Saint Charles Borromeo (1538-1584)

The crisis of the 16th century

Charles Borromeo was born three years after England's break with Rome, twenty years after Luther's theses, into a Church profoundly shaken by the Protestant Reformation and undermined by its own abuses. The accumulation of benefices, the non-residence of bishops, the ignorance of the clergy, venality and lax morals had weakened Latin Christendom at the very moment when Protestantism was tearing entire nations away from Rome.^[7][8] The great remedy was the Council of Trent (1545-1563), which redefined Catholic doctrine and imposed a new discipline. But a council is only worth its implementers: Charles Borromeo was, more than anyone else, the man who turned Trent into reality.

The Borromeo house and the motto "Humilitas"

The Borromeo family belonged to the old Lombard nobility, rich and powerful, whose arms bear the famous interlaced Borromean rings, symbol of the Holy Trinity, and the one-word motto: Humilitas.^[9] This paradox — a great family whose motto is humility — would mark the saint's whole life: he made of that word not a heraldic ornament but a spiritual programme taken literally.

Birth at the castle of Arona (1538)

Charles was born on 2 October 1538 at the castle of Arona, on the shores of Lake Maggiore, some fifty kilometres from Milan.^[10][11] His father, Giberto Borromeo, Count of Arona, was a pious lord; his mother, Margherita de' Medici, belonged to the Milanese branch of the Medici and was the sister of Giovanni Angelo de' Medici, the future Pope Pius IV. As the second son of a great house, Charles was destined very early for the ecclesiastical state, according to the usage of the noble families of his time.

The tonsured child and the abbey of Arona

At about the age of twelve, Charles received clerical tonsure, and his paternal uncle transferred to him the rich revenues of the Benedictine abbey of Saints Gratinian and Felinus of Arona — one of those family "benefices" that the age considered normal.^[12] But the child already showed a keen sense of justice: he declared that whatever in those revenues exceeded what was strictly necessary for his education belonged to the poor. This trait, reported by his biographers, foreshadows the bishop who would later strip his palace bare to feed the plague-stricken.^[13]

The student of Pavia and doctor of both laws (1559)

Charles studied in Milan, then at the University of Pavia, where he devoted himself to civil and canon law. A slight speech impediment first made him seem slow; but his seriousness and relentless hard work soon belied that impression.^[14] On 6 December 1559, he was received as doctor in utroque jure — doctor of both laws — at twenty-one.^[15] This legal training, joined to an iron will, would make him a first-rate ecclesiastical administrator and legislator.

The election of Pius IV and the call to Rome

On 25 December 1559, Charles's uncle, Cardinal Giovanni Angelo de' Medici, was elected pope under the name of Pius IV.^[16] The new pontiff at once summoned his nephew to Rome and heaped responsibilities upon him: apostolic protonotary on 13 January 1560, then, on 31 January 1560, cardinal — at twenty-one years of age.^[17][18]

Cardinal at twenty-one

The young cardinal became his uncle's true right-hand man: cardinal-nephew and Secretary of State, he received custody of the public and privy seals of the Papal States and took part in the government of the pontifical states and of the universal Church.^[19] He administered, supervised religious orders, negotiated with princes. Such an accumulation of power and wealth in the hands of so young a man was the classic Renaissance nepotism; but Charles was to put it to a very different use.

The Noctes Vaticanae: a studious and already austere prince

Amid Roman splendour, Cardinal Borromeo led a ordered and studious life. He imposed a severe discipline on his household, had the Roman court adopt black garments, and founded a learned academy, the Academy of the Vatican Nights, whose proceedings appeared under the title of Noctes Vaticanae.^[20] In 1561, he founded and endowed at Pavia a college (today's Almo Collegio Borromeo) for poor and deserving students — the first of his great educational works.^[21][22]

