The cardinal who said 'wait' made St. Clare a saint

ANAGNI, September 26, 1255 AD — Pope Innocent IV came to St. Clare’s funeral at Assisi in August 1253 AD. He tried to treat her as a saint before she was even buried. One of his cardinals objected. It took two more years, twenty witnesses and a new Pope before the Church made her a saint.

Saint Clare of Assisi was the first of the Poor Ladies, the women who followed Saint Francis of Assisi. She led them at the convent of San Damiano, just below the town. She died there on August 11, 1253 AD. Only the Pope could make St. Clare a saint. But first, churchmen had to look hard at her life and her miracles.

When news of her death reached Assisi, so many people rushed down to San Damiano that the town seemed empty. All of them were calling her a saint.

The next day Pope Innocent arrived with his cardinals. The friars began the funeral prayers said for anyone who has died. The Pope stopped them. He wanted the prayers for the feast of a saint who had never married. Those prayers treated St. Clare as if she were already on the list.

One of the Pope’s cardinals, Cardinal Rainaldo, objected. He said there had to be a proper inquiry first. So the usual Mass for someone who has died was said. Then Cardinal Rainaldo preached in praise of St. Clare.

Fifteen sisters and five neighbours

Two months after St. Clare died, Pope Innocent ordered Bishop Bartholomew of Spoleto to look into her life. The Pope wanted to know how she had lived and what her miracles were. He also asked about the day she gave up all she had to follow God.

Late in November 1253 AD the bishop and his helpers came to San Damiano. They questioned fifteen sisters who had lived beside St. Clare for years, some of them more than once. Then, in the church of San Paolo inside the town walls, they heard five people from Assisi. That made twenty witnesses.

The case was still open when Pope Innocent died in December 1254 AD.

The man who said wait

The cardinals chose Cardinal Rainaldo as the next Pope, and he became Pope Alexander IV. The cardinal who had said wait at St. Clare’s funeral now had to decide.

Pope Alexander knew St. Clare well. For years he had been the cardinal in charge of looking after her sisters. In September 1252 AD St. Clare was very ill. Cardinal Rainaldo hurried over from Perugia to give her Communion. St. Clare begged him to get official approval for her sisters to live without owning any property at all. He promised. Eight days later he got it for her.

Even so, Pope Alexander wanted the case checked before he decided. He talked it over with the cardinals. Then he chose trusted churchmen to check the miracles people talked about. He wanted to know whether they had really happened. The churchmen found “real and attested miracles,” Thomas of Celano wrote in his life of St. Clare.

One of those miracles happened to Giacobello of Spoleto, who had been blind for twelve years. Twice, St. Clare appeared to him in his sleep. She asked why he didn’t come to her at Assisi to be cured. A thick crowd stood around her tomb. Giacobello lay down at the church door with a stone under his head. When he finally reached the tomb, he could see again.

Then Pope Alexander asked the cardinals, archbishops and bishops what they thought. Every one of them agreed at once. They said St. Clare, “whom God had glorified on high, ought also to be glorified on earth”.

Pope Alexander declared St. Clare a saint in 1255 AD, two years after she died. He did it in the cathedral at Anagni, the town where he was born. That autumn his letter went out to bishops all over Western Europe. The copies did not all leave on the same day. Pope Alexander, the man who had said wait, also wrote the prayers and hymns for her feast.