Christmas Every Day

1523 Death of a Dutch pope

Pope Adrian VI, born Adriaan Florensz in Utrecht, in the Netherlands in 1459, was the last non-Italian pope for over 450 years. He was born into a humble family but received an excellent education at a school run by the Brethren of the Common Life, who were pioneering humanist teaching for lay people. He went on to the University of Leuven on a scholarship provided by the Duchess of Burgundy. He became a teacher of theology and eventually taught that subject at the university where one of his students was Erasmus.

When the Habsburg princess Margaret of Austria became Governor of the Netherlands in 1506, she chose Adrian as an adviser. He soon became tutor to her nephew Charles, the son of Emperor Maximilian, a boy who would himself become Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor. He was employed frequently by the Habsburgs, who ruled almost half of Europe, as a diplomat. He served for a time as Regent of Spain and as head of the Spanish Inquisition.

In January, 1522 he was elected pope in the midst of the burgeoning Protestant Reformation. He condemned Luther as a heretic but his own attempts at reform were viewed with suspicion and resistance from his conservative cardinals. He died in September 1523.

1857 The Mountain Meadows Massacre

The USA in the 19th century was fertile ground for the propagation of startling new religions: the Shakers, the Seventh-Day Adventists, Millerites, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Christian Scientists. None aroused as much opposition or violence as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, the “Mormons”. Founded by Joseph Smith in New York in the 1830, the sect was regarded with great suspicion for its new revelations, causing the church to gradually move west to find safe ground. In 1844 the church’s founder, Joseph Smith, and his brother were murdered by a mob and tensions increased to the point that its adherents abandoned their work in Missouri and Illinois and determined to establish a new Zion on the Utah plains. Led by Brigham Young, the church establish a colony and several cities around the Great Salt Lake. Young’s theocracy and scandalous rumours caused the American government to send the army against the Mormons in 1857.

It was at this moment when a wagon party of west-bound emigrants from Arkansas, known as the Baker-Fancher Train, entered Mormon territory. There they found the inhabitants hostile and stirred up by preachers spreading ideas of resistance to American forces and violence against outsiders. Talk of the End Times and God’s final acts of vengeance were in the air. Unable to buy the supplies they needed in Salt Lake City, the wagon party headed south. When they were camped at Mountain Meadows they were attacked by local Mormons disguised as Paiutes and some local tribesmen. After a siege of seven days, the settlers were promised safe conduct if they would surrender their animals and supplies to the natives but when they came out from behind their fort of wagons they were set upon and massacred. Every adult and child above the age of seven were killed, 120 in all, and seventeen infants were taken and given to Mormon families. The bodies were left unburied and the settlers’ property was divided among the Paiutes and Mormons.

The arrival of the American army prompted an investigation of the murders which was hindered by the Mormons. It has never been established whether Brigham Young had given the order for the killings but he did nothing to punish the perpetrators. Only one man was ever brought to justice twenty years later. The site of the massacre is now a National Historic Landmark.

1383 Birth of Amadeus of Savoy, elected as antipope Felix V in 1439. The infamous papal schism of 1378-1415 which has seen two, three and then four popes simultaneously was not the last time that the papacy was multiplied. Quarrels at the Council of Basel led to rival Councils and the election of Amadeus as Felix V. He had been a successful Duke of Savoy but resigned his title after the death of his wife and became a hermit. After his reign failed to achieve widespread recognition he stepped down as papal claimant in return for a cardinalship, thus ending the last of the schisms.

1926 Birth of Ivan Illich, Catholic priest and counterculture philosopher, best known for his 1971 work Deschooling Society. Illich believed that the modern educational system was a massive failure, producing only little bourgeois “victims for the consuming society”. Existing schools should be abolished; young people were better taught on the job, by mentors or peers. Illich quarreled with the Church, for whom he was too radical and tainted by Marxism, and eventually abandoned the priesthood but never his Christian faith. He died in 2002.

590 Consecration of Gregory the Great. One of only two popes to be given such a nickname (though fans of John Paul II are using the term), Gregory came from an aristocratic family in Rome and achieved at an early age the rank of Prefect of the city. He abandoned secular life to become a monk in 574 but was sufficiently well regarded by the authorities to be sent as an ambassador to the imperial court in Byzantium and to be named chief advisor to Pope Pelagius II, whom he succeeded on his death in 590. He is best known for sending Augustine of Canterbury to convert the Angles of Britain, extensive theological writings, aid to the poor, protection of the Jews and bolstering the power of the papacy.

