Sunday, August 27, 2006
MORE OPUS ANGELORUM ODDITIES
Opus Sanctorum Angelorum offers a "History of the Order of the Holy Cross" at their website. That history is centered in Coimbra, Portugal. The first entry in the history is June 28, 1131. There is an entry for 1211, indicating Fernando Martins entered the school of the monastery and subsequently became a Franciscan.
The history indicates that the order became extinct in 1834 and was restored in 1977.
This is not the only group of Canons Regular of the Holy Cross. Take a look at the "History of the Canons Regular of the Order of the Holy Cross" website that also gives their history. In this website the order was founded in 1211, this one near Huy in a city called Clairlieu (Belgium?). It spread to France, the Rhineland, and England as well as the Low Countries. No mention is made of Coimbra. This community also nearly died out in the 1840s when it was reduced to four aging members, before it once again began to grow. This congregation sent missionaries into Green Bay, Wisconsin, but this missionary attempt was abandoned during the Civil War. In the 1900s missionaries of this congregation traveled to the Belgian Congo, to Java in Indonesia, and to Brazil. The website indicates that
Today, the worldwide Order of the Holy Cross includes foundations in Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Congo, Germany, Indonesia, the Netherlands, and the United States. There are approximately 500 Crosiers throughout the world.
The residence (Generalate) of the Master General and his staff is found in Rome, at the Church of San Giorgio al Velabro. The Order has cared for this seventh century church since 1939.
Still no mention of Coimbra.
This second congregation of Canons Regular of the Order of the Holy Cross has addressed a sexual abuse problem within their order.
Does the Church have two congregations of priests that both share the same name but are separate and distinct, non-overlapping entities?
The Opus Angelorum website claims that "The Order of Canons Regular of the Holy Cross was founded in Portugal in the year 1131 by Dom Tello and St. Theotonius. St. Theotonius, the first prior of the Order, is celebrated in the liturgy as the reformer of religious life in Portugal."
Another page in the OA website gives the history of St. Theotonius. Catholic Online also gives a history of St. Theotonius. There are enough similarities between the two to indicate both are talking about the same person, but Catholic Online claims that St. Theotonius was an Augustinian canon who entered the Augustianian Canons at Coimbra and advised the King of Portugal. Nothing is mentioned of him founding an Order of Canons Regular of the Holy Cross.
In the OA history of St. Theotonius there is that odd statement: "Indeed, when he had altogether passed the time of infancy and reached the branching of the Pythagorean letter, without hesitation he abandoned the left hand branch and the pleasures of the world, and he began, with all his might, to yearn for the right hand path, ardent with heavenly longing."
Left Hand/Right Hand Path?? These are terms from Witchcraft, not Roman Catholicism.
"Branching of the Pythagorean letter"???
Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us!
