The Nuns of Sant'Ambrogio: The True Story of a Convent in Scandal

by Hubert Wolf

  96. Cf. Ickx, Santa Sede, pp. 593–94 (index); Wolf, Index, pp. 173–74.

  97. Pius IX’s Encyclical of December 8, 1864, full English text: http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Pius09/p9quanta.htm and his Syllabus of Errors (the collection of the eighty most important errors of our time): http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Pius09/p9syll.htm.

  98. ACDF Index Prot. 121, nos. 18 and 19 (Lydia); ibid., Causes célèbres 4.

  99. Flir was born in 1805. He became a professor of philology and aesthetics in Innsbruck in 1835, and in 1856 he was made a consultor of the Congegation of the Index. He was named auditor of the Roman Rota in 1858, though he died in 1859 before taking up office. See Wolf (ed.), Prosopographie, pp. 591–93. On the relationship between Hohenlohe, Flir, and Günther, see Rapp (ed.), Briefe, p. 28.

  100. Wolf (ed.), Bücherverbote, pp. 248–50; Wolf (ed.), Repertorium Indexkongregation, pp. 361–64.

  101. “Ingenue, religiose, ac laudabiliter se subjecit”; bando, January 8, 1857; Wolf (ed.), Bücherverbote, p. 249.

  102. Cf. for example the bando of June 12, 1856; ibid., pp. 245–46. This was the judgment on Louis-Hilaire Caron. The decree contained the statement: “Auctor laudabiliter se subjecit et opus reprobavit.”

  103. Letter from Kleutgen to Schlüter, January 10, 1857; quoted in Deufel, Kirche, p. 245.

  104. ASS 8 (1847), pp. 445–48.

  105. Wenzel, Anliegen, p. 211, note 445.

  CHAPTER NINE “Sorrowful and Contrite”

  1. Fascicolo dei Decreti, Feria II., January 27, 1862, Votum DD. Consultorum; ACDF SO St. St. B 6 w f. Subsequent quotations also taken from this text. An inventory of the objects and description of the rooms was produced after Sant’Ambrogio was dissolved. Inventario degli oggetti sacri e mobiliari rimasti nel soppresso monastero delle Riformate in S. Ambrogio con succinta descrizione dei locali che lo compongono; ibid., B 6 i 1.

  2. Cf. Annuario Pontificio 1862, pp. 261–63. The consultors of the Holy Office were: Ignazio Alberghini, Giuseppe Primavera (Fiscal), Gaetano Bedini, Giuseppe Berardi, Andrea Bizzarri, Annibale Capalti, Luigi-Maria Cardelli, Giuseppe Cipriani (Advocatus Reorum), Luigi Ferrari, Giacinto De Ferrari (Commissary), Girolamo Gigli, Pietro Silvestro Glauda, Camillo Guardi, Vincenzo Jandel, Luigi Jannoni, Antonio Ligi-Bussi, Paolo Micallef, Raffaele Monaco La Valletta (Assessor), Bonfiglio Mura, Salvatore de Ozieri, Giuseppe Papardo del Parco, Girolamo Priori, Antonio Maria da Rignano, Giovanni Battista Rosani, Vincenzo Leone Sallua (first socius), Camillo Tarquini, Augustin Theiner, Luigi Tomassetti, and Cornelis van Everbroeck. The members of the congregation on January 27, in addition to the assessor and the commissar, the fiscal Antonio Bambozzi (in place of Primavera) and the advocatus reorum, were the consultants Cardelli, Glauda, Guardi, Jandel, Jannoni, Micallef, de Ozieri, Papardo, Priori, da Rignano, Tarquini, Van Everbroeck; ACDF SO Acta Congregationis 1861–1862, Consulta habita Feria II. January 27, 1862.

  3. Theologians and canon lawyers differentiated between four types of abjuration. The de formali was called for if the defendant’s heresy could be established with certainty; de vehementi was used for Catholics “strongly” suspected of heresy; de levi was for Catholics who were “slightly” suspected of heresy; finally, the abjuration violenta suspicione haeresis was for those who had come under suspicion of heresy through saying or doing something that could give the judge reason to think they were a heretic. Cf. “Abiura,” in Moroni, Dizionario 1 (1840), pp. 32–33; Elena Brambilla, “Abiura,” in DSI 1 (2011), pp. 5–6.

