From Antipope Hippolytus to Saint Hippolytus: Today marks the memorial of the first antipope and the only antipope to eventually become a canonized saint

For years now, Jeanette as had a really cool mobile app (cool that is to an eccentric at times and eclectic at all times Catholic history nerd like me) for her Apple iPhone called Saint of the Day, which is a product of Franciscan Media in Cincinnati, Ohio, which was started by the Franciscan Friars in 1893 with St. Anthony Messenger magazine.

Back around about 2010 or 2011 probably when I convinced Jeanette, an Anglican, to purchase the app for $2.99, or something like that at the time, I assured her it would be a worthwhile investment. This was at a time when free apps were starting to flood the market (the first generation iPhones had been introduced by Apple in the American market only several years earlier on June 29, 2007, and Jeanette purchased an iPhone 4 in June 2010, the same month they were released.)

Jeanette noted it was easy for me, the Catholic, to say, as it wasn’t my $2.99 being shelled out, as I didn’t even have a smartphone. At the risk of digressing – I do now, namely Jeanette’s old iPhone4, which would have been her new one back then – but it is not connected to my MTS telephone or Shaw Internet network providers now, so I can’t use it to listen to Saint of the Day, but I do use the old smartphone some, mainly for its camera and calculator applications, less frequently as a voice recorder, and rarely as a Big Ben alarm chime wake-up.

In any event, digression aside, I think history as proved that at least on this occasion, I spent someone else’s money well, and the Saint of the Day app, upgraded at least once over the last six years, if not more often, and has proven itself to be a sound $2.99 investment.

The Saint of the Day for Aug. 13 is Saint Hippolytus, the only person to make the journey from being an antipope to canonized saint.

Antipopes are pretenders to the Chair of Peter, who set themselves up in opposition to the legitimately canonically elected pontiff, frequently exercising pontifical functions in defiance of the legitimate occupant heading the Holy See. Sound pretty straight forward? No so much. Take Pope Gregory XII, who resigned at the request of the Council of Constance on July 4, 1415 to help end the Great Western Schism, and until Pope-emeritus Benedict XVI announced his resignation Feb. 11, 2013, had been the last pope to resign some 600 years ago. The schism had actually begun some 37 years earlier in 1378, and over the course of the next three and more decades, saw two papal claimants, and later three, vying for supremacy over the medieval church in a papal dance that stretched from Avignon in France to Rome in Italy, and eventually saw the not only Pope Gregory XII resign, but also two papal impostors, the contenders,  Antipope Benedict XIII and Antipope John XXIII (not to be confused, of course, with St. John XXIII, who was pope from 1958 to 1963), paving the way for Pope Martin V in 1417, the first pope in almost 40 years to be able to command the allegiance of the whole Latin Church.

Cardinal Joseph Hergenröther, the first cardinal-prefect of the Vatican Archives, has enumerated a total of 30 antipopes between Antipope Hippolytus in 217 and Antipope Felix V, whose regnal name was Amadeus of Savoy, and was the last of the papal schismatics, whose pretension to the Chair of Peter ended in 1449. Hippolytus was a brilliant theologian and is considered a Church Father. He wrote treatises against several of the heresies afflicting the Church in the late second and early third centuries – most of them Trinitarian or Christological – “as early Christians sometimes struggled to discern the correct terminology to apply to the apostolic teaching that Jesus was true God and true man,” notes Steve Weidenkopf, a lecturer of church history at the Notre Dame Graduate School of Christendom College in Alexandria, Virginia, in the bog Catholic Answers (http://www.catholic.com/blog/steve-weidenkopf/the-antipope-who-became-a-saint).

In particular, Hippolytus was frustrated by Pope Zephyrinus’ slowness to “make a quick and authoritative decision concerning the heresy known as Modalism,” Weidenkopf writes. Modalism, known also as Monarchianism and Sabellianism, blurred the distinctions between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, positing that these were just different modes of one divine person. To a Modalist, God the Father appeared on earth in the mode of Jesus Christ, God the Son. When Pope Callistus I succeeded Pope Zephyrinus in 217 and showed no more inclination than his predecessor in dispatching the Modalism heresy, Hippolytus was so angered he claimed Callistus was unworthy of the office due to his checkered past, when as a young slave, some believed, he had embezzled his master’s money, Hippolytus gathered a group of followers who elected him pope. In so doing Hippolytus, opened the door to the concept of the antipope, which reached its height during the Great Western Schism of 14th century. As for Modalism, it would eventually be declared a heresy by Pope St. Dionysius circa 262.

