Alberto di Jorio – Cardinal

Priest spent 60 years accumulating money for the Vatican

Cardinal Alberto di Jorio served the Vatican
Bank for 60 years

Cardinal Alberto di Jorio, who increased the wealth of the Vatican by buying shares in big corporations, was born on this day in 1884 in Rome.

Di Jorio was considered to be the power behind the Istituto per le Opere di Religione, popularly known as the Vatican Bank, which he served for 60 years.

As a young man he had been sent to the prestigious Pontifical Roman Seminary and he became a Catholic priest in 1908.

Di Jorio worked in an administrative role for the Vatican to begin with, but in 1918, when he was still in his early 30s, he took up the position of president of the Istituto per le Opere di Religione - The Institute of Religious Works.

He was directed by Pope Pius XI to form a close working relationship with Bernardino Nogara, a layman working as a financial adviser to the Vatican. Nogara helped di Jorio build up the Vatican’s financial strength.

After the Lateran Treaty settled the Roman Question and made the Vatican an independent state, di Jorio was chosen to run the Vatican Bank and allowed to buy shares in any company, even if it made products that were contrary to Catholic Church teaching.

Pope Paul VI kept Di Jorio in post as head of
the Vatican Bank until he was almost 84

By buying into strong businesses such as General Motors, Standard Oil, IBM and Italgas, the major supplier of gas to Italy at the time, he substantially increased the wealth of the Vatican.

Di Jorio also became secretary of the Sacred College of Cardinals in 1947 and was secretary of the conclave during the election of Pope John XXIII.

Afterwards, the new Pope put his zucchetto - skullcap - on di Jorio’s head, the traditional promise that he would be made a cardinal. Six weeks later di Jorio was made Cardinal-Deacon of the Basilica of Santa Pudenziana.

Di Jorio was later consecrated Titular Archbishop of Castra Nova and he opted to join the order of Cardinal Priests.

He took part in the Second Vatican Council and the conclave of 1963 that elected Pope Paul VI. He continued to be the effective head of the Vatican Bank until 1968 when he was in his 84th year.

In 1976 di Jorio became the oldest member of the College of Cardinals, but he did not participate in the two 1978 conclaves because he was over the age limit.

That same year Pope Paul VI preached a special homily for di Jorio on the 70th  anniversary of his ordination.

Cardinal di Jorio died at his home in Rome in 1979 at the age of 95 and he was buried in a tomb in the Basilica of Santa Pudenziana in Rome.

By night, the Basilica of San Giovanni in Laterano makes a
stunning sight with its ornate neoclassical facade

Travel tip:

The Istituto per le Opere di Religione, the Vatican Bank, was founded in 1942 and its headquarters are inside Vatican City, which was recognised as an independent state inside Italy by the Lateran Treaty in 1929. The treaty is named after the Lateran Palace where the agreement was signed on behalf of King Victor Emmanuel III and Pope Pius IX. The Lateran Palace was the main papal residence in Rome between the fourth and 14th centuries. It is in Piazza San Giovanni in Laterano, next to the Basilica of San Giovanni in Laterano, the first Christian Basilica in Rome and now the cathedral church of the city. Some distance away from the Vatican, the palace is now an extraterritorial property of the Holy See, with similar rights to a foreign embassy. Vatican City covers approximately 40 hectares (100 acres) of land.

Di Jorio's tomb at the Basilica of Santa
Pudenziana in Via Urbana

Travel tip

The Basilica of Santa Pudenziana, where di Jorio is buried, is in Via Urbana to the north of the papal basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore. It is recognised as one of the oldest places of Christian worship in Rome, built in the fourth century and dedicated to Saint Pudentiana, reusing part of an old Roman bath house that can still be seen on the right side of the present structure. A Romanesque bell tower was added in the early 13th century and a Dome was added in the 16th century.

More reading:

How mystery remains over the violent death of 'God's Banker'

Why Pope Paul VI is to be made a saint

The farmer's son from Bergamo who became the 'Good Pope' 

Also on this day:

1610: The mysterious death of Caravaggio

1914: The birth of Gino Bartali, cycling star and secret war hero



Home

Pope Paul VI

Former pontiff is to be made a saint by Pope Francis

Cardinal Montini was elected Pope Paul VI
on June 21, 1963

Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini was elected as Pope Paul VI on this day in 1963 in Rome.

He succeeded Pope John XXIII and immediately re-convened the Second Vatican Council which had automatically closed after Pope John’s death.

Pope Paul then implemented its various reforms and as a result had to deal with the conflicting expectations of different Catholic groups.

Following his famous predecessor Saint Ambrose of Milan, Pope Paul named Mary as the Mother of the Church.

