The Reluctant Pope
Main panel of a triptych with St. Peter Celestine (pope Celestine V) and monks
When Pope Benedict XVI abdicated the Throne of St. Peter in Vatican City on February 28, 2013, all the news media in the world reported that he was only the second pope to do so in the last 719 years. However, most of them did not report who was the prior pope to abdicate the office. Pietro Angelerio was born about 1210 to Angelo Angelerio and Maria Leone in the community of Sant’ Angelo Limosano (population 380 in the 2004 census) in the province of Campobasso in the region of Molise. When he was 17, he left home to become a Benedictine monk at Santa Maria of Faifula in the diocese of Benevento. In 1230, he left the monastery to become a hermit in the mountains. In 1239, he settled in a solitary cavern on Mount Morrone and became known as Pietro da Marrone. In 1244, he went with two other hermits to live in a similar cave on Mount Maiella in the region of Abruzzo.
During that same year, the threesome gathered around them other hermits to form a new religious community as a branch of the Benedictines. Twenty years later in 1264, Pope Urban IV approved the new institution. Because of the severity of its penitential practices, the new order under Pietro as its Superior General had grown rapidly until it had 36 monasteries and more than 600 monks at the time of its papal approval. After 28 years, in early April 1292, Pope Nicholas IV died in Rome and the 12 cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church assembled in Perugia, Italy, in what would be the last non-conclave election of a pope. However, they remained deadlocked for the next 27 months. In June 1294, Pietro wrote a letter of apocalyptic foreboding to Latino Malabranca Orsini who was the Dean of the Sacred College of Cardinals. On July 5, 1294, Orsini received Pietro’s letter and was inspired to offer Pietro’s name to the assembled cardinals.
Pietro was elected unanimously at the age of 84. Upon learning of his election, he initially refused to accept the tiara of the pope. However, he was finally persuaded by a deputation of cardinals accompanied by King Carlo II of Naples. So, on August 29, 1294, he was crowned in the Basilica of Santa Maria di Collemaggio in the city of L’Aquila in the region of Abruzzo. He took the name Pope Celestine V. After three months, the new pope constructed a wooden hut in his papal apartment. He stated that he preferred to live humbly in the midst of so much splendor. During his short papacy, he issued two important decrees. First, he renewed a decree of Pope Gregory X that had established stringent rules for papal conclaves after a similarly prolonged election. These rules remain in effect. Second, his final decree declared the right of the pope to abdicate for any reason. This decree also remains in effect. Thus, on December 13, 1294, he abdicated the throne after only five months and eight days in office. Eleven days later, on December 24, 1294, Cardinal Benedetto Gaetani was elected as Pietro’s successor and took the name Pope Boniface VIII.
Fearing that those who opposed his election would try to set Pietro up as an anti-pope, Boniface had Pietro imprisoned in the castle of Fumone near Ferentino in the region of Lazio. After 17 months, Pietro died there on May 19, 1296, at the age of 86. He was buried at Ferentino, but his body was later moved to the Basilica in L’Aquila where it remains. He was canonized 17 years later by Pope Clement V as Saint Celestine V on March 5, 1313, in the new papal home in Avignon, France. No subsequent pope has taken the name Celestine.
Sources:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Benedict_XVI
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sant’Angelo_Limosano
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sant’Angelo_Limosano
, The Pope Who Quit (Random House 2012)