was reported to have been
miraculously cured. As soon as the inquiry was perfected, it was
scrutinized in an ordinary Congregation of the Rota on the 28th of
June, 1892, and its validity recognised. On the 17th of the following
month the Holy Father deigned to confirm the sentence of the Sacred
Congregation.
Almost at the same time there was held, by virtue of remissorial
letters of the 18th of February, 1892, in the Ecclesiastical Courts of
Nursia, a special inquiry, in which the Promoter of the Faith, Mons.
Agostino Caprara, intervened, into the most sweet and miraculous odour
which from time immemorial is at intervals experienced about the
blessed body of St. Rita. By other remissorial letters of the 22nd of
August following, the Promoter of the Faith was empowered to examine
the venerable body itself, in order to make certain that it had never
been embalmed, nor any odoriferous substances placed in it.
When this process of inquiry into the marvellous odour was brought to
an end, it was decided to join it to the process that had been executed
in the courts of Spoleto by ordinary authority in 1626. On the 25th of
February, 1896, the Sacred Congregation of Rites delivered its judgment
that the validity of the two processes of 1626 and 1892 had been
established, the reporter of the cause being his Eminence Cardinal
Gaetano Aloisi-Masella, Prefect of that Congregation. As regards
another process of inquiry executed in 1775, with only ordinary
authority, into the instantaneous and miraculous curing of an
Augustinian nun of the convent of Cascia, it was decided to supplicate
the reigning Pontiff, Leo XIII., that he would deign to make good the
defect of jurisdiction, and make the acts of that process valid. But
the Holy Father, rather than grant the convalidation, was pleased to
dispense, by most special favour, with the fourth miracle, for from
time immemorial the proof of four miracles has been required for the
canonization of the servants of God.
Owing to the sovereign concession of the Holy Father, the promoters of
the cause of canonization had high hopes of bringing it to a happy
conclusion before much more time should pass. They obtained leave to
introduce the Ordinary Process of 1626 as having equal value as proof
with the Apostolic Process that closed in 1855; and the presence of the
consulters and their voting being dispensed with, on the 6th of April,
1897, in an ordinary meeting of the Congregation, the writings of St.
Rita were inquired into, and it was further debated and discussed
'Whether the virtues of Blessed Rita had been so clearly established
that the discussion of her miracles might be proceeded with?' The
session gave an affirmative decision, which was confirmed by the
Sovereign Pontiff on the 9th of the month.
The way was thus prepared for the discussion of the miracles.
Information regarding them and summaries were prepared, and the
opinions of two distinguished experts were added. On the 27th of June,
1899, the Congregation met under the presidency of the Most Eminent
Cardinal Aloisi-Masella, reporter of the cause, to discuss the
miracles, and on the 9th of January, 1900, the preparatory Congregation
held its meeting in the Vatican palace, and on the following 27th of
March, in the general Congregation, assembled, as is customary, in the
presence of the Holy Father, the following subject was discussed:
'Whether any, and what, miracles have been conclusively proved, after
veneration had been allowed to the Blessed, in case and to the effect
of the present discussion?' And by a very special favour of the Holy
See the following was also discussed: 'And granted the approval of the
miracles, whether her canonization may safely be proceeded with?'
The Most Eminent Cardinals and Most Rev. Consulters delivered their
opinions on both matters, and were heard most attentively by the
Sovereign Pontiff; and although he described the cause as _most rare_
and _most noble_, he nevertheless, according to the usual custom,
deferred giving his definitive decision, but _redoubled his prayers to
implore the help of Heaven_.
On Palm Sunday, the 8th of April following, the Holy Father, after
having most fervently offered to God the Eucharistic Sacrifice, had the
decree of approval of the three miracles, of which we shall speak
afterwards, read and published with the accustomed solemnity by
Monsignor the Secretary of the Sacred Congregation of Rites. He next
published the decrees, called the 'Tuto,' for the beatification of
seventy-three Venerable Martyrs of China, Tonquin, and Cochin China,
members of the Dominican and Franciscan Orders, the Congregations of
Missionary Priests, and of Foreign Missions; and the decree of
beatification of the Venerable Martyrs of the West Indies, members of
the Order of Discalced Carmelites, and that of the beatification of the
Venerable Servant of God, Maria Cresenzia Hoss, professed nun of the
Third Order of St. Francis. His Holiness then deigned to address to
the assembly a Latin allocution, in which he manifested the joy that he
felt, especially for the decrees regarding Blessed Rita of Cascia, the
glory and ornament of the Augustinian Order, and the jewel of the
Umbrian province, which gave birth also to St. Benedict and St.
Francis, and where for many years the Sovereign Pontiff himself had
exercised as Bishop his pastoral ministry. All the more did he rejoice
since it was a question of this most humble and most holy woman's
canonization, a solemn religious ceremony, and supreme act of the
Pontifical authority and of the infallible teaching of the Vicar of
Jesus Christ. He added that it was desirable that the marvellous odour
which is diffused and given forth from time to time near the sacred
remains of the Blessed Rita, and called prodigious from the time of
Urban VIII., should soon be renewed, as a happy augury of a better
future in this Holy Year and in this century that is about to commence.