He described himself as ‘a humble servant for a suffering humanity’ and demanded changes from the rich in North America and Europe in favour of the poor in the third world.

Pope Paul had been born in Concesio near Brescia in 1897 and was ordained a priest in Brescia in 1920. He took a doctorate in Canon Law in Milan and afterwards studied at various universities, therefore never working as a parish priest.

He had one foreign posting, to the office of the papal nuncio in Poland.

After the outbreak of the Second World War, he created an information office for prisoners of war and refugees, producing more than 11 million replies to enquiries about missing persons.

He was attacked by Mussolini’s government several times for allegedly meddling in politics.

Pope Paul VI pleaded with the Red Brigades to
release the kidnapped former PM Aldo Moro

Pope Pius XII made him archbishop of Milan in 1954 and Pope John XXIII made him Cardinal Priest of SS Silvestro e Martino ai Monti in 1958.

After Pope John XXIII died of stomach cancer in 1963, Cardinal Montini was elected as his successor on the sixth ballot.

He later wrote in his journal: ‘The position is unique. It brings great solitude. I was solitary before, but now my solitude becomes complete and awesome.’

Pope Paul VI became the first pope to visit six continents, earning the nickname ‘the Pilgrim Pope.’

A man tried to attack him with a knife after he had arrived at Manila in the Philippines in 1970 but one of his aides managed to push the aggressor away.

Pope Paul wrote a personal letter to the terrorist group the Red Brigades in 1978 pleading with them to free the politician Aldo Moro, who had been his friend when they were both students.

After the bullet-ridden body of Moro was found in Rome, Pope Paul personally conducted his funeral mass.

Later in 1978 Pope Paul VI died at his summer residence in Castel Gandolfo after suffering a massive heart attack. According to the terms of his will he was buried beneath the floor in St Peter’s Basilica and not in an ornate sarcophagus.

Pope Paul VI has already been declared Venerable and has been Beatified, and it has recently been confirmed by the Vatican that he will be made a Saint in October this year.

The house in Concesio where Pope Paul VI was born

Travel tip:

Concesio, where Pope Paul VI was born, is a town in Lombardy about 8km (5 miles) to the north of Brescia. The town is in the lower Val Trompia at the foot of Monte Spina. The footballer Mario Balotelli was placed in foster care at the age of three with Silvia and Francesco Balotelli who lived in Concesio. Eventually he was permanently fostered by the couple and took their surname.

The pontifical palace in Castel Gandolfo, with the two
domes of the Vatican observatory

Travel tip:

Castel Gandolfo, where Pope Paul VI died, overlooks Lake Albano from its wonderful position in the hills south of Rome. The Pope spends every summer in the Apostolic Palace there. Although his villa lies within the town’s boundaries, it is one of the properties of the Holy See. The palace is not under Italian jurisdiction and is policed by the Swiss Guard. The whole area is part of the regional park of Castelli Romani, which has many places of historic and artistic interest to visit.

Also on this day:

1891: The death of architect and structural engineer Pier Luigi Nervi

1919: The birth of the architect Paolo Soleri

Home

Agostina Livia Pietrantoni - Saint

Tragic sister’s simple virtue stopped the traffic in the capital

Sister Agostina Livia Pietrantoni
was murdered by a patient

Nun Agostina Livia Pietrantoni died on this day in 1894 in Rome after being attacked by a patient at the hospital where she was working.

Her story touched Romans so deeply that her funeral brought the city to a standstill as thousands of residents lined the streets and knelt before her casket when it passed them.

The November 16 edition of the daily newspaper Il Messaggero reported that a more impressive spectacle had never before been seen in Rome.

‘From one o’clock in the afternoon, the streets close to Santo Spirito, and all the roads it was believed that the funeral procession would pass, were crowded with people to the point of making the flow of traffic difficult.’

Sister Agostina was beatified by Pope Paul VI in 1972 and canonised by Pope John Paul II in 1999. Her feast day is celebrated each year on November 12.

Sant’Agostina was born Livia Pietrantoni in 1864 in Pozzaglia Sabina to the north east of Rome. She was the second of 11 children born to a poor farmer and his wife.

She started work at the age of seven doing manual labour, carrying heavy sacks of stones and sand for road construction.

The former Santo Spirito Hospital, now a convention centre,
 is situated on the banks of the Tiber close to the Vatican

When she was 12, she went to Tivoli with other poor children to work during the olive harvesting.

Livia refused offers of marriage when she was older as she had her heart set on entering a religious order and, after an initial rejection, was accepted into the Thouret order, becoming a nun and taking the name of Agostina in 1887.

Sister Agostina was sent to work as a nurse at Santo Spirito Hospital in Rome. While working in the tuberculosis ward she contracted the disease herself, but miraculously recovered from it and continued to work there.

