BLESSED
598
BLESSED
places and persons, and may be given only after
permission. Such permission is usually granted to
those persons or places which have in some way been
connected with the blessed. In the case of a religious,
it is granted to the members of the order or congre-
gation to which he belonged; if a canon of a church,
that church or chapter receives the permission;
if a martjT, a bishop, or resident of some place for a
long period, the concession is made to the place of
his martyrdom or to his see or to the place that he
adorned with his virtues. In some cases the place
of his birth or burial is included. And in all these
instances it may be that the concession is made only
to the mother church, or to the church in which his
body lies, or it may be extended to the whole city
or diocese. With Benedict XIV (De canonizatione
de SS., Lib. IV, part. II, cap. i, n, 12) we may add
that such grants are affixed to the day on which the
blessed died or to some other determined day. When
this cultus is allowed to certain persons or places
it is still further restricted with respect to the manner
in which it is to be given, and not all acts of worship
which the customs and discipline of the Church
allow to be paid canonized saints may be used in
the worship of the beatified. Benedict XIV floe,
cit., c. ii) treats the question at length and with re-
gard to the inquiry as to whether a votive Mass may
be said in honour of the blessed in places where the
cultus has been granted decides in the negative
against Castropalao and Del Bene. His opinion has
since been confirmed by the decree of Alexander VII
of 27 September, IG.'jO, in which decree the pope set-
tled many questions regarding the worship of the
blessed. It may be remarked that ordinarily votive
Masses cannot be said in honour of the blessed,
though for several centuries they have been said in
virtue of special indults. The oldest indult which
Benedict XIV quotes in this connexion is that
granted by Clement VII to the Dominicans of the
Convent of Forh, 25 January, 1526, to celebrate
the Mass of Blessed James Salomonio "as often
during the year as their devotion may move them to
do so". Besides this indult there is another granted
by Alexander VII at the request of Ferdinand Gon-
zaga. Prince of Castiglione, on 22 May, 1662, "to
celebrate votive Masses in honour of Blessed Aloysius
(Gonzaga) in the collegiate mother church of the
town of Castiglione during the year". And this in-
dult, a few months afterwards, was extended so as
to allow " voti\-e Masses of the same Blessed Aloysius
to be celebrated in the church of the Regular Clerics
of the Society of Jesus during the year on days not
impeded by the rubrics".
Alexander VII further ordered that images of the blessed should not be exposed in any church, sanctuary, or oratory whatever, and especially in those in which Mass or other Divine services are held, without previous consultation with the Holy See. This rule is of such strict interpretation that in virtue of the granting of this indult it cannot be presumed that permission is had to place the images of the blessed upon the altars. They may be placed upon the walls of the church only. However, an indult permitting a contrary use is not of altogether rare occurrence in the recent discipline of the Church, and it is to be remarked that even in the time oi^ Alexander VII a decree of the Congregation of Rites of 17 April, 1660, declared that the concession of an indult to say the Mass and Office of a blessed implied permission to place his picture or statue upon the altar, though the opposite does not hold. The same pope also decided that the names of the blessed should be entered in no catalogue except those proper to the persons who had received permission to honour them with cultus and a Mass and Office. He ruled too that no prayers should be addressed the blessed in public services except those granted and approved
by the Holy See and that their relics should not be
carried in procession. It must, however, be observed
here in passing that Alexander VII, as he especially
declares in his decree, did not intend to do away
with any cultus that had been rendered to the blessed
with the common consent of the Church, or fro.m
time immemorial, or approved by the writings of
the Fathers and the saints, or even one which had
been tolerated by the Holy See and the different
ordinaries for more than a hundred years. In addi-
tion to all this, we have other decrees of the Congre-
gations of Rites, such as: that the names of the blessed
are not to be enrolled in the martyrology; that
neither altars nor churches may be dedicated to them;
that they may not be chosen as local patrons. It
must not be forgotten that exceptions may be made
by indult even in these cases. Recently, to quote
an instance, Pius X at the request of the English
bishops, in the matter of the English martyrs whom
Leo XIII had beatified, granted that in each diocese
an altar might be erected to each of the nine principal
martyrs whose names are mentioned in the decree,
the churches in which they were to be erected being
designated by the bishops. Beatification is an en-
tirely different matter from canonization, and is
but a step to it, being in no wise an irreformable
decision of ecclesiastical authority. The observation
of Benedict XIV then goes without saying, that the
blessed are not to be given the title of saint; further
that the distinctive signs which ecclesiastical use
has made c>.st- mary in regard to statues and pictures
of sain' cannot be used in the case of blessed, who
are not to be represented with the aureola, but with
rays above (op. cit., Lib. I, c. xxxvii).
To conclude, we may observe that in the cultus of the blessed great attention must be given to the indult which in each specific instance determines, according to the wishes of the sovereign pontiH, the restrictions with regard to persons, places, and acts of worship. This matter, and very justly so, has been made the subject of special legislation on the part of the Congregation of Rites which decreed on 5 October, 1652, that no one could go beyond the limits set by the words of the indults of the Holy See in regard to beatification. The solemnities of beatification cannot be compared with those of canonization. They are briefly as follows: On the day on which beatification takes place Mass is said in St. Peter's in presence of the entire Congregation of Rites. After the Gospel, instead of a homily, the secretary of the Congregation reads the pope's de- cree, on the conclusion of which the painting of the newly beatified, which stands over the altar, is un- covered and the Mass is finished. AboMt the hour of Vespers the Holy Father comes down to the basilica to venerate the new blessed. After the beati- fication permission is granted to celebrate solemn triduums, and by a special decree Mass and Office are allowed to be said yearly on a fi.xed day, but with restrictions as to place, and it is permitted to insert the name in the special martjTologies. The expenses of a beatification from the first steps to its conclusion approximate 100,000 lire ($20,000). (See Beatification and Canonization.)
For bibliography see Be.\tification and Canonization. C.iMILLUS BeCC.^RI.
Blessed Sacrament, Congregation op the, an enclosed congregation and a reform of the Domini- can Order ilevoted to the perpetual adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. It was founded in the face of great opposition by Father Anthony Le Quieu, a Frencli Dominican, wliose canonization was stopped by the French Revolution. Born in 1601 at Paris, he entered the Order of Friars Preachers in the Rue St. Honor^, in 1622, and was in due time made master of novices first in his own monastery, and afterwards at Avignon (1634). While at the
