Word: philomenas
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...Agent in Heaven." "St. Philomena" was "discovered" on May 24, 1802 in the catacomb of St. Priscilla on Rome's Via Saleria Nova as the skeleton of a 13-to 15-year-old girl with a badly fractured skull. On her grave was the cryptic inscription: LUMENA PAXTE CUM FI. The letters of the inscription were on tiles, and scholars came to the conclusion that they had somehow become misplaced-perhaps by an artisan who could not read-and should have been PAX TECUM FILUMENA. The presence of a glass phial containing the remains of what was assumed...
...priest, Don Francis di Lucia, who had them enshrined in the church of Mugnano del Cardinale near Naples, where they promptly began to produce a flood of miracles and special favors. A Neapolitan nun named Sister Mary Louisa of Jesus claimed to have received a series of revelations about Philomena's life and martyrdom, on the basis of which Don Francis di Lucia compiled a "biography" of the "saint." As a martyr, her formal canonization was unnecessary, but in 1837 Pope Gregory XVI authorized her public veneration and established her feast day (Aug. 11), and in 1855 Pope Pius...
...Philomena's saintly popularity soared with what seemed to be the miraculous cure of the dying Venerable Pauline-Marie Jaricot, French founder of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith. Philomena was also one of the favorite saints of St. Jean Vianney (1786-1859), France's famed Curé d'Ars, who called her his "dear little saint" and his "agent in heaven." In recent times some 300,000 tourists have visited her shrine at Mugnano del Cardinale each year, and countless churches have been dedicated to her-more than 100 in the U.S. alone...
...decades scholars have been skeptical. Philomena's official demotion finally came as part of a long-term program, given extra impetus by Pope John XXIII, to tidy up the liturgical calendar by eliminating those saints about whom so little is known that their existence may be doubted. The Congregation of Rites indicated last week that there were more demotions to come...
...Crying All Day." Philomena's desanctification is causing widespread consternation this week-Catholic girls found themselves greeted with "Hello, No-name." "I've been crying all day," said Sister Marie Helene of Mother Seton Sisters of Charity in Greensburg, Pa., who has devoted 45 years to St. Philomena's cause, has written a book about her (St. Philomena, Powerful with God), and raised $10,000 to build a shrine to Philomena on the campus of Greensburg's Seton Hill College...