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St. Boniface I

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Saints and feasts

St. Boniface I

Pope, Confessor

Boniface I became pope after a disputed election in 418. Butler remembers his defence of Church discipline, opposition to Pelagianism and esteem for St. Augustine.

Sources

The life below remains the existing Butler-based reading, with its edition citation. The profile preserves the feast date and source title already listed in the library. Additional personal dates and historical details are shown only when separately documented.

Written works received: Augustine’s four books against the Pelagians
Butler records their dedication to Boniface and the pope’s esteem for Augustine.

Butler sourceAlban Butler, The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Other Principal Saints, Volume X (October), Thomas Richardson and Son, Derby, for the Catholic Book Society, 1846; October 25, “St Boniface I, Pope, Confessor,” pp. 634-635.

Butler’s Lives of the Saints (1846)Alban Butler, The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Other Principal Saints, Volume X (October), Thomas Richardson and Son, Derby, for the Catholic Book Society, 1846; October 25, “St Boniface I, Pope, Confessor,” pp. 634-635.

The reading

ⓘ Butler source

Alban Butler, The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Other Principal Saints, Volume X (October), Thomas Richardson and Son, Derby, for the Catholic Book Society, 1846; October 25, “St Boniface I, Pope, Confessor,” pp. 634-635.

Boniface was an elderly Roman priest when he was chosen to succeed Pope Zosimus. His election met with a rival claim from Eulalius, and the dispute required examination by bishops. Butler describes the recognition of Boniface after Eulalius refused to observe the provisional arrangements made during that examination.

His government joined a love of peace to firmness about the responsibilities of bishops. He defended the position of the bishop of Thessalonica in the affairs of the Greek churches and dealt with questions concerning the metropolitan churches of Gaul. Mildness did not mean indifference to the order of the Church.

Boniface also opposed the Pelagian teaching and held St. Augustine in high esteem. Augustine addressed four books against the Pelagians to him. Butler records the pope’s gifts of sacred vessels to Roman churches and his burial in the cemetery of St. Felicitas on the Salarian Way. His short pontificate ended in 422.

Historical note

An original Novena Regina reading adapted and summarized from the cited 1846 edition of Alban Butler. This is not a transcription of Butler’s words.

This is Pope Boniface I, distinct from Boniface of Mainz. October 25 follows the placement of the life in this Butler edition.

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