candida -6

Paul continued to wait for solemn vows.

When a Portuguese priest, Don Joseph Carboni, invited Mother M. Crucified to establish a community devoted to the Passion in a convent he was building in Rome, she thought it was time to move. Paul warned against such an action.  Eventually Don Carboni's request fell through.

At this time, her younger brother was killed by robbers in the family home.  Her two brothers, Dominic and Canon Nicholas, decided to build a convent in the memory of their slain brother.  But when the family became involved in the writing of the rule for "their" convent, Paul washed his hands of the whole affair.

Solemn vows were denied Paul in 1760 by Pope Clement XIII.   Paul's community would never become an Order with a female branch.  If the convent of nuns devoted to the Passion was to be founded, Mother M. Crucified felt that she herself should go to Rome to present her case to the Pope.

Paul wrote back that this is not how one proceeds.  Had he forgotten his own insistence on going to Rome in 1721? Or had he learned from that experience? Mother M. Crucified did not go to the Pope.  In fact she did not have to go, for at the death of pope Clement XIII, the new pope would be most kind to Father Paul.

Pope Clement XIV invited Paul to visit him.

Paul told him of his many trials all these years in attempting to found a convent for the Passionist Nuns. The Pope listened with fatherly concern. In a short time, Clement XIV issued a papal bull giving Paul's congregation all the rights and privileges of a religious order, even jurisdiction and papal exemption.

He arranged that the Monastery of Sts.John and Paul be given to the Passionists.  Finally, he approved the rule Paul had written for the Passionist Nuns, and decreed the opening of the convent at Corneto.  Mother Mary Crucified was allowed to transfer from the convent of St. Lucy to this new convent, together with the other women whom Paul had been directing.


~bron~