The Papal Artifacts’ Collection is primarily dedicated to artifacts connected to the papacy. Individual popes, their biographies and multiple items belonging to them, including first and second class relics, make up the majority of this Collection. But that isn’t all it is.
Father Kunst has a deep devotion to the saints as can be readily seen in viewing the Saints & Blesseds section of this site. We invite you to visit Papal History/Saints & Blesseds to view the many canonized and beatified men and women who make up this section of the Collection.
Saint Vincent Pallotti is one of them.
The artifact is a rare signed document by Vincent Pallotti.
-
- Signed Letter of St. Vincent Pallotti, Envelope
-
- Signed Letter St. Vincent Pallotti, page 2
-
- Signed Letter of St. Vincent Pallotti
Era: 1795-1850
Saint Vincent Pallotti
Feast Day – January 22
This unpretentious man, Saint Vincent Pallotti, who out of respect for God omnipresent always went bareheaded, is one of the glories of the Catholic clergy, the pillars of the Church in troublesome times, and the successful apostles of the people.
Saint Vincent Pallotti was born in Rome in 1795. From earliest childhood he evinced tender love for the Blessed Mother of God, and the decree on the heroic nature of his virtues emphasizes the following facts: “He possessed an exceptional love for poverty and penance, and was therefore especially devoted to St Francis of Assisi. Because various obstacles were in the way of his entering the First Order, he desired at least to belong to the Third Order. It was his constant endeavor to imitate and venerate St Francis.”
Vincent became a Tertiary in the Franciscan church of Aracoeli on November 29, 1816. He distinguished himself not only by his piety but also by his brilliant intellect. In time he received the degrees of doctor of philosophy and of theology. He was overwhelmed with joy when on May 16, 1818, he was ordained to the holy priesthood. Then his apostolate began. With prayer and penance, with his labors in the pulpit and the confessional, with his efforts on behalf of the sick and the endangered, and especially on behalf of young clerics in the Roman seminary, he did a measureless amount of good. In fact, it is well known that the saint often bi-located so as to be able to reach more souls when necessary.
To his apostolic zeal must be ascribed the foundation of the Pious Society of the Missions, also called the Pallottine Fathers. The purpose of the society was to arouse faith and charity among Catholics and to propagate these virtues among heretics and infidels. Vincent placed his organization under the protection of the Immaculate Mother of God and under perfect submission to the Holy See.
God glorified His humble servant by the gift of miracles both during his lifetime and after his death in 1850. There was a strange and marvelous scent, a heavenly perfume, which was noted about the saint’s body and in his room at the time of his death. That scent lingered in the room in which he had died, for a month, even through the window to the room was left open.
St Vincent Pallotti was comparatively young when he was called to eternity, but in that short span he had accumulated a wealth of merits. He was beatified in 1950, and canonized in 1963.
The body of Saint Vincent Pallotti was exhumed in 1906 and 1950, and his body was found to be completely incorrupt.
The Franciscan Book of Saints, ed. by Marion Habig,
Saint Vincent is founder of the Union of the Catholic Apostolate. (UAC) & SAC.
His famous call was, all are apostles. He is called the pioneer of Catholic Action.
St. Vincent Pallotti Burial Site in San Salvador in Onda, RomeFather Frank S. Donio
“Seek God and you will find God. Seek God in all things and you will find God in all things. Seek God always and you will find God always.” – St. Vincent Pallotti
Today is the 225th anniversary of the birth of St. Vincent Pallotti. In the first twenty years of his life, he experienced a pope run out of Rome by revolutionaries who died in exile and another taken from Rome and held in France by Napoleon. When that pope, Pius VII, returned in 1815, Pallotti was 20 years old and three years away from his ordination to the priesthood. He saw people who were baptized throw off their faith and take up revolution. He witnessed clergy and religious who needed renewal. Twenty years later, in 1835, he founded the Union of Catholic Apostolate, an association of lay people, religious and clergy in order to assist in the Church’s missionary efforts, revive the faith of Catholics, and enkindle charity in the hearts of all.
Amid a cholera pandemic that hit Rome in 1837, he worked tirelessly along with the small and new community of priests and brothers, as well as lay people, to care for the suffering and the dying, both spiritually and physically. In the aftermath of that pandemic, which left many orphans, St. Vincent Pallotti founded through the Union of Catholic Apostolate the House of Charity in Rome in 1838. This orphanage for girls is still in operation today and is the birthplace of the Pallottine Sisters.
St. Vincent Pallotti evangelized in the streets, cared for the poor, taught and provided spiritual direction to seminarians, clergy, and religious, served in prisons and hospitals, was confessor to the poor and popes, aided the Church’s work in the missions, including the United States, and fostered what today we would call collaboration and co-responsibility among Catholics so that they would live as apostles of Jesus Christ.
He was also a mystic who experienced God as Infinite Love and Mercy. It was this experience of God that sent him forth, urged on by Christ’s charity or love (2 Cor. 5:14). Even seeing a third pope and long-time friend, Bl. Pius IX, flee Rome due to revolution in 1848, St. Vincent Pallotti still worked tirelessly until his death in 1850 in the hope that all would come to full life in Christ. His great project of the Union of Catholic Apostolate did not grow large in his lifetime. Today, though, thousands of his spiritual sons and daughters of the Union of Catholic Apostolate—which also includes the Pallottine Fathers, Brothers, and Sisters—continues his work in 56 countries around the world.
Pallotti was canonized by St. John XXIII in 1963, just over a month after the close of the first session of the Second Vatican Council—an appropriate time given the Council’s teaching that all are called to holiness and to live as apostles of Jesus Christ.
Blessings to all on the birthday of St. Vincent Pallotti! May the Charity of Christ urge us on!
Fr. Frank S. Donio, S.A.C., D.Min. is Founding Director of the Catholic Apostolate Center and a member of the Society of the Catholic Apostolate (Pallottine Fathers and Brothers). He is also Executive Director of the Conference of Major Superiors of Men of the United States (CMSM). His academic background, teaching, presenting, pastoral and administrative work are focused primarily around evangelization, spiritual formation, and pastoral practice that fosters greater co-responsibility and collaboration among all the baptized.
