Een tip voor mijn collega's werkzaam in de massamedia: onderzoek eens het leven van paus Celestinus de Vijfde, die als laatste de naam Celestinus aannam omdat zijn opvolgers nooit met hem geencanailleerd wilden worden. En waarom niet? Omdat hij de macht verafschuwde en het Vaticaan een poel van verderf vond. Zoals bekend corrumpeert alle macht, en elke ideologie, of zo u wilt, elke religie. De afgelopen zomer bezocht ik in de Italiaanse Abruzzen het klooster dat Celestinus daar gesticht heeft. Ik had bewondering gekregen voor deze paus na het lezen van The Story of a Humble Christian geschreven door de grote Italiaanse auteur Ignazio Silone. Daarin Laat Silone een volgeling van de kluizenaar Celestinus het volgende zeggen:
Celestine fell -- with us pushing him -- into the machinery of power and that was fatal. Fortunately he became aware of the danger immediately and withdrew in time, before the machinery crushed him.
Celestinus, die eerst geen paus had willen worden, trad na zijn ervaringen met het corrupte Vaticaan, als eerste paus in de geschiedenis af. Vervolgens werd hij door de clerus vernietigd. Zijn verhaal is het verhaal van de corrumperende macht van de macht, en het verzet daartegen van fatsoenlijke mensen. Vandaar ook dat hij genoemd wordt door onder andere Dante en Petrarca. Lees hier verder:
Pope Saint Celestine V (1215 – 19 May 1296), born Pietro Angelerio (according to some sources Angelario,Angelieri, Angelliero, or Angeleri), also known as Pietro da Morrone and Peter of Morrone, was a monk and hermit who founded the order of the Celestines. In 1294, after two years of deliberations, he was elected Pope in the last non-conclave papal election in the history of the Roman Catholic Church. He abdicated the papacy five months later. He was canonized in 1313 and is a saint of the Roman Catholic Church. No subsequent pope has taken the name Celestine... According to tradition, Pietro Angelerio was born to parents Angelo Angelerio and Maria Leone in a town called Sant'Angelo Limosano, in the Kingdom of Sicilia (Sicily). Sant'Angelo Limosano is now part of Provincia di Campobasso, in Molise, Italy...
After his father's death he began working in the fields. His mother Maria was a key figure in Pietro's spiritual development: she imagined a different future for her deeply-beloved son than becoming just a farmer or a shepherd. From the time he was a child, he showed great intelligence and love for others. He became a Benedictine monk at Faifoli in the Diocese of Benevento when he was 17. He showed an extraordinary disposition toward asceticism and solitude, and in 1239 retired to a solitary cavern on the mountain Morrone, hence his name. Five years later he left this retreat, and went with two companions to a similar cave on the Mountain of Maiella in the Abruzzi region of centralItaly, where he lived as strictly as possible according to the example of St. John the Baptist. There are accounts of the severity of his penitential practices...
De Maiella in de Centrale Abruzzen, onhergzaam gebied, waar de latere paus Celestinus V, zich had teruggetrokken.
He issued two other decrees: one confirmed an earlier decree of Pope Gregory X that ordered the shutting of the cardinals in a conclave to elect a new pope; the second declared the right of any pope to abdicate the papacy, a right that he himself exercised at the end of five months and eight days at Naples, on 13 December 1294. In the formal instrument of renunciation, he recited as the causes moving him to the step: "The desire for humility, for a purer life, for a stainless conscience, the deficiencies of his own physical strength, his ignorance, the perverseness of the people, his longing for the tranquility of his former life". Having divested himself of every outward symbol of papal dignity, he retired to his old solitude.
Celestine is the first pope known to have voluntarily abdicated the papal office, and the first to formalize the practice. Before him John XVIII had abdicated in 1009 in unclear circumstances. The infamous Benedict IX abdicated in 1044 and 1045 amid efforts by several parties to remove him, only to return for a final brief reign in late 1047...
Celestine V was not allowed to remain in solitude, however. His successor Pope Boniface VIII sent for him, and finally, despite the former pope's desperate attempts to escape, captured him and imprisoned him in the castle of Fumone near Ferentino inCampagna where, after languishing for 10 months in infected air, he died on 19 May 1296. Some historians believe Boniface might have had him murdered, a belief partly based on a hole found in the pope's skull.[better source needed][4][5] He was buried at Ferentino, but his body was subsequently removed to the Basilica Santa Maria di Collemaggio in Aquila. Pope Clement V canonized Celestine in 1313 at the urging of King Philip IV of France, who saw it as an opportunity to demean Pope Boniface VIII, whom Philip despised...
A persistent tradition identifies Celestine V as the nameless figure Dante Alighieri sees among those in the antechamber of Hell, in the enigmatic verses:
I saw and recognized the shade of him
Who by his cowardice made the great refusal.—Inferno III, 59–60
The first commentators to make this identification included Dante's son Jacopo Alighieri, followed by Graziolo Bambaglioli in 1324. The identification is also considered probable by recent scholars (e.g., Hollander, Barbara Reynolds, Simonelli, Padoan). Petrarch was moved to defend Celestine vigorously against the accusation of cowardice and some modern scholars (e.g., Mark Musa) have suggested Dante may have meant someone else (Esau, Diocletian and Pontius Pilate have been variously suggested).
In 1346, Petrach declared in his "De vita solitaria" that Celestine's refusal was as a virtuous example of solitary life.
Pope Celestine V is referenced in Chapter 88 of Dan Brown's Angels & Demons, where he is referenced as an example of a murdered pope. Celestine V is also mentioned in the film version.
The life of Pope Celestine V is dramatised in the plays L'avventura di un povero cristiano (The Story of a Humble Christian) by Ignazio Silone in 1968 and Sunsets and Glories by Peter Barnes in 1990.
Pope Celestine V's life is the subject of the short story Brother of the Holy Ghost in Brendan Connell's short story collection The Life of Polycrates and Other Stories for Antiquated Children.
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