On one occasion while working on the tuberculosis ward she was attacked and beaten after seizing a knife from a male patient.

The patient, Giuseppe Romanelli, began to harass her and send her taunting death threats. Her fellow Sisters asked her to take time off work for her own safety but she refused.

On the morning of November 13, 1894, Romanelli stabbed Sister Agostina to death in a dark corridor at the hospital.

After suffering stab wounds to her shoulder, left arm, jugular and chest, she died, moments after forgiving her killer.

Following her canonisation, Sant’Agostina Pietrantoni was named as the Patron Saint of Nurses in 2003.

The village of Pozzaglia Sabina in Lazio, where Agostina
was born and where her remains are buried

Travel tip:

Pozzaglia Sabina, where Sant’Agostina was born, is a small comune in the province of Rieti in Lazio. In 2004 Sant’Agos- tina’s remains were returned to her home town and buried in her former parish church, the Church of San Nicola di Bari, in the first chapel on the left side of the church, which is now dedicated to her.

Travel tip:

Tivoli, where Sant’Agostina worked as a child harvesting olives, is to the north east of Rome. It is famous for its 16th century Villa d’Este, which has a terraced hillside garden with spectacular fountains. The Villa d’Este is now a state museum and is listed as a UNESCO world heritage site.

More reading:

Saint Giustina of Padua - murdered by Romans for preaching Christianity

The election of Pope John Paul II, the Polish pope

Saint Peter's Basilica - the largest church in the world

Also on this day:

1868: The death of composer Gioachino Rossini

(Photo of Pozzaglia Sabina by altotemi via Wikimedia Commons)

Home

Saint John of Capistrano

Patron saint of lawyers and chaplains

St John of Capistrano as
depicted by the German-
Hungarian artist Karoly Lotz

The feast day of Saint John of Capistrano (San Giovanni da Capestrano) is being celebrated today in Abruzzo and is marked by Catholics in the rest of Italy and the world.

The patron saint of the legal profession and military chaplains, St John is particularly venerated in Austria, Hungary, Poland and Croatia as well as in different parts of America.

St John was born in Capestrano, about halfway between L’Aquila and Pescara in the Abruzzo region of Italy, in 1386.

He studied law at the University of Perugia and was then appointed Governor of Perugia by King Ladislaus of Naples.

When war broke out between Perugia and the Malatesta family in 1416, John was sent to broker peace, but ended up in prison.

While in captivity he decided not to consummate his recent marriage but to study theology instead.

He entered the Order of Friars Minor at Perugia in 1416 and a few years later began preaching all over Italy as a Franciscan friar.

He was particularly effective in Germany, Austria, Croatia and Poland and, because the churches were not big enough for his audiences, he had to preach in public squares.

St John's willingness to lead troops into
battle saw him dubbed 'the Soldier Priest'

Unhindered by such constraints as apply today, he preached against Jews, encouraging cities to expel their Jewish population, and wrote many tracts against heresy, while helping to reform the Franciscan Order.

At the age of 70, St John was sent by Pope Calixtus III to Germany to preach against the invading Turks. He moved on to Hungary and gathered together enough troops to march into Belgrade, which was under siege to the Turkish forces.

Although by then old and frail, St John managed to lead a contingent into battle, earning the nickname ‘The Soldier Priest’.

He survived the battle but fell victim to the Bubonic Plague and died on October 23, 1456 in Ilok in Croatia.

Nearly 200 years later, John was made a Saint and his feast day was fixed for March 28. But in 1969, Pope Paul VI moved his feast day to October 23, the day of his death. There are Catholic missions in California and Texas named after him and there is a statue of St John in Hungary and a monument to him in St Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna.

Capestrano commands a hilltop location in Abruzzo

Travel tip:

Capestrano, where St John was born, is a small town in the province of L’Aquila in Abruzzo. It is within the area of the Gran Sasso e Monti della Laga National Park. The Benedictine Abbey of St Peter ad Oratorium is on the bank of the Tirino river, six kilometres from Capestrano. It was originally built in AD 752 as part of a monastery. There is also a 13th century castle on the hill above the river and the lake of Capodacqua, which contains the submerged ruins of mills.


Travel tip:

Perugia, where St John was Governor, is the capital city of Umbria and is well known for being a University town, with its own 14th century University of Umbria, the popular University for Foreigners (Universita per Stranieri), which hosts about 5,000 students a year, some smaller colleges and institutes and the Music Conservatory, which was founded in 1788.

Home

Election of Pope John Paul II

How Karol Wojtyla became first non-Italian pope for 455 years

Pope John Paul II

Pope John Paul II, who was to have a political and social influence unmatched by any pontiff since the Middle Ages, was elected to be the new leader of the Catholic Church on this day in 1978.

