Charles Borromeo: Selected Orations, Homilies and Writings

Charles Borromeo (1538-1584) should have been part of the problem. As nephew of a Medici Pope who made him a Cardinal at 22 years of age, Borromeo could have become just another corrupt Renaissance Bishop. Instead he became the driving force of reform within the Catholic Church in the wake of the Council of Trent following the Protestant Reformation and the primary reason Trent's dramatic reforms were successful. His remarkable accomplishments in Milan as Archbishop became the model of reform for the rest of Western Europe. Change is never easy, but St. Charles' approach - deeply biblical, personal, practical and centered on Christ - offers a road map of reform, even for today. Now for the first time in over 400 years a significant selection of his works appears in the English language.

Chapter One offers three orations that St Charles gave as Archbishop of Milan to the other Bishops. These texts were among those that Pope Paul VI sent out to the Bishops of the world in 1963 during Vatican II. These orations reveal Borromeo's foundational ideas of reform. Chapter Two contains a selection of homilies on the Eucharist, which for St. Charles was crucial for authentic and lasting reform. Chapter Three treats of the reform of the clergy, the reform for which Borromeo is most known and on which he spent most of his efforts. Recurrent Borromean themes to his priests are the greatness of the priestly vocation and the consequent necessity to live that call with integrity through humility, prayer and self-sacrifice. Chapter Four presents St. Charles' efforts at mobilizing the laity in their own reform of imbuing the secular world with holiness in the workplace and within the family.

This translation is intended to be faithful to Borromeo's Latin or Italian texts rendered into contemporary English and is currently the largest collection of primary source material of his works in English.