Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 4.djvu/75

 CLERKS

53

CLERMONT

he. after many difficulties, including the necessity of educating himself, embraced the sacerdotal state, and was ordained 22 December, 1572. His congregation may be said to have begun in 1574. Two or three young laymen, attracted by his sanctity and thesweet- ness of his character, had gathered round him to sub- mit themselves to his sjiiritual guidance and help him in the work for the reform of manners and the saving of souls which he had begun even as a lajTiian. Gio- vanni rented the beautiful little church of Santa Maria della Rosa, and in a quarter close by, some- thing like community life was started. It was here, when it became e\'ident that Giovamii's lay helpers were preparing for the priesthood and that some- thing like a religious order was in process of formation, that a storm of persecvition broke out against the devoted founder. The Fathers of the republic seem to have had a real fear that a native religious order, if spread over Italy, would cause the affairs of the little state to become too well known to its neigh- bours. The persecution, however, was so effective and lasting, that the Blessed Leonard! ]iractically spent the rest of his life in banishment from Lucca, only being now and again admitted by special decree of the Senate, unwillingly extracted under papal pres- sure. In 15S0 Giovanni acquired secretly the ancient church of Santa Maria Cortelandini (jjopularly known as Santa Maria Nera) which his sons hold to this day. In 1583 the congregation was canonically erected at the instigation of Pope Gregory XIII by Bishop Al- essandro Guidiccioni, of Lucca, and confirmed by the Brief of Clement VIII "Ex quo divina majestas", 13 October, 1595.

The congregation at this time only took simple vows of chastity, perseverance, and obedience, and was known as the "Congregation of Clerks Secular of the Blessed Virgin". In 1596 Clement VIII nom- inated the Blessed Giovanni commissary Apostolic for the reform of the monks of the Order of Monte Vergine, and in 1601 the cardinal protector appointed him to carry out a similar work among the Vallom- brosans. In 1601 he obtained the church of S. Maria in Portico in Rome. In the same year Cardinal Baronius became protector of the congregation. Gio- vanni died in Rome 9 October, 1609, aged sixty-eight, and was buried in Santa Maria in Portico. The present church of the congregation in Rome, obtained in 1662, is Santa Maria in Campitelli (called also Santa Maria in Portico) interesting to Englishmen as the first titular church of the Cardinal of York. The body of the founder was removed to this church and lies there under the altar of St. John the Baptist. Giovanni Leonardi was declared Venerable in 1701, and beatified by Pius IX in 1861. Leo XIII, in 1893, caused his name to be inserted in the Roman Martyr- ology and ordered the clergy of Rome to say his Mass and Office, an honour accorded to no other Blessed in that city except the beatified popes. In 1614 Paul V confided to the congregation the care of the so- called Pious Schools. It is in his Brief " Inter Pastor- ahs" that the congregation is first called "of the Mother of God", ha\'ing until then been known by its original name of "Clerks Secular of the Blessed Virgin". The care of these schools being considered outside the scojie of the congregation, it was relieved of their charge by the same pontiff in 1617.

It was not until 1621 (3 November) that Gregory XV, carrjnng out what was always in the founder's mind, erected the congregation into a religious order proper by permitting its members to take solemn vows, and it henceforth became the Clerks Regular of the Mother of God. The Blessed Leonardi received many offers of churches during his life, but with a view of concihating the governing body of the re- public thought it better to refuse them. In all its history the order has never had more than fifteen churches, and never more than seven at one time. It

was introduced into Naples in 1632, Genoa 1669, and Milan 1709. The only churches of the order now ex- isting are Santa Maria Cortelandini, Lucca; Santa Maria in Camjiitelli, Rome; Santa Maria in Portico di Chiaja, and Santa Brigida, Naples; the Madonna della Stella Migliano (1902); and the parish church of S. Carlo in ilonte Carlo (1873), the only church of the order outside the borders of modern Italy. In the sacristy of Santa Maria Cortelandini is preserved a large portion of a hair-shirt of St. Thomas of Canter- bury whose feast is celebrated there with considerable ceremony: in 1908 half of this relic was presented to the Benedictine Abbey of St. Thomas, Erdington, England. The former residence of the clerks, who kept a large boys' school until the suppression in 1867, is now the public library of Lucca. Two of the original companions of the holy founder, Cesare Franciotti and Giovanni Cioni, have been declared Venerable. The order justly enjoys great fame for its learning and its numerous scholars and writers. Suffice it to mention Giovanni Domenico Mansi, editor of the "Councils" and a hundred other works. The arms of the order are azure, Our Lady Assumed into Heaven; and its badge and seal the monogram of the Mother of God in Greek characters.

Helyot, lli^l. Ord. ReL, especially the Italian version by FoNTANA, clerk of this congregation (Lucca, 1738), IV, 268- 295; BoN'ANxr, Cat. Ord. Relig., I; Marracci, VUa del V. P. Giovanni Leonardi (Rome, 1673); Guerra, La Vita del B. Giov. Leonardi (Monza, 1895); Barbosa, Jut. Eccl. Univ., I, xli, 162; BuUar. Rom.,\\\; Sarteschu De Scriptoribus Cong. Cler. Matris Dei. ^, _,

Montgomery Carmichael.

Clermont (C'LERMONT-FERRANn), Diocese of (Claromontensis), comi^rises the entire department of Puy-de-D6me and is a suffragan of Bourges. Al- though at first very extensive, in 1317 the diocese lost Haute-Auvergne through the creation of the Diocese of Saint- Flour and in 1S22 theBourbonnais, on account of the erection of the Diocese of Mou- lins. The first Bishop of Cler- mont was St. Austremonius (Stramonius). (See Austremo- nius.) Accord- ing to local tra- di1;ion he was one of the seventy- two Disciples of Christ, by birth a Jew, who came with St. Peter from Palestine to Rome and subse- quently became the Apostle of Auvergne, Berry, Niver- nais, and Limousin. At Clermont he is said to have converted the senator Cassius and the paganpriest Vic- torinus, to have sent St. Sirenatus (Cerneuf ) to Thiers, St. Marius to Salers,Sts. Nectariusand Antoninus into other jiarts of Auvergne, and to have been beheaded in 92. This tradition is based on a life of St. Austremo- nius written in the tenth century in the monastery of Mozat, where the body of the saint had rested from 761, and rewritten by the monks of Issoire, who re- tained the saint's head. St. Gregory of Tours, born in -Vuvergne in 544 and well versed in the history of that country, looks upon Avistremonius as one of the seven envoys who, about 250, evangelized Gaul; he relates how the body of the saint w;us first interred at Issoire, being there the object of great veneration.

Cathedral, Clkrmont-1-