ST SIMON, INFANT MARTYR AT TRENT - 24 MARCH

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN MARCH

Saints celebrated on the 24th of March

ST SIMON, INFANT MARTYR AT TRENT

[As related in Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints on this day. - Pope Paul VI removed Simon from the Roman Martyrology in 1965.]

(Many popes have either directly or indirectly condemned the blood accusation, and no pope has ever sanctioned it (Strack, op. cit., 177 and v).)

In the year 1472, when some Jews of Trent (famous for the last general council held there) met in their synagogue on Tuesday, in Holy Week, to deliberate on the preparations for the approaching festival of the Passover, which fell that year on the Thursday following, they came to a resolution of sacrificing to their inveterate hatred of the Christian name, some Christian infant on the Friday following, or Good Friday. A Jewish physician undertook to procure such an infant for the horrid purpose. 

And while the Christians were at the office of Tenebræ on Wednesday evening, he found a child called Simon, about two years old, whom by caresses and by showing him a piece of money, he decoyed from the door of a house, the master and mistress whereof were gone to church, and carried him off. 

On Thursday evening the principal Jews shut themselves up in a chamber adjoining to their synagogue, and at midnight began their cruel butchery of this innocent victim [...]

When they saw the child had expired, they sung round it: “In the same manner did we treat Jesus the God of the Christians: thus may our enemies be confounded for ever.” The magistrates and parents making strict search after the lost child, the Jews hid it first in a barn of hay, then in a cellar, and at last threw it into the river [...] 

A chapel was erected on the spot where the child was martyred. God honoured this innocent victim with many miracles. The relics lie in a stately tomb in St Peter’s church at Trent: and his name occurs in the Roman Martyrology. See the authentic account of Tiberinus, the physician, who inspected the child’s body; and the juridical acts in Surius and the Bollandists, with Henschenius’s notes on this day: also Martenne, Ampl. Collectio Vet. t. 2. p. 1516. and Bened. XIV. de Canoniz. l. 1. c. 14.

(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)

THE ORIGINAL ENTRY IN THE ROMAN MARTYROLOGY, WHICH HAS NOW BEEN REMOVED:

"At Trent, the martyrdom of the holy child Simon, who was barbarously murdered by the Jews. He became celebrated for many miracles."