the introduction of Thérèse's cause by Pius X on June 10, 1914
Omissions are not innocent. However, they explain themselves. The war has overwhelmed everything in the current celebrations. And yet, a few weeks before it broke out, Pius X signed, on June 10, 1914, the Commission to introduce the cause of Thérèse of the Child Jesus. It is enough to read the correspondence of the sisters of the young Carmelite to understand the joy which bursts, at this news, inside the convent and in the other Carmels [to refer to the letter of Céline to Léonie on June 28-29, 1914 ].
But this forgetting has another cause: of the long process that leads to canonization, the public retains the starting point, the opening of the ordinary process (1910) and the first visible outcome, the beatification (1923); but it is more difficult to identify the intermediate stages. To begin with that of 1914. To understand the importance of this one, it is advisable to recall the chronology of the events which led to it.
1910-1911
A canonization process begins with the gathering of the writings of the servant or servant of god – name which is given to the one whose trial is instructed – and by the hearing of testimonies on his holiness. The legal procedure is the responsibility of the bishop of the place where the servant of God lived and died. The Bishop of Bayeux for Thérèse. Successively take place in 1910 and 1911:
- the trial of the writings: once these have been collected, the copy of the writings is immediately transmitted to Rome.
- the main trial on the virtues, the reputation of holiness and the miracles.
- the trial of non-cult or if one prefers of absence of public cult.
1912
- February 6: these last two trials ended, the copies of their minutes are deposited with the congregation of the Rites in person by Mgr de Teil, the vice-postulator who played a central role in the outcome of the trial.
- March 6: a month later, Thérèse's file is opened. The congregation decides to examine the writings first.
- December 10: the writings are approved. A first obstacle is removed.
1913
The Roman machine can start. Thérèse's case was taken up by two lawyers who worked for the Congregation of Rites, Luigi Toeschi and Adolfo Guidi: they quickly set to work and handed over to the Congregation:
- on March 8, their pleading for the introduction of the lawsuit (Position, 172 p.).
- on March 13, 1913, a copious Summary (abstract) of 632 p. which brings together thematically most of the depositions of the witnesses of the ordinary trial.
In principle, it is urgent to wait – ten years – before continuing.
1914
- January 10: decree of the Congregation authorizing the immediate opening of the debate on the two other trials, without waiting for the ten-year deadline.
- April 8: the promoter of the faith, Bishop Verde, makes known his Remarks (Animations 25 p.) negative on the dossier of Thérèse of the Child Jesus.
- April 18: the lawyers reply with a brief of 55 p.
- June 9: the Congregation of Rites, after the report of Cardinal Gotti, a former Carmelite, committed to the cause of Thérèse, gives a favorable opinion.
- June 10: Pius X signs the Commission to introduce the cause. Everything that has been done so far is considered a prerequisite. The file is considered sufficiently solid for the Congregation of Rites to take the cause directly in hand.
- August 19, the Congregation delegates to the Bishop of Bayeux the holding of a new trial, this time in the name of the papacy, hence its name ofapostolic. But the war (August) and the change of pope (Benedict XV, elected on September 3) meant that the said letter did not arrive in Bayeux until December 26, 1914.
The year 1914 was full of events and promises for Thérèse's cause.
Now of all this, curiously, we know almost nothing. For various reasons. When we published the trials of Thérèse, the ordinary (1973) and the apostolic (1976), we wanted to deliver the collected testimonies to the public, above all to get to know Thérèse better, without looking too closely at the proceedings. Things have changed since then: in 2010, a symposium whose proceedings are to be published in 2015 made it possible to revisit the ordinary trial. But not, downstream, the Roman part: this technical documentation is in Latin, a little spoken language, and the archives of the Congregation of Rites are difficult to access.
Hence this translation that we propose to shed new light on the concluding Roman phase of the ordinary trial.
Why did you choose the Remarks – we could also say the objections, to translate Animations - of Bishop Verde?
Because of their small size? Without a doubt.
Because of their author? Moreover. Bishop de Teil often referred in his correspondence to the "redoubtable Bishop Verde", a ruthless censor. Alessandro Verde (1865-1958) entered the Congregation of Rites in 1896 and immediately became deputy promoter of the faith in 1897, then promoter in 1902. In 1915, he became secretary of the Congregation. Pius XI made him cardinal in 1925, the year of Thérèse's canonization.
Mainly because of their content. As we will see, Bishop Verde clearly perceived the singularity of the Carmelite and above all he detected - taking as the axis of his objections the fama sanctitatis (the fame of holiness) - the non-conformity of the Teresian model with regard to the holiness which serves as a reference. Indeed, ideally a "canonizable" saint is one who has practiced all the virtues heroically and the consequence of this heroicity is the visibility of these virtues by those who knew the person whose record is being studied. Which was not the case for Thérèse.
These objections, it will be retorted, were rejected. What's the point of hearing them? The negative opinion given in conclusion by Verde forced the Congregation to realize that by continuing the process it was another type of holiness that would be upheld by retaining Thérèse. Further proof of the importance of Remarks de Verde: his successor as promoter of the faith, Mariani, before concluding the trial, will be called upon to make three other series of Remarks - in 1920 and 1921 - which partly took over those of Verde. And these criticisms of 1914 remain relevant, a century later, because they help us paradoxically to better understand the singularity of the Teresian phenomenon.
It is also true that often, when looking at Verde's documentation, we see that he isolates a given testimony hostile to Thérèse from a mass of others which are favorable to her. That's the rule of the game. Isn't it Devil's advocate, according to the title usually given to the promoter of the faith? His Remarks are therefore also an incriminating plea; they show that in the trial everyone plays their role. For or against. Verde's sincerity is not in question. Rather the difficulty of defining its exact role. His Remarks are also intended to alert the lawyers of the cause by pointing out to him the "explosive" questions so that they can clear them up.
Between substantive objection and formalism of the debate, the Animations de Verde introduce us to an unknown universe, that of ecclesiastical judges, and introduce us to their ways of seeing things. But these will have the floor until... 1997, if we include the trial for the doctorate. It is on these debates which take place within the congregation of the Rites - or that which succeeded to him - that the popes will base themselves to present the sanctity of Thérèse, Benoit XV (1921, decree on the heroicity of the virtues) to John Paul II (1997).
For all these reasons, Remarks de Verde, despite their technicality, deserve to be watched with attention.
Some technical indications:
All of this Remarks printed are numbered from 1 to 23. In fact there are, by mistake, two numbers 17. We have added a up to to the second, to avoid shifting the subsequent numbering. In total there are 24 Remarks not 23.
Each of them, before being given in translation, is preceded by an introduction which tries to summarize its content and explain its meaning with regard to the general argument. To make Verde's text more readable, we've broken each of the Remarks into shorter paragraphs that better highlight the articulation of the reasoning.
We have also corrected any spelling mistakes or transcription errors in the original documents. The brief passages in italics, which are from Verde, have been retained because they bring out what, of the quoted passage, seemed to him the most demonstrative.
We have also kept the references given by Verde. This essentially draws its information from the Summarium (identified Sum.) printed by the lawyers, but he also directly consulted the copy of the lawsuit (Why). In both cases, we have added the references according to the pagination of Ordinary trial published in 1973 (PO).
To facilitate the comprehension of the text of Verde, we introduced between square brackets [ ] the names of the witnesses whom he quotes only by their numbering and all other additions essential to the comprehension of the text or the identification of the sources. The use of square brackets makes it possible to distinguish our additions from Verde's references which have remained in parentheses ( ).
The translation, most of this work, is due to Anne Langlois; this introduction is by Claude Langlois.