His decisive role at the Council of Trent

Here emerges the historical stature of Charles Borromeo. The Council of Trent, repeatedly interrupted, seemed bogged down. The cardinal-nephew was the architect of its resumption: it was largely at his impetus that the council reopened its doors on 18 January 1562 and held its third and final period (1562-1563), the most decisive.^[23][24] From Rome, he directed the immense correspondence with the legates, removed diplomatic obstacles and pressed for the closing of the council on 4 December 1563.^[25][26] Without his energy, the work of Trent might have remained unfinished. Pius X would say of him that he was like "the clay in the hands of God and of His Vicar", a docile instrument of an immense reform.^[27]

The Roman Catechism

Once the council was closed, its doctrine still had to be spread. Charles Borromeo played a leading part in the drafting of the Catechismus Romanus, the Catechism of the Council of Trent (published in 1566), intended for parish priests for the instruction of the people.^[28][29][30] He also worked on the reform of the Roman breviary and missal. All his life, he would believe that the reform of the Church passes first through teaching — the formation of priests and the catechesis of the faithful.

An interior turning point

The turning point of his life was not a spectacular event but a bereavement. On 19 November 1562, his elder brother Federico Borromeo died suddenly.^[31] Charles was now the eldest of the house; his family urged him to leave the clerical state, marry and secure the line of the Borromeo. He refused. Far from seizing this opportunity to return to the world, he took the opposite decision instead: to give himself entirely to God and to the service of the Church.

Frequenting the Jesuits and the Theatines, and the example of great reforming bishops such as Bartholomew of the Martyrs, Archbishop of Braga, completed his turn towards a life of Christian rigour and pastoral zeal.^[32] From a prince of the Church, he wanted to become a pastor.

Ordination and episcopal consecration (1563)

The consequence was immediate. Charles, who was still only a deacon (ordained 21 December 1560), asked to receive the priesthood and the episcopate. He was ordained priest on 4 September 1563, then consecrated bishop on 7 December 1563 in the Sistine Chapel.^[33][34] Appointed Archbishop of Milan on 12 May 1564, he was first kept in Rome at his uncle's side; only after the death of Pius IV (1565) could he join his diocese. Henceforth, his whole life would hold in a single word: reside and reform.

Entry into Milan (1565): the first resident archbishop in 80 years

On 23 September 1565, Charles Borromeo made his solemn entry into Milan.^[35] The event was heavy with meaning: he was the first resident archbishop in some eighty years. His predecessors, absentee princes, governed from afar a diocese left to itself. He chose to live among his people, in accordance with Trent's great requirement: the residence of the bishop.

The archdiocese was then the largest in Italy: more than eight hundred thousand faithful, more than three thousand clerics.^[36] Clergy and people had drifted away from doctrine; the sale of indulgences, simony, the disorder of convents and religious ignorance reigned. Charles set out to take everything in hand again, methodically, through visitation, legislation and formation.

Provincial councils and synods: the Acta Ecclesiae Mediolanensis

Charles governed through law, as a consummate jurist. He convened six provincial councils and eleven diocesan synods, where he legislated on the discipline of the clergy, the administration of the sacraments, preaching, the upkeep of churches and the life of the faithful.^[37][38][39] The whole of these decrees, gathered under the title of Acta Ecclesiae Mediolanensis, would become a monument of pastoral law, copied and imitated by the bishops of all Catholic Europe. Milan thus became the model by which the application of Trent was regulated.

Seminaries and the formation of the clergy

Convinced that the abuses of the Church are born of the ignorance of the clergy, Charles made the formation of priests his absolute priority.^[40] Applying a major decree of Trent, he opened his first seminary as early as 11 November 1564, soon followed by several colleges and formation communities where future priests received serious instruction and an ordered spiritual life.^[41] These institutions would serve as a model for the whole Catholic Reformation: the Bishop of Milan invented, so to speak, the Tridentine seminary as it would function for four centuries.

The Confraternity of Christian Doctrine: "Sunday schools"

For the people, Charles developed on a large scale the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, which organized systematic teaching of the catechism to children and adults, on Sundays, in every parish.^[42] These "schools of Christian doctrine" — true ancestors of Sunday schools — counted tens of thousands of pupils in Milan. It was one of the great achievements of his episcopate: making popular catechesis a lasting instrument of reform.

