
Sometimes the popes delay or even omit the beatification or canonization of an unquestionably holy person because he or she had become entangled somehow in the web of current politics. Since Cardinal Ildefonso Schuster, archbishop of Milan from 1929 to 1954, was on personal good terms with Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, the Vatican authorities must have examined carefully their relationship before deciding him qualified for beatification. In other respects he was regarded as a holy man and a pastoral bishop.
It may seem odd that Pope Pius XI should have named to head a major Italian see a man with so Germanic a name as Alfredo Schuster. Alfredo’s father was indeed Bavarian by birth. His mother Anna Maria Tutzer was a native of the South Tyrol, Italian by citizenship but Austrian by culture. However, Johannes Schuster, a tailor, had moved to Rome, and his son, born there, grew up a true Romano.
Alfredo felt called to the monastic life. In 1899 he made his monastic profession in the Roman Benedictine Abbey of St. Paul’s-outside-the-Walls. Then, having completed his theological studies in the great Roman Benedictine monastery of Sant’ Anselmo, he was ordained a priest in 1904. A model monk from the start, he rose through many promotions to the post of abbot-ordinary of St. Paul’s.
As a scholar specializing in monastic history and matters liturgical, Father Ildefonso became internationally known for his classic study of the Roman Missal. The popes employed him increasingly as a consultant, and on June 26, 1929 Pope Pius appointed him archbishop of Milan, created him a cardinal, and personally consecrated him to the order of bishop. The frail ascetic then took over the see of Milan with a zeal comparable to that of his great predecessors St. Ambrose and St. Charles Borromeo.
By the time of Schuster’s election to Milan, Benito Mussolini, the founder of the totalitarian Fascist movement, had already thrust himself into the Italian political scene and been named prime minister. Italy’s bishops were uncertain about this anti-religious ideologist who had achieved power through violence. Their opinion of him mellowed, however, when in early 1929 he shrewdly engineered the Lateran Pacts in which the Italian government, which in 1870 had robbed the papacy of its independent kingdom and declared the popes subjects of the kings of Italy, reversed its stance, proclaiming the popes politically independent, and making financial restitution for the stolen lands and properties.
Cardinal Schuster took an optimistic view of the new dictator. As the first Italian bishop named under the agreements, he was also the first to take the agreed-on oath of loyalty to the Italian state; hence he felt obliged to maintain deferential relations with the Italian government.
It was not long, however, before the Fascist “Duce” started to violate the spirit of the Lateran Pacts. Seeking to dominate and “fascistize” all Italian organizations, he moved to obliterate Catholic Action groups and Catholic youth societies. Then in 1937 he began to enact a series of racist laws like those promulgated by Hitler. Hitherto, Pope Pius XI had taken him sternly to task for such actions. After 1938 Cardinal Schuster, too, spoke out against these and other “Germanizations” introduced by Mussolini.
During World War II Schuster governed his diocese well despite the bitter Italian military campaign. When Italy fell to the Allies in 1943, Mussolini fled north, henceforth a mere puppet of Hitler. The Cardinal’s advice to the Nazi-Fascist troops still in northern Italy to surrender had a decisive influence. His personal solicitude for Mussolini prompted him to seek out the dispirited dictator on April 25, 1945, and urge him to make his peace with God and man. The Duce spurned the admonition, to his own quick disaster. He was assassinated three days later by a band of extremist Italian partisans. --Father Robert F. McNamara
I looked and heard the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand. They encircled the throne and the living creatures and the elders. In a loud voice they were saying:
“Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain,
to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength
and honor and glory and praise!”
Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, saying:
“To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb
be praise and honor and glory and power,
for ever and ever!”
The four living creatures said, “Amen,” and the elders fell down and worshiped.
Writings
(Year C). The whole of theology will be found contained in the revered and time-honoured Roman formulas of the holy Sacrifice; and faith, moreover, reminds me that our divine Saviour has constituted the Church to be the depositary of the mystical science of prayer, and has given her, through the unspeakable groanings of the Spirit, the key to the very heart of God himself.
It is a fact without doubt that the Roman Missal represents in its entirety the loftiest and most important work in ecclesiastical literature, being that which shows forth with the greatest fidelity the life-history of the Church, that sacred poem in the making of which ha posto mano e cielo e terra.
THE essential object of the Liturgy’s yearly cycle is to adore in spirit and in truth, to praise, to propitiate and to offer thanksgiving to the triune God for his great glory and goodness. This glory and this goodness are especially manifest in the twofold work of cosmic creation and human redemption; hence in early times these two theophanies, as we may call them, of the divine magnificence, while they afforded the central theme of the eucharistic anaphora, likewise gave inspiration to the liturgical cycle, as well for the week as for the year.
The mysteries fulfilled by our Saviour in traversing the way of redemption are honoured, on the other hand, by a succession of feasts, which, beginning with Advent and going on to Christmas, Lent, Easter and the twenty-four Sundays after Pentecost, embraces the whole year, and always maintains a wonderful harmony between the logical order of ideas and the chronological sequence of events. The weekly round is, moreover, strikingly Trinitarian in character, while that of the year deals rather with our salvation and our last end, but both the one and the other have as their permanent objective the glorifying of God in his manifestations of power and of love. (The Sacramentary)
Musical Selection
Lord, teach us how to pray aright
with rev'rence and with fear.
Tho' dust and ashes in Your sight,
we may, we must draw near.
We perish if we cease from prayer;
O, grant us pow'r to pray.
And when to meet You we prepare,
Lord, meet us on our way.
Give deep humility; the sense
of godly sorrow give;
a strong desire with confidence,
to hear Your voice and live;
Faith in the only sacrifice
that can for sin atone;
to cast our hopes, to fix our eyes
on Christ, on Christ alone.
Give these, and then Your will be done;
thus strengthened with all might,
we, thro' Your Spirit and Your Son,
shall pray, and pray aright.