  4. Cf. Maria Messana, “Carcere,” in DSI 1 (2011), pp. 269–71.

  5. The Decalogue merely reads: “Thou shalt not commit adultery” (Exodus 20:14). In Catholic moral theology this commandment has been gradually extended to include an entire catalogue of sexual misdemeanors, including prostitution. This sin comprises all “animal lust,” called forth through “mingling of the sexes outside marriage.” Prostitution is condemned in Christianity on the basis of 1 Corinthians 6:9 and Ephesians 5:5. Cf. Stapf, Moral, p. 445.

  6. The Pia Casa di Penitenza in Corneto was a correctional facility for convicted priests, around forty miles from Rome. The house was set up by Pope Urban VIII, and later extended by Pius VI. Up to thirty-eight prisoners could be accommodated here. The house was a safe, clean, and orderly jail. See “Carceri ecclesiastiche,” in Moroni, Dizionario 9 (1841), pp. 261–63, here p. 262; Carlo Luigi Morichini, Degli istituti di carità per la sussistenza e l’educazione dei poveri e dei prigionieri in Roma. Libri tre. Edizione novissima (Rome, 1870), p. 738, note 1; Jean Joseph François Poujoulat, Toscana e Roma. Lettere, 2 vols. (Milan, 1840), here vol. 2, pp. 161–62.

  7. It continues: “The guilty priest shall be punished for this crime without regard to his standing, office, special privileges or exemptions, according to the magnitude of the sin and the aggravating circumstances, with suspension, loss of active and passive eligibility election rights, privation or dismissal. But whosoever falsely denounces a priest for such a crime, be he priest or laity, cannot be absolved by priests or bishops (except in articulo mortis), but only by the Apostolic See.” Three constitutions are mentioned as legal sources: Universi Dominici by Gregory XV (August 30, 1622), Sacramentum poenitentiae by Benedict XIV (June 1, 1741), and Apostolici muneris, also by Benedict XIV (February 8, 1745). Cf. “Sollicitatio ad turpia,” in Heinrich Josef Wetzer and Benedikt Welte (eds.), Kirchen-Lexikon oder Encyklopädie der katholischen Theologie und ihrer Hilfswissenschaften, vol. 10 (Freiburg i. Br., 1853), p. 241.

  8. See Luigi De Sanctis, Roma papale. Descritta in una serie di lettere con note (Florence, 1865), p. 373. De Sanctis further describes the practice of the tribunal: after acceptance of the denunciation, the tribunal investigates the reputation of the woman; if she does not enjoy a good reputation, the denunciation is taken to be slanderous. Only following three denunciations by honorable women is the case discussed before the Congregation. If the man denounced is a respectable person, he is secretly requested to appear before the Inquisition and make a spontaneous confession of his sin. The Holy Office then accepts his confession and—De Sanctis remarks critically—“tutto è finito,” everything is all right again. There are numerous denunciations for Sollicitatio in the ACDF, but very few judgments against confessors.

  9. Fascicolo dei Decreti, Assembly of the Cardinals Feria IV, February 5, 1862; ACDF SO St. St. B 6 w f. Seven cardinals took part in the meeting: Fabio Maria Asquini, Alessandro Barnabò, Anton Maria Cagiano, Prospero Caterini, Anton Maria Panebianco, Patrizi, and Reisach; ACDF SO Decreta 1862, Feria IV, February 5, 1862. According to the Annuario Pontificio 1862, p. 261, members of the congregation were: Filippo de Angelis, Giacomo Antonelli, Fabio Maria Asquini, Alessandro Barnabò, Anton Maria Cagiano, Prospero Caterini, Clarelli Paracciani, Domenico Lucciardi, Anton Maria Panebianco, Patrizi (secretary), Rauscher, and Reisach.

  10. Fascicolo dei Decreti, assessor’s audience with Pius IX, February 5, 1862; ACDF SO St. St. B 6 w f.

  11. Fascicolo dei Decreti, Assembly of the Cardinals Feria IV, February 12, 1862, and the assessor’s private audience with Pius IX on the same day; ACDF SO St. St. B 6 w f.

