Archevêque de Milan pendant vingt ans, saint Charles Borromée (1538-1584) y appliqua avec ténacité les décisions du concile de Trente. Ce grand acteur de la réforme catholique est fêté le 4 novembre.
Neveu de pape: à la Renaissance, ce « statut » garantissait généralement à son détenteur des privilèges si importants, et parfois si éhontés, qu'un mot en vint à être créé pour l'occasion: népotisme (de l'italien nipote, neveu). Nommé cardinal à seulement 22 ans par son oncle le pape Pie IV, Charles Borromée pouvait donner l'impression qu'il allait s'inscrire dans cette lignée peu honorable d'hommes d'Église plus attirés par l'argent et les honneurs que par la gloire de Dieu!
Très vite, cependant, le jeune homme déjoua ces pronostics en participant avec sérieux et ferveur à la reprise, puis à l'achèvement en 1563, de l'interminable concile de Trente. Cette même année, il marqua les esprits en optant pour le sacerdoce: il renonçait ainsi à prendre la tête des affaires de sa famille, laissée vacante par la mort prématurée de son frère Frédéric.
Devenu archevêque de Milan en 1564, Charles Borromée s'y installa définitivement en 1566. Jusqu'à sa mort, il s'employa avec ténacité à mettre en application les décisions du concile de Trente. Il fonda des séminaires pour améliorer la formation du clergé, restaura l'enseignement du catéchisme et renouvela la vie religieuse en instituant une nouvelle congrégation de prêtres séculiers: les Oblats de Saint-Ambroise, du nom de son prestigieux prédécesseur sur le siège épiscopal de Milan.
Excellent organisateur, Charles Borromée fut aussi un grand pasteur qui convoqua de nombreux synodes et, plus encore, visita à trois reprises toutes les paroisses de son diocèse, même les plus reculées!
Si la voix de l'archevêque de Milan était écoutée et entendue, c'est qu'il menait lui-même une vie conforme à l'Évangile: son humilité et sa piété, sa générosité et son dévouement (notamment lors de l'effroyable épidémie de peste de 1576) lui valurent une admiration croissante, qui vint à bout de la plupart des oppositions.
Charles Borromée mourut à seulement 46 ans, épuisé par son apostolat incessant. Son exemple et ses décisions concrètes eurent cependant une influence posthume considérable dans l'Europe entière. Quatre siècles plus tard, le bienheureux Jean-Paul II (qui, rappelons-le, avait reçu le nom de Charles – Karol – à son baptême) insistait encore sur l'actualité du message de son saint patron: l'Église de notre temps n'a-t-elle pas, comme celle du XVIe siècle, à continuer à faire passer dans les actes toute la richesse d'un concile?
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Charles Borromeo
Carolus Borromeus, 2 October 1538 – 3 November 1584) was Roman Catholic archbishop of Milan from 1564 to 1584 and a cardinal. He was a leading figure of the Counter-Reformation combat against the Protestant Reformation together with St. Ignatius of Loyola and St. Philip Neri. In that role he was responsible for significant reforms in the Catholic Church, including the founding of seminaries for the education of priests. He is honored as a saint by the Roman Catholic Church, with a feast day on November 4.
Charles was a descendant of nobility: the Borromeo family was one of the most ancient and wealthy in Lombardy, made famous by several notable men, both in the church and state.[1] The family coat of arms included the Borromean rings, which are sometimes taken to symbolize the Holy Trinity. Charles' father Gilbert was Count of Arona. His mother Margaret was a member of the Milan branch of the House of Medici. The third son in a family of six children, he was born in the castle of Arona on Lake Maggiore 36 miles from Milan on 2 October 1538.
Borromeo received the tonsure when he was about twelve years old. At this time his paternal uncle Giulio Cesare Borromeo, turned over to him the income from the rich Benedictine abbey of Sts. Gratinian and Felin, one of the ancient perquisites of the family. Charles made plain to his father that all revenues from the abbey beyond what was required to prepare him for a career in the Church belonged to the poor and could not be applied to secular use. The young man attended the University of Pavia, where he applied himself to the study of civil and canon law. Due to a slight impediment of speech, he was regarded as slow but his thoroughness and industry meant that he made rapid progress. In 1554 his father died, and although he had an elder brother, Count Federico, he was requested by the family to take the management of their domestic affairs. After a time, he resumed his studies, and on 6 December 1559 he earned a doctorate in utroque iure.
On 25 December 1559 Borromeo's uncle Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Medici was elected as Pope Pius IV. The newly-elected pope required his nephew to come to Rome, and on 13 January 1560 appointed him protonotary apostolic. Shortly thereafter, on 31 January 1560, the pope created him cardinal, and thus Charles as cardinal-nephew was entrusted with both the public and the privy seal of the ecclesiastical state. He was also brought into the government of the Papal States and appointed supervisor of the Franciscans, Carmelites and Knights of Malta.
During his four years in Rome Borromeo lived in austerity, obliged the Roman Curia to wear black, and established an academy of learned persons, the Academy of the Vatican Nights, publishing their memoirs as the Noctes Vaticanae.
Charles organized the third and last session of the Council of Trent, in 1562-63. He had a large share in the making of the Tridentine Catechism (Catechismus Romanus). In 1561, Borromeo founded and endowed a college at Pavia, today known as Almo Collegio Borromeo, which he dedicated to St. Justina of Padua.
On 19 November 1562, his older brother, Federico, suddenly died. His family urged Charles to leave the church to marry and have children, so that the family name would not become extinct, but he decided not to leave the ecclesiastic state. His brother's death, along with his contacts with the Jesuits and the Theatines and the example of bishops such as Bartholomew of Braga, were the causes of a conversion of Charles towards a more strict and operative Christian life, and his aim became to put into practice the dignity and duties of the bishop as drafted by the recent Council of Trent.
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