And thirdly, we have here, in this week-long public veneration of the remains, and in this erection of her picture over one of the Church Altars, the first unmistakable beginnings of a popular cultus. For the evidences and expressions of devotion to her, which I have recorded at the time of her death, were all restricted to the circle of her personal friends, and her first deposition remained, apparently, free from any popular concourse or commotion. The series of cures attributed to her intercession does not begin till this opening of the deposito. Certainly the first, and possibly the first four, of these cases, as given by Padre Maineri (1737), occurred in connection with this first opening.[300] And it is certain that, if the (greater or lesser) incorruption of the body was possibly nothing even physically so very remarkable, given all the circumstances;[301] and if this fact left the question of her sanctity intrinsically entirely where it found the matter: yet the incorruption it was that gave the first, and, as it turned out, an abiding impulse to the popular devotion. Indeed, as we shall see later on, it is highly improbable that, but for this condition of the body, a cultus would ever have arisen sufficiently popular and permanent to lead on to her Beatification and Canonization. But as things now stood, the movement had been set going, and it continued on and on.
The remaining translations were: a second one, into “an honourable sepulchre lower down,” still before 1551, and already mentioned in the first edition of the Vita of that year; a third, in 1593, when the remains were placed in their present position, but in a marble monument, up in the choir, above the Church entrance; and a fourth and fifth, in 1642 and 1694, when the body was placed, for the first and second time, in shrines having glass sides, so that the relics could be seen: that of 1694 is the one in which the remains still repose. And in 1709, Cardinal Lorenzo Fiesco being Archbishop of Genoa, the body was reclothed, on June 13, by ladies, amongst whom was a Maria B. Fiesca.[302] We thus see how unbroken was, in this case, the authentication of the remains, and how fresh remained, most naturally, the interest taken in their cultus by Catherine’s most powerful family.
2. Motives operating for Catherine’s Canonization.
It is indeed clear that Catherine’s greatness,—what made her a large, rich mind and saintly spirit,—is one thing; and that Catherine’s popularity,—what occasioned the official recognition of that greatness,—is another thing. Her mind and teaching, her character and special grace and attrait, were of rare width and penetration; in part, they were strikingly original through just this their depth of psychological and spiritual self-consistency and closeness of touch with the soul’s actual life. And these points had profoundly impressed a very small group of friends. And again, her work among the poor and sick had been long, varied, and utterly devoted. And here she had been widely appreciated. Yet these, the two lives which, between them, constituted all her sanctity and significance, had, the former nothing, and the latter but little and only mediately, to do with the forces which led on eventually to her formal canonization.
The motives for putting Rome in motion for this her canonization were, no doubt, predominantly three. There was the popular devotion, which apparently was first aroused, and was then instantly turned into a downright cultus, by the discovery, in May or June 1512, of the incorruption of her remains; and which from thenceforward continued and grew, in connection with these relics and with the physical cures and ameliorations attributed to the touch of the dead body, or of its integuments, or even of the oil of the lamp which evidently soon (presumably on occasion of that first outburst of devotion) was kept lit before Catherine’s resting-place.[303] There was next the gratitude of the Hospital authorities to Catherine for her life-work amongst them; and their most natural and laudable wish to utilize her sanctity and its recognition for the benefit of the ever-continuous and pressing necessities of their vast institution and its Church. And finally, there was the feeling of clanship and the active interest taken in the matter by the (all but regal) family of the Fieschi, backed, as they were, by the Republic of Genoa and various other sovereign bodies and persons.
The combination of these three things proved sufficiently powerful to take the place of certain ordinary incentives which were wanting, and even to overcome certain unusual difficulties which were undoubtedly present, in the case. Certain incentives were lacking. For there was, in this instance, no Religious Order to put forward and to work, with all the continuous, unresting, unhasting momentum of an institution, for a saintly subject of its own, a subject whose glorification would bring honour and profit to the body from which she sprang, and an accession of popularity to the special object and work of that Order. And certain obstacles were present. For few characters, interior ideals and explicit teachings, could be found more sui generis, more profoundly, even daringly original and all re-constitutive, and less immediately understandable and copyable, than are these of Catherine. But the enthusiasm and self-interest of the populace, of a charitable institution, and of a powerful family, replaced what was thus lacking and overcame what was thus operative; and the directly visible and universally understandable part of her life and example, was allowed to outweigh any objection that could be urged on the ground of the less obvious and more difficult, far more original and profound, sides of her special personality and piety.
And a matter which further helped on the canonization was that when Pope Urban VIII, in 1625, published his Bull forbidding thenceforth, under grave penalties, that any one, “even though he have died with the reputation of extraordinary Christian perfection, be called ‘Blessed’ or ‘Saint,’ until he has first been declared to be such, and to merit religious worship, by the Holy Roman See”; and ordaining that the same rule should be practised concerning persons already deceased, who were currently recognized as saints: he excepted, with regard to this second class, those who, “during an immemorial course of time” previous to the publication of this Bull, had been venerated as saints by the people, without opposition or complaint on the part of the Church authorities. For this “time immemorial” was considered by theologians to amount, as a minimum, to a hundred years. And since religious worship had begun to be paid to her certainly not later than 1512, and the title “Beata” had already then been publicly given to her, Catherine continued, even after Pope Urban’s Bull, to be invoked and venerated as “Blessed,” with the knowledge, though without any positive and express approbation, of the Roman Church.[304]