Vatican City, 10 May 2012 (VIS) – The Holy Father today received in audience Cardinal Angelo Amato S.D.B., prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. During the audience he extended the liturgical cult of St. Hildegard of Bingen (1089-1179) to the universal Church, inscribing her in the catalogue of saints.
Saint Hildegard
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17 responses to “Saint Hildegard”
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Amen, alleluia!
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Most interesting since the formal canonization process was never completed for Hildegard!
I imagine this will be treated in the papal decree? Was such a decree published today?
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Perhaps this was in preparation for declaring her a Doctor of the Church, as discussed here previously, so they put off the decree until then?
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Didn’t Caligula make his horse a senator?
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Hildegard travelled throughout southern Germany and into Switzerland and as far as Paris, preaching. Her sermons deeply moved the hearers, and she was asked to provide written copies. In the last year of her life, she was briefly in trouble because she provided Christian burial for a young man who had been excommunicated. Her defense was that he had repented on his deathbed, and received the sacraments. Her convent was subjected to an interdict, but she protested eloquently, and the interdict was revoked.
Although she would have rejected much of the rhetoric of women’s liberation, she never hesitated to say what she thought needed to be said, or to do what she thought needed to be done, simply because she was a woman. When Pope or Emperor needed a rebuke, she rebuked them.
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Brigid: Hildegard did travel and preach, in front of mixed audiences of women and men not less (unusual for a monastic women fo her time, but she was never in Switzerland and Paris, I think.
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Thank you for correcting that. I was looking for the story of her choice of charity for a dying man over obedience to the hierarchy. That’s the story that inspired a daughter to take her as a Confirmation patron. I left the tag about traveling on, because it describes her as preaching.
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“she protested eloquently”
May we all have the wisdom and prudence to know how to do the same, when the time comes for protest.
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preaching, moving sermons, popular with the people, liturgical issues,….she never hesitated to say what she thought needed to be said, or to do what she thought needed to be done, simply because she was a woman. When Pope or Emperor needed a rebuke, she rebuked them …
Does this remind you of any well known abbess of our day?
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Q: So, do we have a feast day???
A: According to Catholic Online at http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=285, Hildegard was inserted into the Martyrology in the 15th century, with a feast day of September 17. -
Very good news indeed. Hildegard, is one of my favorite saints.
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a formality before naming her Doctor of the Church?!
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The more I think about this, the crazier it seems. Is Hildegard now an “official” saint? If the Pope can unilaterally canonize people, can he unilaterally uncanonize them? If he can do this by decree, what about the process of demanding miracles?
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I believe this was somewhat of a unique case because she wasn’t formally canonized (by the time she died the formal process was in place), but, like in the first millennium, she was a canonized saint by dint of being revered as such by the local peoples. She has been in the calendar of saints for German up until now. So the pope just extended her “canonization by acclamation” to the entire church.
awr-
“There go the people. I must follow them, for I am their leader.”?
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her canonization process was botched, even after a papal intervention. The papers, re-interviewing witnesses, etc., were simply lost somewhere between the Rhine and Rome. The Catholic bishops of Germany had already petitioned for Hildegard to be named a doctor of the church in the 1970s, btu where told by the Vatican that was not possible since she was not officially canonized. Ben XVI of course had already called her “saint” a while ago…
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“I am delighted to announce that on 7 October, at the start of the Ordinary Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, I will proclaim St John of Avila and St Hildegard of Bingen Doctors of the universal Church.”
Pope Benedict XVI during his Regina Coeli address on Pentecost, 27 May 2011
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