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BENEDICT III., POPE - 17 APRIL

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN APRIL

Saints celebrated on the 17th of April

BENEDICT III., POPE 


⬅️ Saintly Popes - Index

His date of birth is unknown; he died April 17, 858. The election of the learned and ascetic Roman, Benedict, the son of Peter, was a troubled one. On the death of Leo IV (July 17, 855) Benedict was chosen to succeed him, and envoys were despatched to secure the ratification of the decree of election by the Emperors Lothaire and Louis II. 

But the legates betrayed their trust and allowed themselves to be influenced in favour of the ambitious and excommunicated Cardinal Anastasius. The imperial missi, gained over in turn by them, endeavoured to force Anastasius on the Roman Church. Benedict was insulted and imprisoned. Most of the clergy and people, however, remained true to him, and the missi had to yield. 

Benedict was accordingly consecrated on September 29, or October 6, 855, and though his rival was condemned by a synod, he admitted him to lay communion. 

Owing to dissensions and attacks from without, the kingdom of the Franks was in disorder, and the Church within its borders was oppressed. Benedict wrote to the Frankish bishops, attributing much of the misery in the empire to their silence. The brother-in-law of Lothaire II, King of Lorraine, defied the laws of God and man till he was slain, in 864. 

In an appeal made to Benedict from the East, he held the balance fair between St Ignatius, Patriarch of Constantinople, and Gregory, Bishop of Syracuse. He was visited by the Anglo-Saxon King Ethelwulf with his famous son Alfred, and completed the restoration of the Schola Anglorum, destroyed by fire in 847. He continued the work of repairing the damage done to the churches in Rome by the Saracen raid of 846. 

He was buried near the principal gate of St Peter's. One of his coins proves there was no Pope Joan between Leo IV and himself [Garampi, 'De nummo argenteo Bened. III' (Rome, 1749)].

(From Catholic Encyclopedia, 1913)

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