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 BLENE

597

BLESSED

high esteem by the contemporary Greek Emperors. The aforementioned John Ducas, far from venting his wrath on him, accepted the rebuke as well merited. When the Patriarchal See of Constanti- nople fell vacant, in 1255, it was offered to Blem- mida by Emperor Theodore II, Lascaris (1254-58); but he preferred his quiet monastic life.

The reputation of Blemmida was really due to his vast learning. JIany a Greek youth of high estate learned from him the beauty of letters, or the secrets of philosophy and theology. Among his pupils were the learned Georgius Acropolites and the royal prince, afterwards emperor, Theo- dore II, Lascaris. Blemmida was the author of several poems, of letters, of a work on the duties of an emperor, of two autobiographies, of two geographical works, of philosophical WTitings on logic and physics, and of a rule of Ufe for his monks. Among his theological works may be mentioned a commentary on the Psalms, a discourse on the Trinity and Christology, and two orations on the Holy Ghost. One of these orations was addressed to Jacob, Archbishop of Bulgaria; the other to Theodore Lascaris. In both he proved, from passages of Athanasius, Basil, Gregory Nazianzen, Gregory of Nyssa, CjTil of Alexandria and other Fathers, that the procession of the Holy Ghost from Father and Son, or from the Father through the Son, was genuine Catholic doctrine. In this precisely consists his importance. He was among the few Greek ^Titers who recognized that the Latin Church was correct in its belief. This is evident not only from his own writings, but also from the explicit contemporary' evidence of such men as Beccus, Pachymeres, and Nicephorus Greg- oras. It was through the reading of the works of Blemmida that Beccus was converted to the teach- ing held by the Latin Church, and induced to write in its defence. Most of the works of Blemmida so far published are found in Migne's "Patrologia Grseca", CXLII (Paris, 1855), or in the " Bibliotheca Teubneriana" (Leipzig, 1896).

Georgius .\cropolites. Annales in P. G., CXL (Paris, 1857): see also CXHII. CXLIV. CXLVIII; R.itoaldds, Annales Eccl. (IjUcca, 1747. 1748). II. Ill; Krumbacheh, Gesch. der byzant. Literatur (Munich, 1897),

Francis J. Schaefer. Blenk, J.^-mes Hubert. See New Orleans, Arch-

BIOCESE OF.

Blenkinsop, Peter, Catholic publisher, b. in Ireland; married a sister of Archbishop Oliver Kelly of Tuam and emigrated with his family from Dublin to Baltimore, Maryland, U. S. A., in 1826, where he established a printing and publishing house for Catholic books; he issued (1827) Pise's "History of the Church", 5 vols., and began the "Metropolitan", a monthly magazins (1830). Blenkinsop had three children: William A., Peter J., and Catherine.

William A. Blenkinsop was b. in Dublin, 1819; d. 8 January, 1892, in Boston, Massachusetts, U. S. A. He studied at St. Mary's College, Baltimore, from 1833-39, taught there (1839-44) taking the degree of A. M., and was ordained by Archbishop Eccleston in 1843. He went with Bishop Chanche to Natchez and laboured on the Mississippi mission for seven years; in 1850 he became affiliated to the Diocese of Boston and was appointed pastor of Cabotsville (now Chicopee), where he built a church, one of the finest in the State; his pastoral charge included a large part of the Connecticut Valley in Massachu- setts. When offered the position of Vicar-General of Natchez, he responded that he had more people in his parish than were in the whole Diocese of Natchez. In 1864, he became pastor of the Church of Sts. Peter and Paul, Boston, where he remained for twenty-eight years. He was a model of priestly virtue, courtly in manners, simple as a child, and II.— 38

generous to the poor. He was buried in St. Augus- tine's Cemetery, S. Boston.

Peter J. Blenkinsop was b. in Dublin, 19 April, 1818; d. in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 5 November. 1896. He studied at Georgetown College, Washirj'- ton, D. C, entered the Society of Jesus in 1834, and was ordained by Archbishop Eccleston 26 July, 1846. He was President of Holy Cross College, Worcester, Massachusetts, from 1854-57, which he rebuilt after its destruction by fire. He was also pastor at Fred- erick, Maryland, St. Joseph's Church, Philadelphia, and was stationed at various times in the Jesuit col- leges at Worcester, Georgetown, and Philadelphia.

Catherine Blenkinsop, b. in Dublin, 18 April, 1816; d. at Emmitsburg, Maryland. She entered the Sisters of Charity at the latter place in May, 1831, at the age of fifteen. She took the name of Euphemia %Wth the religious habit and was stationed suc- cessively at St. Joseph's School, New York, St. Peter's School, Baltimore, St. Mary's Asylum in the same city, and in 1855, at the mother-house, as assistant. During the Civil War she was entrusted with the delicate mission of directing the institutions of the Sisters of Charity in the South, and was the main- stay of the Sisters in their arduous labours; in 1866 she was appointed visitatrix of the community, which she continued to direct until her death.

McCoy, History of Spritujjietd Diocese (Boston, 1900); He.ily. Sermon Preached on Death of Mother Euphemia (Bos- ton, 1887).

E. I. De\1TT.

Blessed. See Heaven.

Blessed, The. — There are at present two ways in which the Church allows public worship to be paid those who have lived in the fame of sanctitv or died as martjTS. Of these some are beatified, others are canonized. (See Beatification and C.a-noniza- tign.) Beatification is a permission for public worship restricted to certain places and to certain acts. In the more recent discipline of the Church, the pope alone can beatify, though formerly bishops could grant the honour of beatification to those of the faithful who had shed their blood for Christ or lived li\'es of heroic virtue. All those permissions for public worship which in the early ages of the Church were granted to particular churches and spread thence with the sanction of other bishops to other congregations, to be finally made a matter of precept for the universal Church by the Roman pontiff, constituted beatification and canonization in the exact sense of the word. It was only beatifica- tion while the cult, of the martjT for instance, was restricted to the place where he had suffered, but became canonization when it was received in the entire Churcli. The difference between canoniza- tion and beatification lies in the presence or absence of two elements which are found united in canoniza- tion and either separate or entirely absent from beatification, though generally only one is lacking. These elements are: (1) the precept regarding public worship, and (2) its extension to the whole Church. In exceptional cases one or other of these is wanting; sometimes the cult of the beatified is not only per- mitted but enjoined, though not for the universal Church, and in other instances it is permitted for the whole Church but not enjoined. The case of St. Rose of Lima is an instance of the occurrence of both elements, though that did not of itself suflSce for her canonization, as one of the elements was not really complete. When Clement X chose her as patron of all America, the Philippines, and the Indies, and by the same act allowed her cultus in the entire Church, it was clearly a case where a cultus was enjoined in America and merely allowed for the remainder of the Church.

The nature of beatification makes it evident that the worship of the blessed is restricted to certain