  12. Maria Sofia Messana, “Autodafé, Spagna,” in DSI 1 (2011), pp. 124–26.

  13. Bertolt Brecht, A Life of Galileo (trans. Deborah Gearing and Mark Ravenhill) (London, 2013). On the Galileo trial, see Beretta, Galilée; Beretta (ed.), Galilée en procès; Wolf, Kontrolle, pp. 1017–19 and 1024–27.

  14. Costituti di P. Peters; ACDF SO St. St. B 6 y, fol. 195–203.

  15. Pacifico Gasparri was a scribe for the Holy Office from January 1851. See Wolf (ed.), Prosopographie, p. 650.

  16. Giacomo Vagaggini, who came from Toscana, became secretary to the Holy Office’s assessor in 1848. In 1851 he became a substitute for the Holy Office’s notary, and he died in 1885. See Wolf (ed.), Prosopographie, p. 1517.

  17. Costituti di P. Peters, Abjuratio, February 18, 1862; ACDF SO St. St. B 6 y, fol. 197.

  18. Costituti di P. Leziroli, Abjuratio, February 17,
1862; ACDF SO St. St. B 6 s, fol. 98–105.

  19. Costituti di Sr. Maria Luisa, Abjuratio, February 14, 1862; ACDF SO St. St. B 6 o, fol. 76–78; the abbess’s Abjuratio, February 14, 1862; ibid., B 6 r, fol. 77–81.

  20. Cf. Norbert Lüdecke, “Kidnapping aus Heilssorge? Der lange Schatten des Edgardo Mortara,” in Reinhold Boschki and Albert Gerhards (eds.), Erinnerungskultur in der pluralen Gesellschaft. Neue Perspektiven für den jüdisch-christlichen Dialog (Studien zum Judentum und Christentum) (Paderborn, 2010), pp. 303–20.

  21. The church and the house of retreat attached to it are located on the Esquiline Hill, on the Via Napoleone III, where it crosses the Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II. It was in the hands of the Jesuits until 1870. See Anon., Le case di esercizi spirituali stabilite a norma di ciò che prescrive s. Ignazio di Lojola e si pratica nella Casa di S. Eusebio in Roma (Rome, 1855); Augustin Theiner, Geschichte der geistlichen Bildungsanstalten. Mit einem Vorworte, enthaltend Acht Tage im Seminar zu St. Euseb in Rom (Mainz/Vienna, 1835).

  22. The round church and the Jesuit novitiate building connected to it were commissioned by Camillo Panfili, a nephew of Pope Innocent X, in 1678, from plans drawn up by Bernini. See Armellini, Chiese, p. 185.

  23. Quoted from Galletti, Memorie, vol. 2, p. 455.

  24. Sommervogel, Bibliothèque, vol. 4, p. 1771.

  25. The convent and its church of Santa Maria della Visitazione and San Francesco di Sales are in Trastavere, on the Via della Lungara. They were built for the nuns of the order of the Visitation of Mary in 1669, at the request of Clement IX. The order remained there from 1673 until 1793. After the nuns moved to the convent of Santa Maria dell’Umiltà next to the Quirinale, the complex was bought by a silk merchant from Sorrento, Vincenzo Masturzi, in 1794. He gave it to a community of pious women led by his daughter. Seven years later, the community was permitted to found a new convent of the Servants of Mary. In 1873, the convent was expropriated by the Italian government, and later converted into a women’s prison. See Armellini, Chiese, p. 655; “Serve di Maria SS. Addolorata o Servite,” in Moroni, Dizionario 64 (1853), pp. 191–99.

  26. Fascicolo dei Decreti, Assembly of the Cardinals Feria IV, June 14, 1865; ACDF SO St. St. B 6 w f.

  27. Thurn und Taxis-Hohenlohe, Jugenderinnerungen, p. 77.

  28. Ibid., pp. 77–79.

  29. Erlebnisse von S. Ambrogio; StA Sigmaringen, Dep 39 HS 1 Rubr 53 no. 14 UF 9m, pp. 49–50.

  30. Deutscher Merkur. Organ für katholische Reformbewegung, no. 12, March 22, 1879, p. 95. Cf. also Deufel, Kirche, p. 62.

