Notes and Comments

Conferences and Celebrations

The millennium of the founding of the Holy Hermitage of Camaldoli was celebrated at the monastery on June 19.

An international conference on “Egidio da Viterbo, cardinale agostiniano, tra Roma e l’Europa del Rinascimento” will be held in Viterbo on September 22–23, 2012, and in Rome on September 26–28. The following American scholars will present papers: Daniel Nodes (Baylor University) on “Il dono dello Spirito santo e l’Amore divino: l’encomio letterario di Egidio a conclusione del suo ‘Commentarium’”; John Monfasani (University at Albany, SUNY) on “Giles of Viterbo and the Errors of Aristotle”; Nelson H. Minnich (The Catholic University of America) on “Egidio Antonini da Viterbo, the Reform of the Religious Orders, and Lateran V”; Ingrid D. Rowland (University of Notre Dame) on “Egidio da Viterbo, il Neoplatonismo e Giordano Bruno”; Brian P. Copenhaver (University of California at Los Angeles) on “Piety and Pornorthography in Papal Rome: Egidio’s Book on the Hebrew Letters”; and Meredith J. Gill (University of Maryland–College Park) on “Egidio da Viterbo, his Augustine, and the Reformation of the Arts.” Further information may be obtained from the Segreteria of the conference at rremail@fastwebnet.it.

The four-day symposium “Reform and Renewal: Vatican II after Fifty Years” will be held at The Catholic University of America on September 26–29, 2012. Cardinal William Levada, prefect emeritus of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, will deliver the keynote address on the first evening. There will be lectures and workshops on the principal pronouncements of the Council. The preliminary program and general information may be obtained at http://trs.cua.edu/vaticanII.

The Pontifical Committee for Historical Sciences, in collaboration with the Centro Studi e Ricerche “Concilio Vaticano II” of the Pontifical Lateran University, will present an international conference on the Second Vatican Council that pertains to the archives of the Council Fathers; it will be held in Vatican City on October 3–5, 2012. Representatives of more than twenty countries, regions, and organizations will report on their respective documentary holdings; Tricia T. Pyne (Associated Archives of St. Mary’s Seminary and University, Baltimore) and Gerald P. Fogarty, S. J. (University of Virginia), will present a survey of papers in the United States.

Causes of Saints

Cardinal Timothy Dolan, archbishop of New York, announced on Easter Sunday, April 8, that Pope Benedict XVI, following the unanimous recommendation of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints in a decree on March 7, had approved the conferral of the title “Venerable” on Father Félix Varela y Morales, whose “heroic virtues” had been recognized in the decree. The postulator of the cause is Brother Roberto Meoli, F. S. C. Venerable Varela was born in Havana on November 20, 1788, and was ordained a priest at age twenty-three. A year later he was appointed professor of philosophy, physics, and ethics in the seminary of the capital. He had already distinguished himself, as noted by the Archdiocese of Miami, as “a man of culture and profound learning” and had written a textbook on philosophy. He instituted the first physics and chemistry laboratory in Cuba. In 1821 he was elected a representative (diputado) of Cuba in the Spanish Cortes at Madrid. Among the laws he proposed were one to abolish slavery and another to grant self-rule to the Spanish colonies in the Americas. After the restoration of royal absolutism he had to leave Spain, and, unable to return to Cuba, he went into exile in 1823 and then worked for thirty years in the Diocese (later Archdiocese) of New York, where he became vicar general and patron of the Irish immigrants. He died on February 25, 1853, in St. Augustine, Florida. His remains were later moved to the Aula Magna of the University of Havana, where they remain today. In 1981 the government of Cuba created the Orden Félix Varela as the greatest distinction of the country.

The causes of Mother Riccarda Beauchamp Hambrough (1887–1966) and Sister Katherine Flanagan (1892–1941), both Bridgettines, have been submitted by the Archdiocese of Westminster to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. Mother Riccarda was...