By DONALD DeMARCO
Count Carlo Borromeo d’Arona is better known to Catholics as St. Charles Borromeo. He was born on October 2, 1538 in the castle of Arona on Lake Maggiore, approximately 36 miles from Milan, and he was a descendent of nobility. He passed from his earthly life on November 3, 1584. St. Charles is the patron saint of bishops, catechists, and seminarians. He was a leading figure in the Counter-Reformation in Italy along with St. Philip Neri and St. Ignatius.
On Christmas Day, 1559, Borromeo’s uncle, Giovanni Angelo Cardinal Medici was elected Pope Pius IV. The following year, the newly crowned Pope made his nephew a cardinal. This act of nepotism originated in the Middle Ages and reached its apex during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The last cardinal-nephew was named in 1689. The practice was formally abandoned in 1692.
Three years later, in 1562, when Borromeo’s older brother, Federico, died suddenly, his family urged him to seek permission to return to the lay state, to marry and have children so that the family name would not become extinct. Borromeo, however, decided not to leave the ecclesiastic state. In fact, he immediately resolved to give himself more completely over to spiritual matters. He looked upon his brother’s death as a warning and a sign that he should abandon all worldly things. At this time he was secretly ordained a priest. In 1564, he was formally appointed archbishop of Milan.
In art, St. Charles is usually represented in his cardinal’s robes, barefoot, carrying his archbishop’s cross with a rope around his neck, one hand raised in blessing. This image recalls his heroic work during the plague. His heroism stood out against the lack of courage shown by many priests who fled the city, seeking their safety elsewhere. In any event, most of these priests became failed to escape the ravages of the plague. St. Charles, however, despite being fully exposed to the plague, was spared.
In August of 1576, Don John of Austria visited Milan. His arrival was met with much rejoicing and many spectacular events. Suddenly, however, everything changed. The plague broke out in Milan. Charles Borromeo was at Lodi at the time but hastened back to Milan to inspire confidence in its beleaguered citizens. He was convinced that God sent the plague as a chastisement for sin. He, therefore, sought all the more to give himself over to prayer.
He prepared himself for death, made out his will, and gave himself entirely to his people. He made personal visits to plague-stricken homes and to hospitals where the worst cases were to be found. It was at this time that this courageous bishop, desiring to do penance for his people, walked in procession, barefooted, with a thick penitential cord around his neck, at one time bearing in his hand the relic of the Holy Nail. His example proved efficacious as a powerful Christian witness for many of his fellow citizens.
At the beginning of 1577 the plague began to abate. The Milanese vowed to erect a church to St. Sebastian if he would deliver them from their torment, a vow which they kept. St. Charles then wrote his Memoriale recalling the lessons given by the cessation of the plague.
Were prayer and penance at least partly responsible for the end of the plague? According to St. Charles, “Not by our prudence, which was caught asleep. Not by science of the doctors who could not discover the sources of the contagion, much less a cure. Not by the care of those in authority who abandoned the city. No, my dear children, but only by the mercy of God.”
St. Charles warned his fellow priests not to prefer a late death to a holy one.
The statistics tend to corroborate St. Charles’ claim. All told, by the end of the plague, 17,000 people had died in Milan out of a population of 124,000 (13.7 percent). This number included 120 priests (most of whom had fled the city). However, in the nearby city of Venice, 40,000 people died out of a population of 175,000 (23 percent) during that same period between 1577 and 1579. By the year 1581 the Venetian population had dropped to 124,000 (cf. Gordon M. Weiner, The Demographic Effects of the Venetian Plagues of 1575-77 and 1630-31, 1970).
The parallels between the plague that ravaged northern Italy in the sixteenth century and the current situation, especially in the United States, are striking. Will another St. Charles Borromeo emerge to provide the courage and leadership needed to bring people back to God? It appears that we are now relying more than we should on politics and science and less than we should on prayer and fasting.
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(Dr. Donald DeMarco is a professor emeritus at St. Jerome’s University, and an adjunct professor at Holy Apostles College & Seminary. He is a regular columnist for the St. Austin Review. His latest three books are How to Navigate Through Life and Apostles of the Culture of Life [posted on amazon.com], and the soon to be published, A Moral Compass for a World in Confusion.)
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