1658 Death of Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of England. The title of “History’s Most Controversial Englishman” is surely held by Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658), landowner, Protestant dissident, Member of Parliament, rebel general, Lord Protector of England. For some of the Left, he is a champion of liberty; to others on the Left, he nipped freedom in the bud; to the Irish, he was a genocidal murderer; the Right, he was a regicide usurper.

Cromwell was born in Huntingdonshire in eastern England to a family of landed gentry. He was well-educated but left Cambridge University without taking a degree. His family connections enabled him to sit as a Member of Parliament but he remained obscure into his middle age. He seems to have become a Protestant of the Puritan variety and opposed the religious policies of King Charles I. In the early 1640s when the king quarrelled with Parliament, Cromwell took the side of the latter, demanding reforms and a lessening of royal prerogative power.

In 1642 the English Civil War broke out and Cromwell raised a troop of cavalry to fight on the side of Parliament. He rose rapidly to become one of the principal rebel generals, despite accusations that he favoured low-born men and religious radicals. In 1645 his cavalry smashed the royalist army at the Battle of Naseby, leading to the capture of the king and an end to the first phase of the war. When Charles escaped in 1648 and restarted the conflict, Cromwell was instrumental in defeating royal forces.

In 1649 Charles was placed on trial by Parliament and sentenced to be executed, with Cromwell as one of the “Regicides”, those signing the death warrant. Parliament then declared an English republic, known as the Commonwealth, and its government commissioned Cromwell to take an army to Ireland and crush any opposition there. He did so from 1649 to 1651 with such ferocity that his name remains hated in the country to this day. Catholic landowners were dispossessed and the practice of the Catholic religion was banned.

The “Rump Parliament” that was sitting in 1653 had irritated many with its indecision and lack of legitimacy. It had been elected in 1642 and had been purged of any MPs who might have opposed the execution of Charles. Cromwell took it upon himself, backed by other army officers, to dissolve the body. He entered the House of Commons in force and cried “You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately … Depart, I say; and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!” His intense Puritanism led him to believe that a new governing body should be drawn only from those of proven godliness and thus the “Parliament of Saints” (or “Barebones” Parliament) was formed. Its radicalism caused upset and division and it lasted only until the end of the year when it was dissolved and Cromwell was chosen as Lord Protector.

Cromwell had some notion of religious liberty but valued social stability above all else. He quelled Catholics in Ireland but allowed Catholicism in the Maryland colony; he supported the abolition of the Church of England and the episcopacy but crushed radical sects; he allowed Jews to settle in England for the first time since the 13th century. He wished a form of Puritanism to be followed but feared the imposition of a dominant Presbyterian structure such as existed in Scotland. As he told the Scottish Church “Is it therefore infallibly agreeable to the Word of God, all that you say? I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you might be mistaken.”

Cromwell died in 1658, succeeded as Protector by his son Richard who was not up to the job. By 1660 the monarchy was restored and Cromwell was put on trial posthumously with his remains disinterred. His head was stuck on a pole for a generation in London.

1803 Birth of Prudence Crandall, American Quaker and educator. In 1832 Crandall, proprietor of a Canterbury, Connecticut girls’ school, admitted an African American student. When white parents withdrew their children Crandall continued her school teaching only “young ladies and little misses of color”. The community responded with violence and ostracism and Crandall was arrested. Furious at her eventual acquittal, townsfolk burned down her school, forcing its closure and Crandall’s move out of state. Many years later Connecticut repented and granted her a pension in her old age. In 1995 the Connecticut legislature designated Prudence Crandall as the state’s official heroine.

St Aidan of Lindisfarne

The Apostle of Northumbria was born about 590 and at an early age became a monk at the Celtic Christian monastery on the Scottish island of Iona. England at this time was largely pagan, except in those remote western areas where the religion survived from Roman times or in those places that had been evangelized either by Irish monks or by those sent from Rome. The Anglo-Saxon invaders had set up a collection of small kingdoms and the exiled king of one, of them, Oswald of Northumbria, had taken refuge in Iona. When Oswald returned to the throne in 634, he brought Irish-style Christianity with him and Aidan was sent from Iona to lead the missionary effort. The king allowed Aidan to establish a monastery on the island of Lindisfarne, just off the east coast of England, which would become a great centre of learning and evangelization.

