Do you know there was as soon as a Pope from Laois? Sure, consider it or not, the village of Durrow has a particular declare to the papacy.
The latest passing of Pope Francis has put the place of chief of the Catholic Church firmly below the highlight, and it appears there is a gigantic Laois connection.
It’s greater than a bit of odd that in a rustic so carefully aligned with Rome that this story of Eire’s one and solely pope isn’t extra well-known and celebrated.
Born in Durrow in roughly 460 CE – about 30 years after the loss of life of St Patrick – a Laois-born man named Benedict as soon as rose to the very summit of the Catholic Church.
Benedict left Durrow to check below St Fintan at Clonenagh, positioned between Portlaoise and Mountrath, earlier than following the famend St Enda to the Aran Islands.
Throughout his research, Benedict developed a deep friendship with Colmcille, a Prince of the Royal Home of Eire on the time.
Benedict, by now in his 60s, accompanied St Enda on a go to to Rome in 522. He could be elected pope lower than a yr later.
On August 6, 523, Pope Hormisdas died, ending a profitable papacy that had lasted nearly 9 years, throughout which period he oversaw a reunion of Rome and Constantinople, bringing the jap and western Christian Church buildings again collectively.
The elders of the church met to elect Hormisdas’ successor. In his quick time in Rome, Benedict had acquired such a robust popularity for prayer and sanctity that he was nominated as pope 5 days after the loss of life of Hormisdus.
Having initially accepted the position and with preparations underway for his set up, messages have been despatched to the church leaders in different cities asserting the Benedict as the brand new pope.
Nonetheless, after simply two days, the Laois man withdrew from the job and introduced he could be returning to Galway with St Enda.
Pope John I used to be elected in his place.
Benedict succeeded Enda because the Abbot of Inishmore following the saint’s loss of life. They have been laid to relaxation facet by facet within the Cathedral of Aran.
In 2023, the two-day pope was immortalised in his native Durrow with the revealing of a plaque to commemorate the transient papacy.
The E-book of Cashel, which traces the lineage of the fourteen Saints of the Royal Home of Ossory, refers to St Benedict as ‘Ipse est Papa Pupeous‘, signifying his transient papal reign.
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