The result of the second Papal conclave in what became known as the Year of the Three Popes was announced after eight ballots. The new pontiff succeeded Pope John Paul I, who had died on September 28 after only 33 days in office, who had himself followed Pope Paul VI, who had passed away in August after reigning for 15 years.

The new man chosen was 58-year-old Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, then Archbishop of Kraków, the first non-Italian to hold office for 455 years since the Dutch Pope Adam VI, who served from 1522-23.

Wojtyla's stand against Poland's Communist regime had brought him respect but he was not seen as a Vatican favourite and his elevation to the highest office stunned the Catholic world.

Yet he would go on to become one of the most familiar faces in the world, remaining in post for almost 27 years, which made him the second longest-serving pope in modern history after Pope Pius IX. He visited 129 countries, beatified 1,340 people and canonised 483 saints.

He was a dynamic and approachable pope, which only enhanced his popularity. Yet to his critics, John Paul II was an arch-conservative who reinforced the Catholic Church's autocratic stance on abortion, contraception and women's rights.

On the other hand, others hail his enlightenment at having helped end Communist rule in his native Poland and eventually all of Europe, at the same time improving the Catholic Church's relations with Judaism, Islam, the Eastern Orthodox Church, and the Anglican Communion.

A stone tablet marks the spot outside St Peter's Basilica where
 Mehmet Ali Agca attempted to kill Pope John Paul II in 1981

As a young man, he loved sport, in particular soccer and skiing, and the theatre. He might have become an actor had he not been ordained a priest in 1946. He became archbishop of his home city of Krakow in 1964.

Throughout his time in office, he always wanted to get as close to the public as possible, even when huge crowds turned out to see and hear him. He survived an attempted assassination in May 1981 when, leaning out of his vehicle in St Peter's Square, he was shot and seriously wounded by a Turkish fanatic, Mehmet Ali Agca.

It was his role in the break-up of the Soviet bloc that was his most significant legacy. When Mikhail Gorbachev visited Rome in 1989 it was the first time a Soviet leader had crossed the threshold of St Peter's, and the understanding between the two men is acknowledged as having eased the transition to democracy in the eastern bloc.

Yet critics saw his support for freedom from oppression for Poles and other Eastern Europeans as at odds with his anti-liberal position on other matters.  He called for action to combat world poverty yet insisted that contraception was morally unacceptable even with the need to curb population growth, and while declaring that he wanted to improve the status of women he also stressed that motherhood should be a woman's first aspiration.

The beatification ceremony at St Peter's
in 2011 attracted huge crowds

He was fiercely and outspokenly against gay rights, believing homosexuality to be another symptom of the moral depravity of which he despaired, particularly in the United States, where headlines concerning radical feminist nuns and gay priests caused him much annoyance, even before the 1990s scandal of paedophile clergy emerged.

Increasingly frail in his later years although still insisting on maintaining a punishing schedule of travel and public appearances, he died in March 2005, having been treated in hospital for pneumonia the previous month.

Pope John Paul II became Pope Saint John Paul II just nine years after his death after a campaign that began at his funeral when crowds began chanting 'Santo subito' - literally meaning 'Saint immediately' - in recognition of his achievements.

He was beatified in 2011 by his successor Pope Benedict XVI and canonised in 2014 by Pope Francis after two women claimed their prayers to John Paul II had resulted in miracle cures, in one case from advanced Parkinson's Disease and in the other from a brain aneurysm.

Travel tip:

The stunning Renaissance Basilica of St Peter in Rome is believed to be the largest church in the world and was built to replace the original fourth century Basilica that had been constructed on what was believed to be the burial site of St Peter. Bramante, Michelangelo and Bernini all contributed to the design of the 16th century structure. Located within Vatican City, the Basilica is approached along Via della Conciliazione and through the vast space of St Peter’s Square. The magnificent central dome of the Basilica dominates the skyline of Rome and the balcony above the entrance, where the Pope makes appearances, is instantly recognisable because of the many times it has been shown on television.

The pope's summer residence at Castel Gandolfo
 overlooks Lake Albano

Travel tip:

Castel Gandolfo, where Pope John Paul II spent a lot of time while recovering from the attempt on his life, overlooks Lake Albano from its wonderful position in the hills south of Rome. It is traditional for the Pope to take up residence every summer in the Apostolic Palace there. Although his villa lies within the town’s boundaries, it is one of the properties of the Holy See. The palace is not under Italian jurisdiction and is policed by the Swiss Guard. The whole area is part of the regional park of Castelli Romani and there are many places of historic and artistic interest to see there.

More reading:

The day Pope John Paul II came face to face with his would-be killer

(Photo of Lake Albano by Gaucho CC BY-SA 3.0)

Home