Blessed Dominic Barberi, C.P.

One of the fabled seven hills of Rome, the Coelian, has some interesting places, which indirectly touched on the life and destiny of Blessed John Henry Newman, and which directly touched on the life and destiny of the priest who received him into the Catholic Church, Passionist Father Dominic of the Mother of God. On the crest of that hill stands an ancient Basilica, the Church of Saints John and Paul, whose names are mentioned in the Roman Canon. They were officers, rich and influential, in the household of the Princess Constantia, the daughter of the Emperor Constantine. When the Emperor Julian the Apostate came to the throne he tried to persuade them to offer sacrifice to idols, but they refused, saying, "Our lives are at the disposal of the Emperor, but our souls and faith belong to God." Julian, fearing people’s outrage over a public execution and frightened that their example might persuade other Christians to fortitude in their Catholic Faith, had them beheaded privately in their own house, where they were buried. That house is the basis of the present day Basilica. The church was the titular church of Pope Pius XII when he was a Cardinal and is now the titular church of retired Cardinal Edward Egan of New York.

Centuries later the church and the adjoined gardens were given to Saint Paul of the Cross, the Founder of the Passionist Order, for the headquarters of his order. It continues to serve that purpose to the present, and Saint Paul of the Cross is entombed beneath one of the altars in that building. I made my retreat before ordination to the diaconate in the Passionist Monastery next to the church in May of 1960. The retreat and accommodations, I recall, were very austere and penitential. It was to that monastery that a humble Italian man from Viterbo came in 1814 and was received into the Passionist Community there. His name was Dominic Barberi. He later professed his vows as a Passionist and then was ordained a priest there on March 1, 1818. He became a lecturer in philosophy and theology to Passionist clerics there and subsequently was named the religious superior of various Passionist houses in different parts of Italy.

Nearby, down on the slope of the Coelian Hill is a very ancient monastery. It originally was part of the ancestral property of Gregory (who later became Pope Saint Gregory the Great). It adjoined the house and gardens of his mother, Saint Silvia. He built the monastery, named it after Saint Andrew (one of his all time favorite saints), then abandoned all his worldly possessions (except for his pet cat), and with some monk companions lived for many years the life of a Benedictine Monk. The Monastery continues today, but it belongs to the Camoldolese Order and is no longer Benedictine. Saint Gregory’s cell and chair, however, are still preserved there.

The connection with Father Dominic, the Passionist who lived nearby, was most likely because of the great historical event that had occurred on the steps of that Monastery back in the seventh century, but was vividly and continuously remembered on the Coelian Hill. After Gregory had become the Pope, he sent one of the monks, Saint Augustine, with thirty other of the monks from there to England to convert the heathen Angle and Saxon German invaders of that land, who had driven the Celtic Catholics out to the north and west of the island. Deeply affected by the fact that England had largely fallen away from that Catholic Faith brought there by those monks, Dominic, in the Passionist Monastery, set about to fast and pray for the conversion of England.

Dominic became convinced that he was called by God to go to England for the purposes of its conversion back to the Catholic Religion. He wrote in his diary in 1813, "I was on my knees before God, praying and beseeching Him to provide for the necessities of the Church, when I heard an interior voice, which told me.... I was destined to announce the truths of the Gospel and to bring stray sheep back to the way of salvation" After much difficulty, he persuaded his religious superiors to allow him to go to England to establish a Passionist Monastery in that land. He arrived in 1841 and in 1842 established a house in Ashton in Staffordshire. He prayed constantly and begged others to pray for the conversion of England.

Initially, however, he met with no visible success. In the streets he often was pelted with mud, hit and kicked, and called names such a "the stuttering papist" and the "Demon Friar" Like all Passionists, he went about barefoot and physically he was ugly and ungainly in appearance, all of which lent itself to his being disdained. Catholics themselves often mistrusted him as a foreigner who spoke imperfect English, and the Protestants, once they knew he had come to convert them, treated him with scorn and persecution.

Ironically, when Newman was still a Protestant, he once wrote about Catholics, "If they want to convert England, let them go barefooted into our manufacturing towns...let them be pelted and trampled on and then I will own that they can do what we cannot."

Blessed Dominic Barberi fasted often and was visibly a priest who loved an ascetic lifestyle (as did Newman himself). Perhaps it was that which began to attract Newman to him and why Newman chose to go to him for his entry into the Catholic Church. Newman wrote about him, "Father Dominic was a marvelous missioner and preacher, filled with zeal. He had a great part in my conversion and that of others. His very look had about it something holy. When his form came within sight, I was moved to the depths in the strangest way. The gaiety and the affability of his manner in the midst of all his sanctity was in itself a holy sermon. No wonder that I became his convert and his penitent. He was Dominic of the Mother of God, a great lover of England."

Dominic only lived for four more years after he received Newman into the Church on October 9, 1845. He was on a train in England on Friday, August 27, 1849, on his way to another Passionist House when he collapsed with a heart attack. The passengers, thinking he had cholera, insisted that he get off the train, which he did despite excruciating pain. A kindly medical doctor saw him and helped him into a nearby train station. All the while Dominic kept saying "Thy will be done". He died that very afternoon. He was 58 years old. He was beatified on October 27, 1963.

Apart from his bringing Newman into the Catholic Church, probably his most famous act, Dominic is also known for his public letter "To the Professors of Oxford", welcoming their Catholic spirit in the "Oxford Movement", but telling them with powerful arguments that they can only achieve what God wants for them by coming into full communion with the See of Rome and obedience to the Pope. Blessed John Henry Newman and Blessed Dominic Barberi, pray for us!