Hippolytus’ schism lasted for 19 years, Weidenkopf says, “and through three pontificates. “As a rigorist who did not believe that serious sinners should be re-admitted to communion in the Church,” Hippolytus also refused to accept the more-merciful approach of Pope Callistus I and his successors.

However, when Maximinus Thrax, also known as Maximinus I, became Roman Emperor in 235, he resumed persecution of Christians, particularly clergy, and both Antipope Hippolytus, and Pope Pontian, who had also been elected in 230, were arrested and sent to the mines on the island of Sardinia.

Amidst the suffering and hardship of the mines, Hippolytus renounced his schism and papal claim and was reconciled to the Church by Pontian.

Both men later succumbed to the harsh conditions, and their remains were transported for burial in Rome, where they were recognized as martyrs and saints of the Church.

And if you happened to guess today is also the memorial of Saint Pontian, you guessed right.

So the Roman Catholic Church’s Saint of the Day for Aug. 13 is actually saints plural: Saints Pontian and Hippolytus.

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Pope John Paul I had the 10th shortest pontificate in the history of the Catholic Church

Thirty seven years ago yesterday, 65-year-old Italian Cardinal Albino Luciani was elected on the fourth ballot during the second day of the papal conclave as pope on Aug. 26, 1978, taking the name Pope John Paul I, a combination of names honoring his two immediate predecessors, now Blessed Pope Paul VI and St. Pope John XXIII. He was consecrated as pope Sept. 3, 1978.

Known as the “Smiling Pope,” he died just 33 days later on Sept. 28, 1978, the briefest pontificate since Pope Leo XI’s in 1605, and setting the stage for the first Year of Three Popes – Blessed Pope Paul VI, Pope John Paul I and St. Pope John Paul II – since 1605 when Pope Clement VIII, Pope Leo XI  and Pope Paul V all sat on the Chair of Peter.

Born at Canale d’Argordo, near Belluno, 80 miles north of Venice, Luciani was consecrated as  Bishop of Vittorio Veneto by Pope John XXIII at St. Peter’s Basilica on Dec. 27, 1958, and subsequently was named Patriarch of Venice by Pope Paul VI on Dec. 15, 1969.  He was created a cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church by Pope Paul VI on March 5, 1973.

On Thursday, Sept. 28, 1978, Pope John Paul I shared a simple dinner of clear soup, veal, fresh beans and salad in his papal apartment with his two secretaries, an Italian, Father Diego Lorenzi, and an Irishman, Father John Magee.

The secretaries had a glass of wine each; Pope John Paul I drank only water. When dinner was over, the three men briefly watched a news program on television and shortly after 9 p.m.  the pope retired for the night, setting his wind-up alarm clock for 4:30 a.m. Friday, Sept. 29, the hour he usually arose.

At 4:30 a.m., Sister Vincenza Taffarel, a nun who had served as housekeeper in his household during his decade as Bishop of Vittorio Veneto between 1959 and 1969,  took a flask of coffee to his study, as she had done every day for 20 years, knocking at his bedroom door and bidding him good morning. There was no reply. A quarter of an hour later she returned and knocked again and still no reply. Alarmed, she opened the door and Pope John Paul I was sitting up in bed, wearing his glasses, with some sheets of paper clutched in his hand. She checked for a pulse and found none.

Dr. Renato Buzzonetti, deputy head of the Vatican’s health service, estimated the time of death to have been about 11 p.m. the previous evening. The cause of death was said to be a heart attack.

While Pope John Paul I had a very short pontificate, it was by no means the shortest. That distinction is officially held by Pope Urban VII, an Italian, who was only pope for 13 days between Sept. 15 and Sept. 27, 1590. One of his first papal acts was to make a list of all the poor in Rome, so that he could help them. He paid off the debts of all the monts-de-piété in the ecclesiastical state, and ordered the bakers of Rome to make larger loaves of bread and sell them cheaper, indemnifying their losses out of his own pocket.

An even shorter pontificate, although one we can place an asterisk beside, because it was so short there wasn’t even time to consecrate him after being elected pope, resulting in him being now omitted from most modern lists of popes, was that of Pope-elect Stephen II, who only served for three days between March 23 and March 26, 752 before dying as the result of a stroke.

It’s a bit complicated really. It is, after all, a Catholic thing.

Pope-elect Stephen II was an Italian priest, whose predecessor, Pope St. Zachary, had made  cardinal presbyter seven years earlier in 745. But he hadn’t quite been episcopally ordained as a bishop yet when elected pope.

According to the canon law in effect when he was elected in March 752, his pontificate actually wasn’t to begin until his papal consecration, hence his name is not registered in the Liber Pontificalis, nor in many other lists of popes. Regnal numbering was also not used for popes until the 10th century, and their turned out to be a lot of Pope Stephens, complicating matters even further, if possible. Any regnal numbering attached to their pontificates has been applied posthumously.

