Anthony Mary Zaccaria is not a
famous Saint. Many people, even good Catholics, do not even know of his
existence. Many priests and religious, since his liturgical celebration is
inserted in the Roman Calendar, just know that he was the founder of a
religious order—which one, they do not know, as the Barnabites are so few and
little spread in the world. Even at school or in the ecclesiastical faculties,
studying the Lutheran Reformation and the Catholic Counter-Reformation, when
history handbooks have to deal with the foundation of new religious orders (the
so-called “clerics regular”), they usually mention the first of these
founders—Saint Cajetan—and the most famous of them—Saint Ignatius of
Loyola—neglecting all others.
And yet Anthony Mary was one of
the most important exponent of the so-called “Catholic Reform,” which took
place before and parallel to the Protestant Reformation. It is very important
to fix this point: many people still think that only Luther and other reformers
of his days realized the state of crisis in which the Church was at that time;
they believe that only those rebels tried to reform the Church and that the
only thing the Catholic Church was able to do was the “Counter-Reformation,”
that is to say, the Catholic opposition to the Protestant Reformation. The
beginning of the Counter-Reformation, according to this view, would be the
Council of Trent (1545-1563). And the new religious orders would have been founded to
implement this Council. There is nothing more inaccurate than this narrative.
Many a Saint had realized that the Church was in crisis even before Luther and
tried to reform her without overturning her doctrinal and disciplinary
foundations. They were aware that the Church had to be reformed not changing
her structures, but with holiness. The first new religious orders were founded
well before the Council of Trent: the Theatines were founded in 1524; the
Barnabites, in 1532; the Somascans and the Jesuits, in 1534.
Anthony Mary gave his
contribution to the Catholic Reform, not by promoting a revolution in the
Church, but fostering the “renewal of Christian fervor.” His reform is a
totally spiritual one: before changing structures, we have to change ourselves.
In order to carry out this program, he founded a new kind of religious family
and put it under the patronage of Saint Paul. The new “Congregation of Saint
Paul” should be formed by three clusters: priests (the Sons of Saint Paul),
nuns (the Angelics of Saint Paul) and lay persons (the Married of Saint Paul).
They had to work together for the Christian renewal of the Church and society.
Unfortunately, that was a too futuristic project; many did not understand this
new way of acting in the Church. The followers of Anthony Mary, and he himself,
were charged with heresy and forced to abandon any kind of novelty. The priests
were adjusted to the canonical structure of the clerics regular; the Angelics
were cloistered; and the laity practically disappeared.
But the charism of Saint Anthony
Mary has continued to animate through the ages his sons and daughters. Formerly,
when there was still some suspicion on him, in an unaware way; then, with his
canonization at the end of the nineteenth century and the rediscovery of his
writings, ever more consciously; finally, with the Second Vatican Council and
the renewal of studies that followed, we have little by little defined better
his personality, his charism, his teachings. Now we realize that Anthony Mary
is not a minor figure in church history, but a protagonist of the Catholic
Reform. He is a great Saint and a respectable spiritual author, who is in no
way inferior to other more famous teachers. Do you want an example? When Saint
Ignatius, in the “First Principle and Foundation” of his Spiritual Exercises,
shows the purpose of the human being, says: “Man is created to praise,
reverence, and serve God our Lord, and by this means to save his soul. The
other things on the face of the earth are created for man to help him in
attaining the end for which he is created.” Saint Anthony Mary says the same
things, but using not so many words: “Man, my friends, has been created and
placed on this earth chiefly and exclusively in order to reach God; the rest of
creation helps him reach that goal” (VI Sermon). The teaching is the same, but the
formulation is, in my opinion, much simpler and more incisive. I think Saint
Anthony Mary would deserve to be more known and venerated. But this maybe
depends on us, his children, who not always do enough to make him known, not
only by words, but also and above all following his teachings and living his charism.
Q