Of Aidan, Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of England, written in Lindisfarne in the 700s, said:

Aidan left the clergy a most salutary example of abstinence and continence; it was the highest commendation of his doctrine with all men, that he taught nothing that he did not practise in his life among his brethren; for he neither sought nor loved anything of this world, but delighted in distributing immediately among the poor whom he met whatsoever was given him by the kings or rich men of the world. He was wont to traverse both town and country on foot, never on horseback, unless compelled by some urgent necessity; to the end that, as he went, he might turn aside to any whomsoever he saw, whether rich or poor, and call upon them, if infidels, to receive the mystery of the faith, or, if they were believers, strengthen them in the faith, and stir them up by words and actions to giving of alms and the performance of good works.

Aidan died in 651 and his shrine became a site of miracles. Cuthbert, a shepherd, saw the soul of Aidan ascending to heaven accompanied by angels and vowed to become a monk; he did and became in turn the bishop of Lindisfarne and a saint in his own right.

John Bunyan

The author of Pilgrim’s Progress was born to a poor English family in 1628. He received little education and took up the lowly trade of tinker before serving in the Parliamentary army during the English Civil War. The victory of Parliament brought an end to many of the laws that restricted Protestant worship that was not of the Anglican variety, and Bunyan fell in with a group of Dissenters known as the Bedford Free Church. His Christian faith grew deeper as a result and soon, despite his limited education, he began to preach and write.

In 1660 the monarchy was restored to England, and with it came religious persecution of those who would not attend the official Church. That year Bunyan was arrested and though he might have been released after three months if he promised not to return to his unlicensed preaching, his refusal to abjure his understanding of his calling meant that he would spend 12 years in jail. This brought extreme hardship to his wife and children but Bunyan maintained: “O I saw in this condition I was a man who was pulling down his house upon the head of his Wife and Children; yet thought I, I must do it, I must do it”. While in prison Bunyan continued to write. In 1666 he issued his spiritual autobiography Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, or The Brief Relation of the Exceeding Mercy of God in Christ to his Poor Servant John Bunyan and he began his most famous work, Pilgrim’s Progress. He was released in 1672 when Charles II relaxed his religious policies; he preached widely, wrote many books and sermons, and achieved fame when Pilgrim’s Progress was published in 1678. Its allegorical style can seem a little wearing to the modern reader but it has been a bestseller for over three centuries. Bunyan died in 1688 and is commemorated by his old foe, the Anglican Church, on August 29 or 30 (depending on the country.)

1498  Michelangelo is commissioned to sculpt the Pietà

Michelangelo was only 23 when Cardinal Jean Bilhères, the ambassador of the French king to the papacy, chose him to sculpt a Pietà for a chapel in the Vatican. A Pietà is a carved representation of the crucified Christ being held by his mother, an artistic theme that was familiar in northern Europe, but one that had not yet become widespread in Italy. Michelangelo’s version is remarkable for its size, larger than was customary, and for the youthfulness of the Virgin. Michelanglo’s reply to those who queried his decision was: “Do you not know that chaste women stay fresh much more than those who are not chaste? How much more in the case of the Virgin, who had never experienced the least lascivious desire that might change her body?”

The statue’s original site, the Chapel of St Petronilla, was demolished in the early sixteenth century and the work is now in St Peter’s Basilica. Sadly it is behind a bullet-proof shield because of the damage it suffered in an attack by a messianic loon who took a hammer to the sculpture  in 1972.

This is the only work of Michelangelo’s which the artist signed, carving MICHAELA[N]GELUS BONAROTUS FLORENTIN[US] FACIEBA[T] (Made by Michelangelo Buonarroti of Florence) on the sash across the Virgin.

1572  The St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre

Calvinist Protestantism had been very successful in converting many Frenchmen in the middle of the sixteenth century, particularly among the middle class and nobility. Attempts to outlaw the sect or repress it militarily had led to civil war. In 1572 the country was divided amongst Calvinists, ultra-Catholics, and the party of moderate Catholics led by the royal family. Catherine de Medici, the Queen Mother, had arranged a marriage between her daughter Margot (or Marguerite) and the leading young Protestant, Henry of Navarre, a union which was meant to cement a religious peace. The wedding was to take place on August 18th and to Paris came all the leading Calvinists: their military leaders, clerics, nobility and intellectuals.