However, since Oct. 1, 1975, a pope has been considered pope from the time of his election and acceptance, even before papal consecration, thus Pope-elect Stephen II has been sometimes  anachronistically called  Pope Stephen II again over the last 40 years.

And, of course, again history’s shortest pope with a three-day pontificate.

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Father Prosper Balthazar Lyimo, a member of Knights of Columbus Thompson Council #5961 and temporary visiting priest at St. Lawrence Roman Catholic Church in 2011-12, appointed by Pope Francis as auxiliary bishop-elect of the Archdiocese of Arusha in Tanzania

Left, Father Prosper Balthazar Lyimo, in the rectory at St. Lawrence Roman Catholic Church in Thompson, Manitoba in August 2011, trying on the fur hat passed onto him by his predecessor, Father Eugene Whyte, and right, receiving his doctorate in canon law from Saint Paul University and the University of Ottawa in June 2012.

Photos courtesy of Archbishop Emeritus of Keewatin-Le Pas Sylvain Lavoie and University of Ottawa

Downtown Arusha, Tanzania.

The Holy Father has appointed Father Prosper Balthazar Lyimo as auxiliary bishop-elect of the Archdiocese of Arusha in northern Tanzania in East Africa, the number two post in the archdiocese, where he will serve under the ordinary, Archbishop Josaphat Louis Lebulu. Father Prosper’s episcopal ordination is to take place Feb. 15. He is currently chancellor and judicial vicar of the Archdiocese of Arusha.

Pope Francis made the appointment at the Vatican Nov. 11, also appointing Father Prosper as the bishop-elect of the Titular Episcopal See of Vanariona in what was Mauretania Caesariensis, a Roman Empire province located in northwestern Africa in what is now present day Algeria, and the Henchir Debik ancient ruin near Ksar Tyr, in neighbouring Tunisia, adjacent east of Algeria.

The Archdiocese of Arusha is an area of 67,340 square kilometres with a population of  2.364 million people, of which 512,073 are Catholics. It has 128 priests. There are 59 diocesan priests, including Father Prosper, and 69 religious from priestly congregations, including the Holy Ghost Fathers, whose presence in the archdiocese dates back to founding a mission station in Mesopotamia in 1926.

The archdiocese is named after the town of Arusha that lays at the foot of Mount Merit, one of the peaks of the Kilimanjaro Mountain Range to the west of Kibo, the highest peak of the range.
Arusha is the largest of all the archdioceses and dioceses in Tanzania, stretching some 400 kilometres southwards over the Maasai Steppes to Kiteto, bordering Morogoro and Dodoma  dioceses; 200 kilometres to the west through  Monduli over the  Ngorongoro Crater along the famous Olduvai Gorge, over the Serengeti Plains and bordering Musoma and Shinyanga dioceses; 400 kilometres northwest to Loliondo bordering Ngong Diocese in Kenya; and  300 kilometres southeastwards, bordering Moshi, Same and Tanga dioceses.

Father Prosper, 50, was born in Kyou-Kilema, Tanzania in 1964 in the Diocese of Moshi and was ordained a priest on July 4, 1997. After his primary school studies in Maua and at the Ngurdoto Primary School in Arusha, he completed his secondary school studies at the minor seminary in Arusha. He studied philosophy at Our Lady of Angels Major Seminary in Kibosho, Moshi, and theology at St. Paul’s Interdiocesan Seminary in Kipalapala, Tabora.

Tanzania, with a population of about 45 million people, is predominantly Christian and the largest Christian denomination is Roman Catholic. Father Prosper comes from a family of 10 and has two brothers who are also priests. One spent time in Germany in Bonn, the other in the United States in Wisconsin.

Father Prosper studied in Rome in 2007-08 for a licentiate in canon law at the Pontifical Urbaniana University, with residence at the Pontifical College of St. Peter. Father Prosper arrived in Canada in 2011 to continue his studies for his doctoral degree in canon law, which was conferred on him jointly by Saint Paul University and the University of Ottawa on June 2, 2012 by University of Ottawa Chancellor Michaëlle Jean, former governor general and commander-in-chief of Canada,  and Vice-Chancellor Allan Rock, a former federal Liberal justice and health minister  and ambassador to the United Nations, who has served as president and vice-chancellor of the University of Ottawa since July 2008. Alex Crescent Massinda, Tanzania’s high commissioner to Canada, attended the ceremony.

