Saint Celestine V

Saint Celestine V, Peter of Morrone, was a hermit of the mountains of the Abruzzi, around whom grew a community of hermits later called the Celestines. In 1294 he was elected pope, and after five months he renounced the office in order to return to solitude. The Roman Martyrology commemorates him as Saint Peter Celestine on May 19.

Pietro Angelerio came from Molise, from a peasant family in which he was the eleventh of twelve children. The year of his birth is not certain: 1215 is most often given, but the bishops of Abruzzo and Molise marked the 800th anniversary of his birth in 2010. He lost his father early, and his mother sent him to study. He entered the Benedictines and was ordained a priest in Rome, but soon chose the life of a hermit on Mount Morrone near Sulmona, and later in the Majella mountains.

His days were filled with fasting, penance and prayer. Disciples gathered around him, and Pope Urban IV approved their community as a branch of the Benedictine family. Peter built the church of Santa Maria di Collemaggio in L’Aquila. The report of his holiness spread far, and many came to him for advice.

After the death of Nicholas IV in 1292, the cardinals were unable to elect a successor for more than two years. Only on July 5, 1294, in Perugia, did they elect the hermit of Morrone, who was then about eighty years old. After some hesitation he accepted, and on August 29, 1294, having arrived in L’Aquila riding a donkey, he was crowned at Collemaggio as Celestine V. He granted a plenary indulgence to those who, after confession and Communion, visit that basilica from Vespers on August 28 to Vespers on August 29. This Perdonanza is still celebrated in L’Aquila today.

His pontificate was short and difficult. The pope placed himself under the protection of the king of Naples, Charles II of Anjou, moved the Curia to Naples and lived in a small cell in the Castel Nuovo. He soon understood that he was not free in exercising his office and that others were taking advantage of his inexperience. He issued a constitution stating that a pope may freely renounce his office, and on December 13, 1294, he laid it down, returning to his hermit’s habit.

Eleven days later Boniface VIII became pope. Fearing that his opponents might make use of his predecessor, he had him seized. Peter hid in the mountains, but he was captured and held under guard in the castle of Fumone in Lazio. There, in a cramped cell, he died in prayer on May 19, 1296.

Clement V canonized him in 1313. His relics rest in the Basilica of Collemaggio. In April 2009, after the earthquake, Benedict XVI laid on his urn the pallium he had received at the beginning of his pontificate. In 2022 Pope Francis opened the Holy Door of the Perdonanza there and recalled that Celestine is wrongly remembered, in Dante’s words, as the man of the “great refusal,” for he was a man who said “yes,” not “no.”