2023-07-08 07:01:00
July 8, 2023 / 12:01 a.m.
Every July 8, the Catholic Church remembers the Blessed Pope Eugene IIIwhom San Antonio de Padua pointed out as “one of the greatest Pontiffs and who suffered the most”.
His given name was Bernardo Paganelli, and he was born in the disappeared kingdom of Pisa (Italy) around the year 1088.
The monk Pope, the Pope monk
Around 1106 Paganelli became a canon of the Pisa cathedral chapter, and around 1115 he is listed as a subdeacon of the cathedral. Sometime between the years 1134 and 1137, he was ordained a priest by Pope Innocent II, who was residing in Pisa at the time.
Under the influence of San Bernardo de Claraval, in 1138 he entered the Cistercian Order, when he was already bordering on 50 years of age. Later he moved to the famous Cistercian abbey of Clairvaux (Claraval), in France.
Upon becoming a monk, he took the name of his abbot or superior, “Bernardo”, keeping his given name. When Pope Innocent II requested that some Cistercians go to live in Rome, Saint Bernard sent his namesake as head of the procession. The group of Cistercians established themselves in the convent of San Anastasio (Tre Fontane).
Years later, on the death of Pope Lucius II in 1145, the cardinals chose Bernardo, the abbot of San Anastasio, as his successor. The new Pontiff took the name of Eugene and was consecrated in Farfa Abbey.
The blessed was the 167th Pope of the Catholic Church, the first Cistercian to sit on the Seat of Peter. Tradition recalls that he always wore the habit of his order, even while he exercised the Pontificate, until the day of his death.
In defense of Christianity
In January 1147, he gladly accepted Louis VII’s invitation to call the crusade in France. The French monarch needed papal support to recover the city of Edessa (Turkey), erected as a Christian stronghold in Mesopotamia after the first crusade. The second crusade, called by Pope Eugene, ended in resounding failure.
The Pope remained in French territory until the popular outcry for defeat made it impossible for him to remain in that country any longer. During his stay, Pope Eugene III presided over the synods of Paris, Trier and Reims, which were mainly concerned with promoting and renewing Christian life in its two major aspects.
On the one hand, he promoted the renewal of the curia and the episcopate with the purpose of responding to the requirements of the laity who saw in their ecclesial authorities a clear anti-testimony; on the other, he promoted the renewal of religious life, which was also going through a deep crisis. At the same time Eugenio III did everything he could to reorganize the schools of philosophy and theology.
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A world in crisis
The medieval world is complex and cannot be understood without breaking most of the contemporary paradigms with which today’s men approach history. The spiritual and temporal realms intertwined many times, when they were not simply and directly facing each other.
The balance of many of the most important historical processes of that period was not always in accordance with the Gospel, both inside and outside the Church. For this reason, the popes who ruled played a very important role where it was necessary to correct things. That was the world that fell to Pope Eugene, and in it he tried to do the right thing.
spiritual authority
In May 1148, the Pontiff returned to Italy and excommunicated Arnoldo de Brescia -a priest with reformist pretensions, but infected with the erroneous positions of his teacher, the controversial philosopher Pedro Abelardo-. Brescia led a schismatic movement.
Pope Eugene had already fought on various occasions different attempts to abolish the ecclesial hierarchy and build a church of “pure”, of “uncontaminated” with the obvious errors or sins of many members of the clergy.
Pope Eugene also had to alleviate numerous political tensions throughout his pontificate -generated by the power struggles between the kingdoms of Italy-, which only abated when the powerful agreed on their hostility towards papal power, both spiritual and temporary.
Saint Bernard, aware of the harshness of the battles that the Pope was waging, dedicated his ascetic treatise “De Consideratione” to the Supreme Pontiff, where he affirmed that the Pope’s main duty was to attend to spiritual matters and that he should not allow himself to be too distracted by matters that correspond to other jurisdictions.
Eugenius III, who had left Rome in the summer of 1150, spent two and a half years in Campania, seeking to obtain the political support of Emperor Conrad III and his successor, Frederick Barbarossa. Certainly, the Pope had excommunicated the schismatic Brescia, but he had the protection of the Germans. In this, as in the issue of the autonomy of the Papal States, the Pope’s intention was always to maintain the unity of Europe around Christianity.
The saint died in Rome on July 8, 1153. His worship was approved on October 3, 1872, after being declared blessed by Pope Pius IX.
If you want to know more about Pope Eugene III, we recommend this article from the Catholic Encyclopedia: https://ec.aciprensa.com/wiki/Papa_Beato_Eugenio_III.
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