Opposing the marriage was the hard-line Catholic (and cousin to the royal family), Henry, Duke of Guise, who blamed the Protestants, and especially their military chief Admiral Gaspard de Coligny, for the death in battle of his father. Guise convinced the weak-minded young king Charles IX that the religious stand-off in France could be solved by decapitating the Protestant party. All their leaders were in the capital; simply lock the gates, rid the city of its heretics and France would be whole again. So, on August 22 an assassination attempt was made on Coligny’s life; he was hit by a bullet and seriously wounded, but survived. The next night the Queen Mother (seen below viewing the results of her policy) met with her Council and gave the order. The church bells rang to signal the attack. Led by the Swiss Guards, armed men seized and murdered Coligny (pictured above) and most of the Protestant nobility; Catholic inhabitants of Paris seized the moment to conduct a general massacre of their heretic neighbours. The bridegroom, Henry of Navarre, was spared on condition he convert to Catholicism. The atrocities continued for several days and spread to the French provinces. Tens of thousands were murdered; Pope Gregory XIII exulted at the slaughter which he equated with the defeat of the Turkish fleet at Lepanto the year before.

Naturally, the French religious civil war was reignited and peace came to Paris only decades later when Henry of Navarre, who had escaped and converted back to Protestantism, converted once again Catholicism and became Henry IV.

Petitionary Prayer

Paul Johnson, famous English writer and convert to Catholicism, noted that “Origen, following the Stoics, laid down that only spiritual benefits should be sought in prayer. Pelagius, following the Platonists, contradicted him: ‘You cannot pray for virtue.’ Surely St Augustine got it right: ‘It is proper to pray for anything which may be lawfully desired.’” Consider then the prayer attributed to Mr M. Ward, a successful pill-manufacturer of the 18th century:

‘O Lord, thou knowest that I have nine houses in the city of London, and likewise that I have lately purchased an estate in fee-simple in the county of Essex. Lord, I beseech Thee to preserve the two counties of Essex and Middlesex from fires and earthquakes; and as I have a mortgage in Hertfordshire, I beg Thee likewise to have an eye of compassion on that county. And, Lord, for the rest of the counties, Thou mayest deal with them as Thou art pleased.

O Lord, enable the Bank to answer all their bills, and make all my debtors good men. Give a prosperous voyage and return to the Mermaid sloop, which I have insured; and Lord, Thou hast said, “That the days of the wicked are short,” and I trust Thou wilt not forget Thy promises, having purchased an estate in reversion of Sir J. P., a profligate young man. Lord, keep our fund from sinking; and if it be Thy will, let there be no sinking fund. Keep my son Caleb out of evil company, and from gaming-houses. And sanctify, O Lord, this night to me, by preserving me from thieves and fire, and make my servant honest and careful, whilst I, Thy servant, lie down in Thee, O Lord. Amen.’

You may be interested to learn what it was that Paul Johnson prayed for:  “I pray for the return of England to the Holy Mother Church, for the end of pop music and TV, for the destruction of Modern Art, Picassoism and all that rubbish, the demolition of Tate Modern (though I’m not sure that is lawful), the collapse of militant Islam, the freeing of China, North Korea and Cuba, and the rescue of England from vulgarity and the European Union.”

St Zacchaeus

Now a man there [Jericho] named Zacchaeus, who was a chief tax collector and also a wealthy man, was seeking to see who Jesus was; but he could not see him because of the crowd, for he was short in stature. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree in order to see Jesus, who was about to pass that way. When he reached the place, Jesus looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down quickly, for today I must stay at your house.” And he came down quickly and received him with joy. When they all saw this, they began to grumble, saying, “He has gone to stay at the house of a sinner.” But Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, “Behold, half of my possessions, Lord, I shall give to the poor, and if I have extorted anything from anyone I shall repay it four times over.” And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house because this man too is a descendant of Abraham. For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save what was lost.” – Luke 19:2-10

In the absence of a large and honest civil service, many pre-modern states found that a cheap way of raising revenue was “tax-farming”. Under this system, private contractors, called publicani, would pay to the government a sum equivalent to the amount of tax money desired from a particular area and would, in return, be granted the right to extort from the population enough money to recoup their outlay and make a healthy profit. Men like Zacchaeus were highly unpopular with their neighbours and little wonder that the invitation of Jesus would cause grumbling.

After this brief appearance in the Gospels, Zacchaeus fades from the official record but not from Christian legend where several competing stories continue to follow his career. In one of these accounts he is surnamed Matthias and becomes the apostle chosen by lot to replace Judas and ends up as the first bishop of Caesarea. In another he marries Veronica, the woman who wiped the face of Jesus on his way to the Crucifixion. They are said to travel to France where he founds a monastery.

Zacchaeus has become the patron saint of inn-keepers, because of the similarity in names between publican and publicani.