Saints Pontian and Hippolytus (August 13th)

 Once again this week has been filled with a wide number of very interesting saints:

Aug 11^th – St Clare of Assisi, foundress of the Poor Clares or the feminine expression of the Franciscan Order.   Though once she entered into the convent, she became a cloistered nun, she seemed to communicate with everyone, from popes to kindred spirits across the alps and a few more mountain ranges in Prague.   Thus she has come to be taken as the “Patron Saint of Telecommunication,” and even served as the inspiration to Mother Angelica’s founding of the Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN), which in its origins operated out of the mother house of Mother Angelica’s community, the Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration.  

Aug 12^th – St Jane Frances Chantal was a noble woman then widow who lived in the 16^th-17^th century in France who became then a nun and founded a religious order, the Order of the Visitation of Holy Mary for women whom other religious orders rejected because of their age or poor health.  Further, their ministry was directed to the poor.   She becomes a 16^th century embodiment of the Gospel message that in the Kingdom of God, “All are Welcome.”

Aug 13^th – St Pontius, pope and St Hippolytus, priest, who were martyrs in the first centuries of the Church in Rome, on whom we will be reflecting below.

Aug 14^th – St. Maxmillian Mary Kolbe and St. Theresa Benedicta / Edith Stein (Feast Day, Aug 9th) are saints, canonized in the recent decades who lived and suffered  martyrdom during the Nazi / World War II eras. 

Aug 15^th – The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a yearly Marian solemnity commemorating the Church’s ancient belief / doctrine that Mary “after her earthly life was assumed, body and soul, into heavenly glory.”   There are enough ancient churches all over the world dedicated to this doctrine that it would deserve (and may still receive) a blog entry of its own here, even then this year.

Aug 16^th – St Stephen Hungary, who lived 10^th-11^th centuries and was the first Christian ruler of Hungary.

But, of these many worthy possibilities, I choose to write below …

On St. Pontian and St. Hippolytus.

The first question would be why?  Why dedicate a column on these two, let’s face it, not necessarily saints that are commonly known.  

Well, their story, though it took place nearly 1800 years ago is remarkably current.

It all began, still during time of Roman Persecution, when in 217 the Church of Rome elected the future St Callixtus I as its Pope. 

The future St Callixtus I, was a former slave, who had been able to buy his own freedom, then entered training to become a priest, and was eventually elected to be Bishop of Rome.

There were some in the Roman community who simply could not accept being led by a former slave.

St Callixtus I for his part took his election to signify a blessing from on high to redirect a good part of the Church’s mission toward improving the lot, giving hope to the slaves, and otherwise poor of Rome.  Among other things, he created the first Christian bank or “credit union” where slaves could deposit money that they earned which they could then use to buy their freedom.  No doubt, at least some of the money put into the credit union for this purpose was from the Church itself, to help slaves out in their quest to redeem themselves.

Well once one creates a financial institution, that opens up the possibility of scandal in that financial institution.  This became part of the future St Callixtus  legacy.  To his opponents, he was never seen as a fully honest man.

Further, among his opponents then heaped various other charges upon him, that he was overly lax in granting absolution to sins of extra-marital sex, etc. 

Among the leaders _most_ opposed to the future St Callixtus was the future St Hippolytus, who those opposed to the governance of St Callixtus elected as a rival Pope (in Church parlance, anti-Pope).  This was the first time in the Church’s history that this had happened.

Now the future St. Hippolytus, could be recognized by _many of us_ today as a _classic_ “Church conservative.”  

He simply did not believe that the “new” priorities put forth by the future St. Callixtus of “setting captives free” be it from actual slavery or metaphorically from sin were not really in the Church’s purview.

Instead, he felt that the Church needed “to go back to its roots,” which he found most clearly expressed in _good_ and beautiful Liturgy!

To this end, the future St. Hippolytus authored the book Apostolic Tradition, which catalogued the liturgical practices of the Church in Rome as best as he could ascertain.  Among the texts present is an ancient version of the Second Eucharistic Prayer used in the Roman Missal today.

So how did the story play out?

Well, in 225 AD, St. Callixtus was killed by an “anti-Christian mob” on the site of today the Palazzo San Callisto in Trastevere Square in Rome.  When I had been in the Seminary it had been noted to me that this was the site of that famed “Credit Union” which St. Callixtus had founded to help slaves gain their freedom.

The future St. Pontian was then elected Pope in his place. 

Soon afterwards the still Pagan Roman authorities who really didn’t care to distinguish who between the Christians they were persecuting were Orthodox and who were Schismatics / Heretics had much of the whole Christian community arrested.

So the future St. Pontian (Pope) and the future St. Hippolytus (anti-Pope) found themselves in exile, imprisoned and working as forced laborers in the same mine in Sardinia together.  And there they reconciled.

The story is remarkable and one with much to offer us today.

I do believe that St. Callixtus was right.  Freeing slaves and freeing people from the shackles of past sin is clearly a good part of the Gospel (Luke 4:16-19).

That said, if the Church had simply condemned (or in the language of our times “cancelled”) the future St. Hippolytus, it would have, lost a man of many talents who did, despite himself keep us connected with the artistic, liturgical and historical aspects of the Church.