Saint Vincent Pallotti

He was born in Rome on April 21, and the year depends on the source. ¹³ The 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia says 1798, and its online editor adds that "other sources say 1785"; Frank Donio, writing in L'Osservatore Romano in 2013, gives 1795, and John Paul II marked the bicentenary of his birth in 1995. ¹³⁶ His family descended from the noble Pallotti of Norcia and the De Rossi of Rome. ¹ He studied at the Pious Schools of San Pantaleone and then at the Roman College. ¹

He decided at sixteen to become a diocesan priest, by the encyclopedia's account. ¹ John Paul II, speaking in German to young pilgrims in 1985, said that at twenty he made vows of chastity, poverty, humility and obedience to his confessor, and wrote in his diary at the time, "Non il mondo, ma Dio!", not the world but God. ⁴ Before he was ordained, the pope went on, he was already working among the young people of the crowded quarters of the city, playing with them, listening to them, and opening evening schools and courses in arts and crafts so that they could be taught the faith. ⁴

The sources disagree on his ordination as well. The encyclopedia gives May 16, 1820; John Paul II, in the same German address, gives May 16, 1818. ¹⁴ He said his first Mass in the church of the Gesù at Frascati, took a doctorate in theology, and taught for a time as a substitute professor of theology at the Roman Archigymnasium, but chose pastoral work over an academic career. ¹

"Rome had in him a second Philip Neri," Vogel wrote for the encyclopedia. ¹ He heard confessions and preached constantly, and "from morning until night he could be seen hurrying along the streets of Rome" to the sick in the hospitals, the poor in their homes and the prisoners in the jails. ¹ Once, the encyclopedia says, he disguised himself as an old woman to reach the bedside of a dying young man who kept a pistol under his pillow for the first priest who came near him. ¹ During the cholera of 1837 he risked his life nursing the sick. ¹

He gave away what he had. As a young man he often came home barefoot, having given away half his clothes, and more than once he gave away his bed. ¹ After a day of work he would spend most of the night in prayer and sleep a few hours on a chair or on the floor. ¹ Gregory XVI and Pius IX honored him, and Vogel says the only use he made of their friendship was to plead for the poor. ¹

John Paul II told the young pilgrims of 1985, in Italian, a story from his biography: when people he had helped came up to him in the street to kiss his hand, he quickly pulled from his sleeve a picture of the Virgin and gave them that to kiss instead. ⁴ In his message of 1995 the pope quoted Pallotti's own words about the poor, translated here: "seeing or thinking of the poor... I would like to become food, drink, cordial, clothing... I would like to be changed into light for the blind, speech for the mute, hearing for the deaf, health for the sick." ⁶

On January 9, 1835, Pallotti conceived the plan of his institute. ²³ Donio describes the Rome he lived in: a city of revolutions, which three times saw the pope forced to leave it, and where Catholics were abandoning the faith. ³ Pallotti's answer was to "revive faith and rekindle charity" among Catholics and to serve the missions. ³ He called the Union an "evangelical trumpet, calling all, inviting all, rekindling zeal and charity in all the faithful of every state, situation and condition". ³⁶

Rome approved it in stages through 1835, first through the cardinal vicar and finally by Gregory XVI on July 14. ² He called it the "Catholic Apostolate"; the name drew objections in some quarters, and Pius IX changed it to the "Pious Society of Missions". ² Vogel describes three classes of members: priests, clerics and lay brothers; sisters, who worked as teachers and catechists; and affiliated clergy and lay people who helped with prayer, work and money. ² Pallotti wrote its rules at the Camaldolese convent near Frascati, and Pius IX approved them provisionally in 1846. ² In 1844 he sent his first priests to London to care for Italian emigrants. ²

He also began, in 1836, the solemn observance in Rome of the octave of the Epiphany, which was still kept when the encyclopedia was written; Vogel says he hoped it would help unite the separated Eastern Churches with Rome. ¹²

John Paul II, speaking in German in 1985, quoted Pallotti's writings, translated here: just as all are called and obliged to follow Jesus Christ, so all, according to their means and state, are called to the apostolate. ⁴ The pope said that from this came "the fruitful idea of the lay apostolate", which later took concrete form in Catholic Action and found authoritative expression in the Second Vatican Council. ⁴

He had a personal reason to say so. In the homily he preached at San Salvatore in Onda in 1986, he recalled that he had worked during the Council with a Pallottine, Father Guglielmo Möhler, on the decree on the lay apostolate, Apostolicam Actuositatem, which he called a solemn confirmation of the idea Pallotti had grasped and proclaimed a century earlier. ⁵ He also remembered arriving in Rome as a young priest in 1946 and being taken in by the community at San Salvatore, and said that his home town, Wadowice, was the cradle of the Polish Pallottines. ⁵

Pallotti placed the work under Mary, Queen of Apostles. ⁵ John Paul II said the Cenacle was central to him: before he was a priest he resolved always to remain in spirit in the upper room with Mary and all creatures, to receive the fullness of the Holy Spirit. ⁵⁶ The pope quoted a prayer he often repeated, translated here from the Italian: "Let my life be destroyed, and let the life of Jesus Christ be my life." ⁵

He died in Rome on January 22, 1850, and was buried in the church of San Salvatore in Onda. ¹ John Paul II celebrated Mass there in 1986 at the altar that holds, in his words, the most precious relic of the founder. ⁵ The steps toward beatification began soon after his death, and he was declared Venerable in 1887. ¹ Vogel adds that Leo XIII, speaking from what he had seen himself, said he would not hesitate to consider him a saint. ¹

John XXIII canonized him on January 20, 1963, in a St. Peter's Basilica fitted out with tiered seating for the Second Vatican Council, whose first session had closed a month before. ³ An editorial note in the online encyclopedia gives the year as 1962. ¹ Donio reports that John XXIII called him "an innovator of new ways whereby people could come to know and love God", and in 1985 John Paul II recalled that the same pope, at the canonization, singled out "the direct care of souls, patient and wise, in the confessional", in the Italian as translated here. ³⁴

None of the sources consulted names a patronage for him. ¹³⁷ John Paul II told the young people of the Catholic Apostolate in 1985, "In Saint Vincent Pallotti you have a holy patron and an enlightened teacher", but he was speaking to the founder's own association, and no patronage tag is given here. ⁴

Saint Vincent Pallotti's feast is January 22, the day he died in 1850. ¹⁷ Vatican News lists him on that day as "St. Vincent Pallotti, priest, Founder of the Union of the Catholic Apostolate". ⁷ His canonization, on January 20, 1963, fell two days before it. ³

He was a busy man who prayed through most of the night, and the sources treat the two as one life, not a balance struck between them. ¹ John Paul II said he understood that it was impossible to love God without loving one's neighbor, and impossible truly to love one's neighbor without caring for that person's salvation. ⁵

His great idea was that the apostolate belongs to everyone who is baptized, and in his own century it met suspicion. ²⁵ The name he chose for his work was changed because it drew objections. ² John Paul II noted in 1986 that the idea no longer stirred controversy, but that it was still not lived as it might be. ⁵

He wanted to be useful in the most literal way, to become food for the hungry and light for the blind, by his own account. ⁶ The stories about him are of a priest who would put on a disguise to reach a dying man, or give away his bed. ¹ He did not wait for people to come to church.

When people tried to kiss his hand, he gave them a picture of the Virgin instead. ⁴ John Paul II told the story to young people to urge them to trust in Mary, and said that Pallotti credited many conversions to her intercession. ⁴