“Polygamy poses a major problem to the Church’s evangelizing mission. In many sub-Saharan African societies, it is a socially approved and respected system with deep cultural roots,” Father Prosper argued in his 305-page doctoral thesis, entitled, Polygamy in sub-Saharan Africa and the Munus Docendi: Canonical Structures in Support of Church Doctrine and Evangelization.

Father Prosper’s thesis was supervised by canon law expert John M. Huels, a laicized cleric, who is a former provincial for the Eastern Province of the Chicago-based Servants of Mary religious order, known more commonly as the Servites.

“Although it is rooted in the culture of the people, polygamy has never been recommended or approved by the Catholic Church,” Father Prosper wrote in his thesis. “Some Protestant denominations accept polygamy as legitimate or at least tolerate it, but the Catholic Church has been firm and consistent in its opposition to the practice, leaving no room for doubts or exceptions.

“The conversion to Christianity of polygamists is complicated by deeply rooted cultural values that in some respects run contrary to Catholic doctrine, so there is a need for “pastoral prudence” in implementing all these approaches. Priests and other agents of evangelization should be sympathetic to couples living in these situations and not be too quick to insist that their marital unions be regularized, even while they are catechumens, lest greater harm occur to their nascent faith. Such pastoral prudence requires a thorough knowledge of the customs of the people as well as a careful application of canonical norms in keeping with the circumstances of people and places. It also demands a respect and concern for the other wives, making efforts to avoid any injustice to the dismissed wives and their children.”

While studying at Saint Paul University for his PhD, Father Prosper lived at St. George’s Catholic Church on Piccadilly Avenue in Ottawa and helped out there and at several other Ottawa and area parishes with pastoral duties.

With his studies almost complete, when Father Eugene Whyte, an Oblate at St. Lawrence Roman Catholic Church in Thompson in Northern Manitoba went on sabbatical in August 2011, Father Prosper, with the permission of Archbishop Lebulu, twice answered now Archbishop Emeritus of Keewatin-Le Pas Sylvain Lavoie’s call for help for a temporary priest here. Father Prosper was in Thompson from the middle of August 2011 until Oct. 2, 2011 when he returned to Ottawa for his doctoral defence.

After successfully defending his thesis,  he returned to Tanzania before Christmas 2011 to be with his parents as they celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. He then returned to St. Lawrence in Thompson Feb. 6, 2012 on loan for a second secondment.

Father Prosper joined Knights of Columbus Thompson Council #5961 on April 3, 2012. The Knights of Columbus is a Catholic fraternal benefit organization headquartered in New Haven, Connecticut. Its origins date back to an Oct. 2, 1881 meeting organized by Father Michael J. McGivney, the assistant pastor at St. Mary’s Church in New Haven. The Knights of Columbus, made up of Father McGivney, Matthew C. O’Connor, Cornelius T. Driscoll, James T. Mullen, John T. Kerrigan, Daniel Colwell and William M. Geary, were officially chartered by the general assembly of the State of Connecticut on March 29, 1882, as a fraternal benefit society.

The Supreme Council in New Haven chartered Knights of Columbus Thompson Council #5961 with 59 charter members on May 6, 1967. Knights of Columbus Thompson Council #5961 were the 31st council in Manitoba to receive its charter. Father Prosper served as the Thompson council’s chaplain until June 2012.

The following month, the present co-pastors, Father Subhash Joseph, who likes to be called Father Joseph, and Father Gunasekhar Pothula, who likes to be called Father Guna, both members of the Congregation of the Missionaries of St. Francis de Sales in India, arrived. They joined Knights of Columbus Thompson Council #5961 on April 2, 2013 and serve as co-chaplains of the council.

Thompson, which also has eight related mission churches attached to St. Lawrence, mainly  in small and remote First Nations communities in Northern Manitoba,  is by far the largest community in the the largely missionary Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Keewatin-Le Pas, which takes in takes in some 430,000 square kilometres and stretches across the northern parts of three province – Saskatchewan, Manitoba and a small portion of Northwestern Ontario.

The farthest point west is LaLoche, Saskatchewan, near the Alberta border. The farthest point north is Lac Brochet here in Manitoba and the farthest point east is Sandy Lake in Northwestern Ontario. There are 49 missions in the archdiocese: 27 in Manitoba, 21 in Saskatchewan and one in Ontario.

Les Oblats de Marie Immaculée, or The Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate (OMI), established the first mission at Ile-À-la-Crosse, Sask. in 1860. In its most recent statistical picture released in June 2007, the Archdiocese of Keewatin-Le Pas listed 11 Oblates of Mary Immaculate, three diocesan priests and one other religious priest – for a total of 15 priests to serve all of Northern Manitoba, Northern Saskatchewan and part of Northwestern Ontario. The average age of the clergy seven years ago was 69.

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