JULY 27TH, FERIA;

Commemoration of St. Pantaleon, Martyr

Month in honor of the Most Precious Blood of OLJC.

Pope Saint Celestine I, Confessor

Born in Campania, Italy, Celestine was the son of a certain Priscus. It seems he was related to the Emperor Valentinian and may have worked with Saint Ambrose of Milan. In AD 416, he was ordained a Deacon for the Church of Rome. Almost nothing else is known about Celestine before his unanimous election as 43rd pope, which took place on September 20th, AD 422.

As pope, he was extremely active in the defense of the orthodox Catholic Faith. He ordered the Bishops of Vienne and Narbonne in Gaul (France) to correct doctrinal errors and abuses. He sent Saint Germanus of Auxerre to Britain to oppose the newly-growing heresy of Pelagianism in AD 429, and later he wrote a treatise himself against semi-Pelagianism. Moreover, he also opposed the Manichaeans, Donatists, and Noviatians, whose heresies were all spreading.

In AD 430, he convened a council of Bishops in Rome in AD 430, in which the Archbishop of Constantinople, Nestorius, was excommunicated and deposed [removed] from his See. He then sent Legates to the General (= Ecumenical) Council of Ephesus in AD 431, which definitively condemn Nestorianism, and confirmed the excommunication and deposition of Nestorius. Pope Celestine also dispatched Palladius to evangelize Ireland in the same Year of our Lord 431.

During his life, Pope Celestine was also a friend of and correspondent with Saint Augustine of Hippo. Their letters show that Rome was the court of final authority for theology in the 5th century. As Bishop of Rome, he also restored the Basilica of Saint Mary in Travestere after it had been damaged in (the Germanic general) Alaric's sack of Rome in AD 431. Pope Celestine also worked strenuously in his 10 years as pope to reform the clergy of Gaul, and ordered that absolution should never be denied to the dying who were sincere in their repentance.

On July 27th, AD 432, Pope Celestine died in Rome of natural causes. He was buried in the cemetery of Priscilla in Rome and his tomb is decorated with painted scenes of the Council of Ephesus. Sometime in 820, his relics were translated (= transferred) to the church of Saint Praxedes in Rome.