The Oblates of St Ambrose (1578)

To have priests wholly devoted to his work, Charles founded in 1578 the society of the Oblates of St Ambrose — secular priests who, without pronouncing solemn vows, dedicate themselves to prayer, study and the service of parishes according to the needs of the diocese.^[43] Placed under the patronage of the great 4th-century Bishop of Milan, Saint Ambrose, the congregation would later be associated with the very name of its founder (Oblates of Saints Ambrose and Charles).

The table below sums up the great levers of his diocesan reform.

Visitor and legislator of sacred art

Charles also applied at Milan Trent's decrees on sacred art: he wanted churches stripped of decorative paganism and ordered to prayer, and he drafted Instructions on the building and furnishing of sacred edifices which became authoritative.^[44] A tireless visitor, he travelled to the most remote Alpine valleys of his immense diocese, checking everything himself.

The episode that sealed his reputation for holiness was the plague of 1576-1577, remembered in Milanese memory as the "plague of Saint Charles" (peste di San Carlo). Preceded by famine, the epidemic ravaged the city; the Spanish governor and many nobles fled. Charles, for his part, stayed.^[45]

He gathered the superiors of all the religious communities of the diocese and organized relief. He strove to feed up to sixty or seventy thousand people a day, exhausting his personal fortune and going into debt for the poor.^[46] Above all, he himself visited the plague-stricken, administered the sacraments to the dying, and led processions of penance: he is depicted barefoot, a rope around his neck, carrying the cross and the relic of the Holy Nail of the Passion, offering his own life in expiation for his people. This image of the bishop walking among corpses to bring God's comfort became the very icon of the Tridentine good shepherd.

The assassination attempt by the Humiliati

Charles's firmness earned him violent opposition. The most dramatic came from the order of the Humiliati (Umiliati), a congregation once fervent, fallen into wealth and laxity: reduced to about 170 members, it nevertheless owned nearly ninety monasteries.^[47] Furious at the reforms the archbishop wanted to impose on them, a few plotted a conspiracy.

On the evening of 26 October 1569, as Charles knelt in prayer in his chapel during evening prayer, a member of the order, the former brother Girolamo Donato known as "Farina", fired an arquebus shot at him.^[48][49][50] The bullet struck him in the back but, according to witnesses, "did not even pierce his clothes": a miracle was proclaimed. The saint, it is said, remained at prayer without even interrupting the office. This inexplicable survival further enhanced his aura.^[51]

The suppression of the Humiliati (1571)

Following this attempt and the order's persistent resistance, the holy Pope Pius V pronounced on 8 February 1571 the suppression of the congregation of the Humiliati.^[52][53] The episode shows Charles's mettle: neither threats nor bullets turned him away from reform.

Conflicts with the civil power

The archbishop also clashed, harshly, with the Spanish civil power that governed the Milanese. His determination to impose the jurisdiction of the Church over clerics and the discipline of morals provoked repeated conflicts with the governors and the senate of Milan, who complained to Rome and Madrid.^[54] Charles held firm, at the cost of permanent tension, defending the independence of the Church against the prince's interference.

Austerity and penance

This great lord, this pope's nephew, led a life of extreme austerity: prolonged fasts, long vigils, bodily penances, reduced sleep, a frugal table. He stripped his revenues bare for the poor and for good works, and made mortification the rule of his own household.^[55][56][57] His whole life literally illustrated the motto on his arms: Humilitas. To those who urged him to spare himself, exhausted as he was by work, he answered, according to a hagiographical notice, with an image that has remained famous: to give light, the candle must be consumed.^[58]

Prayer, the source of all action

His spirituality is that of a man of action rooted in prayer. In his moving homily at the last synod of his life — the text the Church reads today on his feast, 4 November — he gives away the secret of his tireless activity: everything must be born of prayer.

