The Catholic World, Vol. 11, April, 1870 to September, 1870Various
Religion
The Catholic World, Vol. 11, April, 1870 to September, 1870
Various
Catholic Church -- Periodicals
from the domination of one power to that of another, and later, the
convulsions of all Europe consequent on the French revolution. The
whole matter slumbered until 1855, when it was again taken up. The
examination of the life and acts was gone over again as before. Step
by step matters advanced until last November, at a general meeting
of the Congregation of Rites, held in the presence of his holiness,
it was decided _That the servant of God, John Juvenal Ancina, had in
his lifetime practised the theological virtues of faith, hope, and
charity, toward God and his neighbor, and the cardinal virtues of
prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance, and their accessory
virtues, in an heroic degree_. It was to announce this decision,
in a formal decree, that the pontiff came on the 29th January, the
festival of St. Francis de Sales, to the church of the American
College. He arrived at ten A.M., and was received at the portal
of the college by the rector of the college, and all the American
bishops now at Rome, and by a dozen others, Irish, English, Scotch,
and Italian. He proceeded at once to the church, which, though
small, is one of the handsomest in Rome for its beautiful marbles
and fine statuary. The pontiff knelt, while one of his chaplains
celebrated mass. The bishops, all the American priests in the city,
the students of the college, and many Catholics from the United
States, and some other strangers, filled the little church. After the
mass, the pontiff ascended to the throne prepared for him. Cardinal
Patrizi, prefect of the Congregation of Rites Cardinal Capalti, who
had special charge of this case, and Cardinal Barnabò, protector
of the college, stood next to him. The formal decree was read,
proclaiming the decision in virtue of which we shall henceforth say,
"_the_ VENERABLE _John Juvenal Ancina_."[20] The superior general of
the Oratorians, to which community, as we have said, he belonged,
returned thanks in an eloquent and brief discourse in Latin. The
pope then, taking his theme from the life of the VENERABLE bishop,
addressed to the prelates present a short and feeling discourse, in
Italian, on the character and virtues which should adorn a bishop.
Though he did not mention the council, it was evident that the
thought of it filled his heart. He spoke of the servant of God whom
he had just declared venerable as imitating the apostles. They, from
being fishermen, were called to be fishers of men; and he too, from
being a physician of the body, was called to be a physician of souls.
This holy man he showed to be a model of bishops, and enlarged on the
text of St. Gregory the Great, that a bishop should be "in thought,
pure; in deeds, eminent; in silence, discreet; in word, useful; in
the contemplation of heavenly things, elevated." "Who will ascend
to the mountain of the Lord? Let him be of pure hands and clean
heart." Let him be single-minded, doing every thing for the glory
of God, without any admixture of human motives.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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