the great refusal, Celestine V in Naples - Prof. Giustiniani illustrates the book by Fulvio Pastore - (8 Jan. 2025 Maschio Angioino)

Maschio Angioino, Naples, January 8, 2025
Intervention by Pasquale Giustiniani
This work by Fulvio Pastore (Celestine the Fifth Pope in Naples, La valle del tempo editions, Naples 2024) has the ultimate goal of shedding light on the location of Celestine V's papacy in Naples and, as Dante's Divine Comedy perhaps alluded to, of his "refusal".
Pope Francis, in the Bull of Indiction of the first Jubilee of the third millennium, explicitly recalls "the great "pardon" that Saint Celestine V wanted to grant to those who went to the Basilica of Santa Maria di Collemaggio, in L'Aquila, on 28 and 29 August 1294, six years before Pope Boniface VIII instituted the Holy Year. The Church was already experiencing, therefore, the jubilee grace of mercy».
It was, in fact, Saint Celestine V, with the Bull Inter sanctorum solemnia, also called «Perdonanza», who granted the first plenary indulgence, of a “jubilee” type, to all the faithful who visited the church of S. Maria di Collemaggio in L’Aquila, from the Vespers preceding the memory of the beheading of St. John the Baptist - August 28 - to the Vespers of the following same feast, August 29. Even if the «Perdonanza» of Pietro da Morrone was soon to be repealed by Pope Boniface VIII, on August 18, 1295, Boniface was nevertheless inspired by it for the institution of Jubilees, the first of which was celebrated, precisely, on March 25, 1300, with a cadence then foreseen every 100 years.
Hence the topicality and interest, also in view of the first Jubilee Year of the third millennium (but not only) of a research, such as that of Fulvio Pastore, which connects a beautiful page of the history of the Roman pontificate with the city of Naples. Still little known and even less disseminated, that page highlights various aspects, known and unknown, of the great figure of the hermit Pietro da Morrone, later elected pope with the name of Celestine V, whose pontificate is appropriately correlated - on the basis of rigorous archival, but also artistic and theological documentation -, with the city of Naples: the newly elected Pope Celestine V, in fact, arrived here on 5 November 1294; also here, on the following 13 December, he renounced the Papacy; in the same city, on 23 December, a new conclave was held which, the following day, led to the election of Boniface VIII (Pope Caetani). The act of transfer of the Papal Seat to Rome, which had been in the Neapolitan seat for almost half a year, dates back to December 27, 1294. In short, Naples, precisely during the brief pontificate of Pope Celestine V, was the papal seat. Pastore reminds us, among other things, that Ubi Petrus, ibi Ecclesia. It was Saint Ambrose who first wrote those famous words: "Ubi Petrus, ibi Ecclesia, where Peter is, there is the Church" (in Ps. 40, 30; P.L. 14, 1082). Pope Saint Paul VI - who often quoted this adage of the late-ancient Church father - one day textually integrated a reference to "his" church in Milan. The city of Naples, in fact, not only hosted great Pontiffs, but it is precisely in Naples that the brief pontificate of the controversial figure of Pope Celestine V arises and takes place, about whom, as the Author warns, «many have been and are the “readings” of the character, of his story and above all of the fleeting epiphany of his Pontificate». Pietro Angelerio da Morrone, the penultimate of twelve children, soon orphaned by his father, is initiated by his mother into ecclesiastical studies. Attracted to monastic life, he enters the Benedictine Order. At 24 he becomes a priest, but soon chooses the life of a hermit on Mount Morrone in Abruzzo. Prayer, penance and fasting mark his days. Attracted by him, many follow him: soon, with the approval of Urban IV, the first nucleus of the Hermits of Maiella is born. Pietro da Morrone's fame as a man of God spread throughout Europe and people flocked to him from everywhere to seek advice and healing. He showed everyone the conversion of the heart as the path to peace, in a historical moment torn by tensions, conflicts - even within the Church - and plagues. The fame of the hermit, known for his miracles and his upright spiritual conduct, led, as we now read in Pastore's book, the electors to identify him as the ideal candidate to overcome the stalemate. Reached in the cave in Maiella by a delegation of prelates, Pietro initially refused, then understood that it was God who was calling him to such a high responsibility. However, he rejected the cardinals' invitation to reach Perugia and, on 29 August 1294, the feast of Saint John the Baptist, escorted by King Charles, he went to L'Aquila sitting on a donkey, to receive the tiara in the great church of Santa Maria a Collemaggio, which he had built a few years earlier. Who knows if that choice of the donkey - already present in the writings of Gioacchino da Fiore – did not also influence the wonderful pages of the Renaissance Giordano Bruno in the Cabala of the Pegasus Horse.