  31. Copy of a letter from Princess Katharina von Hohenzollern to Padre Kleutgen, March 23, 1879; ADPSJ Abt. 47, no. 541.

  32. Thurn und Taxis-Hohenlohe, Jugenderinnerungen, p. 80; Zingeler, Katharina, p. 83.

  33. Johann Peter Anselm Nickes was born in 1825 and studied in Bonn. Having gained his doctorate in theology and philosophy, he entered the Benedictine monastery of Saint Paul in Rome, where he taught morality and Greek. He died in 1866. See Kosch, Deutschland, vol. 2, p. 3247.

  34. Zingeler, Katharina, pp. 79 and 82.

  35. Virgil Fiala, “Wolter, Maurus,” in DIP 10 (2003), pp. 617–19. See also Kölnische Zeitung, no. 297, October 25, 1860: “The widowed Princess Katharina von Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, for whose use the Holy Father has set aside an apartment in the Quirinal Palace since her return from Naples, has left Italy for Germany. She is followed by Monsignor Hohenlohe, Privy Counsellor to His Holiness.”

  36. Zingeler, Katharina, pp. 82–93.

  37. Thurn und Taxis-Hohenlohe, Jugenderinnerungen, pp. 81–82.

  38. See Virgil Fiala, “Beuron,” in DIP 1 (1974), pp. 1427–30; Fiala, Bemühungen, pp. 718–33; Fiala, Beuron, pp. 135–44; Fiala, Jahrhundert; Kopf, Klösterliches Leben, p. 28; Petzolt, Gründungs- und Entwicklungsgeschichte; Reinhardt, Bemühungen, pp. 734–44. Karl-Anton von Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen was born in 1811 and was the Minister-president of the kingdom of Prussia from 1858 to 1862. He died in 1885.

  39. Letter from Katharina von Hohenzollern to Prince Leopold, February 14, 1890, quoted in Zingeler, Katharina, pp. 199–201.

  40. Thurn und Taxis-Hohenlohe, Jugenderinnerungen, pp. 83–84.

  41. Cf. Zingeler, Katharina, pp. 201–4.

  42. Ibid., p. 210.

  43. Cf. Fiala, Jahrhundert; Wenzel, Freundeskreis; Zingeler, Katharina. Zingeler’s biography has the telling subtitle: “The Benefactor of Beuron.” On the Benedictine congregation of Beuron, see Beuron 1863–1963; Petzolt, Gründungs- und Entwicklungsgeschichte; Schöntag (ed.), 250 Jahre. On the Beuron School of Art, see Siebenmorgen, Anfänge.

  44. See Zingeler, Katharina, pp. 207–8.

  45. See Thurn und Taxis-Hohenlohe, Jugenderinnerungen, p. 84.

  46. “But it has been the miraculous guidance of divine providence itself that brought her to the same, and through a special act of providence manifestly laid out the innermost experiences and suffering of her recent past to Your paternal gaze.” Katharina von Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen to the German Fathers of Saint Paul, September 14, 1859; quoted in Wenzel, Freundeskreis, pp. 362–64, here p. 362.

  47. Fink, Tagebücher, p. 474. With regard to the following, see also Fink, Kardinal, pp. 164–72; Kraus, Hohenlohe, pp. 165–75; Schlemmer, Gustav, pp. 373–415; Wolf, Gustav, pp. 350–75.

  48. Quoted in Wolf, Gustav, p. 359. On the allocation of the Freiburg archbishop’s seat, see Josef Becker, “Zum Ringen um die Nachfolge Erzbischofs Hermann von Vicaris 1868. Die Voten der Domkapitulare Orbin, Schmidt, Haitz und Kössing,” in Freiburger Diözesanarchiv 88 (1968), pp. 380–427.

  49. Letter from Gustav to Chlodwig zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst, November 26, 1869; quoted in Curtius (ed.), Denkwürdigkeiten, vol. 2, pp. 1–2.

  50. Letter from Gustav to Chlodwig zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst, November 26, 1869; quoted in ibid., vol. 1, p. 404.

  51. Letter from Gustav zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst to Cardinal Schwarzenberg, July 18, 1870, quoted in ibid., p. 365.

  52. Kraus, Hohenlohe, p. 175.

  53. Katharina von Hohenzollern to Pius IX, undated (April 1873), quoted in Zingeler, Katharina, p. 169, note 1.

  54. See Duhr, Jesuiten-Fabeln, pp. 425–53, the case of Kleutgen, pp. 451–53. Gustav zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst shared his anti-Jesuit stance with his brother Chlodwig. See Pfülf, Hohenlohe, pp. 1–22.