"Understand, brethren, that nothing is so necessary for churchmen as mental prayer, which must precede all our actions, accompany them and follow them." — Saint Charles Borromeo, Homily at his last synod^[59]

He teaches that zeal holds only if it is inwardly sheltered and nourished, lest it dissipate:

"If a small fire of divine love is already kindled within you, do not show it at once, do not expose it to the wind; keep the furnace door closed, so as not to let the heat escape." — Saint Charles Borromeo, Homily at his last synod^[60]

Preaching first by his life

Of priests and bishops, Charles asks above all for coherence between word and life. His own was, by everyone's admission, a perpetual sermon. His principle has remained famous:

"Be concerned first to preach by your life and your morals; lest, seeing you say one thing and do another, people mock your words and shake their heads." — Saint Charles Borromeo, Homily at his last synod^[61]

A friendship of saints

Charles Borromeo was no isolated reformer. He belongs to the constellation of saints that regenerated the 16th-century Church, and many of them were his friends, correspondents or collaborators. In Rome, he frequented Saint Philip Neri, the "Apostle of Rome"; he relied on the Jesuits of Saint Ignatius of Loyola for his colleges; he admired the example of the great reforming bishops.

Mount Varallo and the end (1584)

In the autumn of 1584, exhausted by nineteen years of superhuman labour, Charles withdrew for his annual retreat to the Sacro Monte of Varallo, a great place of devotion.^[62] There he contracted an intermittent fever.^[63] Back in Milan, his condition deteriorated rapidly. He died in the night of 3 to 4 November 1584, at forty-six years of age, after receiving the last sacraments, repeating the words of abandonment: "Ecce venio" — "Behold, I come".^[64][65]

Beatification (1602) and canonization (1610)

Popular fervour was immediate and immense: he was at once venerated as a saint. The cause advanced swiftly. Charles was beatified on 12 May 1602 by Pope Clement VIII, then canonized on 1 November 1610 by Pope Paul V.^[66][67] His feast was fixed on 4 November and entered into the universal Roman calendar. His body rests in the crypt of Milan Cathedral (the scurolo beneath the high altar of the Duomo), where it is venerated to this day.

The reformer celebrated by Saint Pius X

Three centuries later, on 26 May 1910, Saint Pius X devoted an entire encyclical to Charles Borromeo, Editae Saepe, for the third centenary of his canonization.^[68] In it the pope presents the holy archbishop as the very type of the true Catholic reformer — one who reforms the Church from within, through holiness and obedience, as opposed to the false reformers who tear it apart. He holds him up as an example to all pastors:

"Model of the flock and model of pastors [...] lighting up the whole Church with the manifold splendour of holy works." — Saint Pius X, encyclical Editae Saepe (1910)^[69]

Patronage and legacy

Saint Charles Borromeo remains the patron of bishops, catechists, seminarians and spiritual directors — that is, of everything concerned with the formation and guidance of souls.^[70][71] His influence was incalculable: for centuries, the ideal bishop was defined by reference to him, and the seminary which he brought to its classical form trained generations of priests. The gigantic statue of the "Sancarlone" at Arona, towering over Lake Maggiore at more than thirty metres high, says enough about the place he keeps in the memory of Lombardy and of the whole Church.^[72]

Honoured on 4 November, the Archbishop of Milan remains the saint who proved that one can be at once a prince of the Church and a poor pastor, a great jurist and a man of prayer — and that the true reform of the Church never happens without the holiness of those who lead it.

• The Council of Trent (1545-1563) — the council he helped bring to a close and of which he was the greatest implementer.
• The Catholic Reformation — the great movement of regeneration of which he was a major figure.
• The Protestant Reformation — the crisis to which the Church answered with Trent and with saints like him.
• Saint Philip Neri (1515-1595) — his Roman friend, the "Apostle of Rome".
• Saint Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556) — whose Jesuits supported his colleges and his reform.
• Saint Ambrose of Milan — the great 4th-century bishop whose worthy successor he was at Milan.
• Pope Pius IV — his uncle, who made him cardinal and closed the Council of Trent.