Pope Leo X (above), the Pope who excommunicated Martin Luther – and called him a wild pig while he was about it – and triggered the Reformation, died of malaria today in 1521. His death was so sudden there was no time to administer the last rites. He had been made Cardinal at the age of 13 and Pope when he was 38. He left the Church deeply in debt because he had spent vast amounts of money on fighting wars and commissioning Renaissance art. He remained to the end blissfully unaware that the Protestant movement had any significance at all.
Charles de Foucauld, who lived as a hermit in the Sahara Desert in Algeria, was killed today in 1916. Inspired by the poverty of Jesus, he went to live among the Tuareg people, who regarded him as a holy man. He produced a dictionary of their language and translated the Gospels into Tuareg. He was killed when raiders attempted to kidnap him, and one of the party, a 15 year-old boy, shot him in the head. He is now considered a martyr by the Church.
‘I love our Lord Jesus Christ and I cannot bear to lead a life other than his. I do not want to travel through life first class when the one that I love went in the lowest class.’ Charles de Foucauld
Today is the feast day in the Eastern Church of Nahum, the Old Testament prophet. He lived in the 7th century BCE, and his short book is a splendid diatribe against Nineveh, capital city of the militaristic Assyrian Empire, which made life miserable for the whole of the Middle East of its time.
The first Jesuit missionary in England, Edmund Campion, was hanged, drawn and quartered today in 1581. He died this traitor’s death, alongside two other secret Catholic priests, in a show trial that accused him of plotting to overthrow Queen Elizabeth I. He had been tortured on the rack in the Tower of London, and on being sentenced to death, sang the Latin hymn, Te Deum, with his fellow prisoners.
‘In condemning us you condemn all your own ancestors – all the ancient priests, bishops and kings – all that was once the glory of England, the island of saints, and the most devoted child of the See of Rome. For what have we taught, however you may qualify it with the odious name of treason, that they did not uniformly teach?’ Edmund Campion, speaking at his trial
Cardinal Giovanni Morone, who attempted to bring reconciliation between Catholics and Protestants in the 16th century, died today in 1580. Earlier in his life, he had been imprisoned and interrogated by the Roman Inquisition on suspicion of being a Lutheran and therefore a heretic, but he went on to become one of the prime movers behind the Council of Trent.
Image: Rijksmuseum