  55. Friedrich was born in 1836, and was excommunicated in 1871 for his refusal to recognize the infallibility dogma. He played a substantial role in establishing the Old Catholic faculty in Bern in 1874. He returned to Munich in 1875, and died in 1917. See Kessler, Friedrich.

  56. Letter from Steinhuber to Langenhorst, May 1883; ADPSJ section 47, no. 541.

  57. Thurn und Taxis-Hohenlohe, Jugenderinnerungen, p. 91. See also p. 79: he was a man “who smelled poison everywhere.” On Hohenlohe’s poison paranoia, see Schlemmer, Gustav, pp. 388–90; Weber, Quellen, pp. 140–41.

  58. Cf. Bülow, Denkwürdigkeiten, vol. 1, p. 11; Weber, Quellen, p. 141, note 203. There is no further information on Gustavo Nobile.

  59. On the 1878 conclave, see Schmidlin, Papstgeschichte, vol. 2, pp. 338–46. Franchi was born in 1819 and was made a consultor of the Council’s ecclesiastico-political preparatory commission in 1867. In 1868 he became a papal nuncio in Spain, and in 1874 prefect of the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith. He became cardinal secretary of state in March 1878, and died later that year. See Weber, Kardinäle, vol. 2, p. 466; Weber, Quellen, pp. 137–42; Wolf (ed.), Prosopographie, pp. 609–11.

  60. Cf. Lill, Akten, p. 95, note 2; Wolf, Gustav, p. 368.

  61. Letter from Gustav zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst to Hermann zu Hohenlohe-Langenberg, May 13, 1895; quoted in Schlemmer, Gustav, p. 383.

  62. Georg Kopp was born in 1837 and was vicar general in Hildesheim from 1872 to 1881. From 1881 to 1887 he was bishop of Fulda, and in 1887 he was made prince-bishop of Breslau. He became a cardinal in 1893, and died in 1914. See Gatz (ed.), Bischöfe, pp. 400–4.

&nbs
p; 63. Quoted in Kraus, Tagebücher, p. 657.

  64. The gravestone is a relief tablet with an inscription, portrait, and coat of arms. Cf. Albrecht Weiland, Der Campo Santo Teutonico in Rom und seine Grabdenkmäler (Römische Quartalschrift Supplementheft 43) (Rome, 2nd ed., 1988), pp. 555–57 and illustration 85.

  65. Quoted in Kraus, Tagebücher, p. 575.

  66. Cf. Weber, Quellen, pp. 19–21.

  67. Cf. Anton Zeis, in Gatz (ed.), Bischöfe, pp. 603–6, here p. 606. The church is in the Rione Campitelli on the square of the same name, not far from the Bocca della Verità.

  68. Cf. Weber, Kardinäle, vol. 1, pp. 299 and 500.

  69. Cf. Aubert, Pontificat, p. 285. The quotation comes from Diomede Pantaleoni (1810–1885), who was counted as a liberal during the pontificate of Pius IX.

  70. Louis Teste, Preface au Conclave (Paris, 1877), p. 80; quoted in Aubert, Pontificat, p. 285.

  71. Cf. Weber, Quellen, p. 265, note 137.

  72. Tribunale civile e correzionale di Roma, copy of a file on a legal dispute between the Holy Office and Maria Ridolfi before the Tribunale civile e correzionale di Roma on October 23, 1871. Here, the lawyer Severino Tirelli, representing the Holy Office, looks back over Maria Luisa’s fate. ACDF SO St. St. B 6 w l.

  73. Gißibl, Zeichen, p. 109.

  74. Maria von Mörl, who was born in 1812, was a sickly child. Her ecstasies began in 1832. At the age of twenty-four she received the wounds on her hands and feet, attracting many visitors, pilgrims, and curious onlookers. She died in 1868, in a Third Order convent in Kaltern, where she had lived since her father’s death in 1840. Cf. Priesching, Mörl, p. 16.

  75. Gißibl, Zeichen, p. 110. See also Priesching, Mörl, pp. 105–7.

  76. Gender studies research is especially helpful in explaining these phenomena. Cf. Braun and Stephan (eds.), Gender-Studien; Opitz, Um-Ordnungen; Weiß, Weisungen, pp. 243–46.