In the Dantean sky of the Sun, a double crown of "wise spirits" who sing and dance spreads around the star. In the second crown, Dante tries to identify some faces, and here a famous profile shines: "shine me from the side / the Calabrese abbot Gioacchino, gifted with a prophetic spirit" (Paradiso XII, 139-141). In Gioacchino's Liber figurarum, The Seven-Headed Dragon, or apocalyptic dragon, symbolized the six kings who persecuted the Church from Herod to Saladin. The seventh head, without a name, is that of a persecuting king, called the Antichrist, who Gioacchino believes is imminent, against whom the Church will have to fight and suffer, even if only for a short time, in the torment that precedes the now imminent beginning of the Age of the Holy Spirit. In the final coda, the last satanic persecutor is designated, Gog, the second Antichrist, who will be unleashed and defeated at the end of the Third Age. Immediately afterwards, with the Resurrection of the dead and the Last Judgement, history will end and the doors of the eternal Jerusalem will open.
Even if the new Congregation of the Celestines of Pietro del Morrone accepted donations and, therefore, did not pursue the ideals of radical poverty of the Franciscan spirituals, who were partly inspired by the abbot Gioacchino, Pietro da Morrone must have soon come into contact with them. The hermitage and the other churches consecrated to the Holy Spirit reveal the influence of the spirituals who, in fact, in the wake of Gioacchino da Fiore, awaited the age of the Holy Spirit and would later identify in Pietro-Celestine the angelic pope, who, according to a prophecy that had been circulating since the middle of the 13th century, was to precede that era as the purifier of the Church. Peter's contacts with the leaders of the spirituals such as Peter of Macerata and Angelo Clareno already existed before his elevation to the pontificate. It is no coincidence that the topic of the prophetic donkey (central point of the first dialogue of the Brunonian Cabala), will be taken from a Pauline passage: "Have you not heard, that the foolishness, ignorance and asinineness of this world is wisdom, doctrine and divinity in the other? (1Cor 2, 10-16)". There is no need to be frightened, therefore, Bruno will warn, when you hear the name of donkey, asinineness, bestiality, ignorance, madness, even when presenting Jesus riding a donkey and her newborn colt. Saulino, in the Bruno dialogue, will therefore expose the “cabalistic revelation”, according to which, in the eighth sphere, “where the virtue of the intelligence of Raziele is established, the donkey or asinity is a symbol of wisdom”.
Among the Acts signed, or, as Pastore rightly observes, made to be signed by Pope Celestine V in his brief pontificate - 110 in L’Aquila, 19 in progress, 34 in Naples -, there is also the bull of 14 or 17 September, which recalls the Bull of Nicholas IV (15/5/1290) with which it is ordered that the Commanders and Knights of St. James in the kingdoms of Portugal and Algarvia, can elect a Master.
Horses, knights, but also donkeys foretell a new era. The passage from the Gospel of Matthew (Mt 21, 1-11), which is proclaimed before the procession on Palm Sunday, alongside the disciples and the crowd of Jerusalem, mentions a donkey and her colt three times. The emphasis on these two animals gives them a particular narrative importance: they are essential to the story of the event that unfolds at the gates of Jerusalem. Quoting the book of the prophet Zechariah (9,9) – Tell the daughter of Zion: “Behold, your king comes to you, gentle, and sitting on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden” –, Matthew has already provided a clear interpretative key to the choice that Jesus makes to ride a donkey instead of appearing on a horse, or even in a chariot (Zech. 9, 9-10).
He too, Fra’ Pietro, as soon as he was elected pope, rode a donkey through the Peligna Valley (Raiano) – the Subequana Valley (Castelvecchio Subequo, Goriano Sicoli, Castel di Ieri, Acciano, Fontecchio) and the Aquilana Valley (Villa S. Angelo, Fossa) to reach L’Aquila on August 29th in Collemaggio. On October 11th 1294 in Sulmona, a meeting between donkeys and even a miracle by Celestine is reported: «The healing of Angela di Giovanni di Pietro, who also arrived there on a donkey, led by her husband, from Sant’Eufemia, near Caramanico. Swollen and tumescent, yellow in color, unable to walk or do anything… she met Celestine also riding a donkey, begged him, met his gaze and, at his blessing, was instantly healed. The memory of this remained for a long time in Caramanico, from where several witnesses went to Sulmona to give their sworn testimony before the prelates who were conducting the canonization process".