BL. JOHANNES
AMADEUS DA SILVA (1420-1482)
PLEASE NOTE: the man
himself is considered 'Blessed' – but I have just discovered his
PERSONAL COMMENTARIES on the Angelic Pontiff and Great Monarch are
SUSPECT as the work attrbuted to him called the 'New Apocalypse'
where the prophecy is contained was later strongly criticised and apparently CONDEMNED.
His
Bio: Bl. Johannes Amadeus da Silva was born
João (John) de Menezes da Silva in
1420 in Campo Maior, Portugal, the youngest of the eleven children of
Rui Gomes da Silva, the first Magistrate of Campo Maior, on the
border of Spain and Portugal, and of Isabel de Menezes, an
illegitimate daughter of Dom Pedro de Menezes, 1st Count of Vila Real
and 2nd Count of Viana do Alentejo, under whom Silva served in Ceuta.
One of his sisters was Saint Beatrice of Silva, a noted Marian mystic
and the foundress of the monastic Order of the Immaculate Conception.
Silva, after marrying as a very young
man, began his religious life in the Hieronymite monastery of Santa
María de Guadalupe, where he spent about ten years. Desirous of
joining the Franciscans, he abandoned that life and went to Ubeda,
Spain, where he was received into the Order in 1452, entering as a
lay brother. He chose to seek Holy Orders after a few years, and was
ordained in 1459. After that, while living in various friaries,
chiefly in Milan, he attracted attention by his virtue and purported
miracles. Under the protection of the Archbishop of Milan, he
established the friary of Our Lady of Peace (1469) which became the
center of a Franciscan reform. The Minister General of the Order,
Francesco della Rovere, extended his protection to him. When later
the Minister General became Pope Sixtus IV he called Amadeus to Rome
to be his confessor. Other foundations were then made in Italy, among
them one at Rome. He returned to Milan, where he died in 1482.
Supernatural favors obtained through
his intercession aided in the spread of his cultus, and the
Bollandists testify to the authenticity of the title "Blessed"
bestowed on him.
The friaries he founded continued,
after his death, to form a distinct branch of the Minorites. These
friars were called the Amadeans or Amadists, and they had
twenty-eight houses in Italy, the chief one being Saint Peter de
Montorio in Rome. Pope Innocent VIII gave them the friary of Saint
Genesto near Cartagena, Spain, in Spain (1493). The successors of
Amadeus: Georges de Val-Camonique, Gilles de Montferrat, Jean
Allemand and Bonaventura de Cremona, preserved his foundation in its
original spirit until Pope Saint Pius V suppressed it, along with
similar branches of the Franciscan Order, uniting them into one great
family of Friars Minor Observants (1568).
The work Apocalypsis
nova, (New Apocalypse), is where his prophecy of the Angelic Pastor is to be found. The text itself is a
dialogue with the Archangel Gabriel about Christian doctrines and the Bible, which,
in some parts, is a commentary on the Book of Revelation. It is asserted
he received his information of an explanation of the Apocalypse and
other elements of the Bible from St. Gabriel during a series of
ecstasies. However, the text was only discovered in 1502 twenty years after his death in a small cavern in the monestary of S. Pietro in Montorio, and an oral legend arose saying it was found in his tomb (1) - so the authorship is in question. No doubt it is for this reason the term 'Pseudo-Amadeus' is sometimes attached to the text.
Not only is the authorship in question-there is an obvious problem or two with the text itself:
* A failed prophecy: St. Gabriel allegedly told Bl. Amedeus the book would be sealed up until the Angelic Pastor destined to restore the Church would find it an decode its mystic contents.(2) As the manuscript was discovered long before then, this is a failed prophecy.
Therefore, this could be evidence it is a fake text purposely made with this prophecy and attributed to Bl Amadeus to spur on the pope at the time to reform the Church, similar to how Great Monarch prophecies were manipulated by unscrupulous authors and used to flatter monarchs and / or attempt to encourage them to defend Holy Mother Church from heretics and infidels.
* Revelation of angel names not in Scripture: the text alleges St. Gabriel revealed the names of the other four angels before the throne of God - this is a problem as a real vision would not do that. The Church teaches we are to only venerate the angels who are named in Scripture, and, we are not to assign our guardian angels names. If a vision attempts to reveal angel names, or tells us we should name our angels, the visions are fake. (See more about why this points out fake prophecies and visions, click here.) In fact, a sign the Church disapproved of this back then is a convent in Descalzas Reales had adopted the practise of venerating the 7 Angels under the names revealed in the text attributed to Bl Amadeus - they were forbidden by the Inquisition to do so (3), no doubt because the names were not revealed in the Scriptures.
*) Condemned in Portugal: Despite the initial popularity of this work, it was later strongly criticised and even condemned in Portugal where it was placed on the Index of Forbidden books printed in Lisbon 1581 where Bl. Amadeus' name appears as "Amadeus Lusitanus" (Amadeus of Portugal). (4)
We've already seen some problems with the text, a failed prophecy and the revelation of angel names not in the Scriptures that caught the Inquisition's attention, so there is evidence for condemnation.
Not only is the authorship in question-there is an obvious problem or two with the text itself:
* A failed prophecy: St. Gabriel allegedly told Bl. Amedeus the book would be sealed up until the Angelic Pastor destined to restore the Church would find it an decode its mystic contents.(2) As the manuscript was discovered long before then, this is a failed prophecy.
Therefore, this could be evidence it is a fake text purposely made with this prophecy and attributed to Bl Amadeus to spur on the pope at the time to reform the Church, similar to how Great Monarch prophecies were manipulated by unscrupulous authors and used to flatter monarchs and / or attempt to encourage them to defend Holy Mother Church from heretics and infidels.
* Revelation of angel names not in Scripture: the text alleges St. Gabriel revealed the names of the other four angels before the throne of God - this is a problem as a real vision would not do that. The Church teaches we are to only venerate the angels who are named in Scripture, and, we are not to assign our guardian angels names. If a vision attempts to reveal angel names, or tells us we should name our angels, the visions are fake. (See more about why this points out fake prophecies and visions, click here.) In fact, a sign the Church disapproved of this back then is a convent in Descalzas Reales had adopted the practise of venerating the 7 Angels under the names revealed in the text attributed to Bl Amadeus - they were forbidden by the Inquisition to do so (3), no doubt because the names were not revealed in the Scriptures.
*) Condemned in Portugal: Despite the initial popularity of this work, it was later strongly criticised and even condemned in Portugal where it was placed on the Index of Forbidden books printed in Lisbon 1581 where Bl. Amadeus' name appears as "Amadeus Lusitanus" (Amadeus of Portugal). (4)
We've already seen some problems with the text, a failed prophecy and the revelation of angel names not in the Scriptures that caught the Inquisition's attention, so there is evidence for condemnation.
Unfortunately, due to the fact his
'New Apocalypse' is now suspect and apparently condemned, we cannot in good
conscience include or consider his personal interpretations of the
Great Monarch and Angelic Pontiff prophecies.
:::::::::::::::
Footnotes:
(1) "Sebastiano del Piombo and His Collaboration with Michelangelo: Distance and Promximity to the Divine in Catholic Reformation Rome," by Marsha Libina, p. 195 (n.9), p. 227.
(2) "Angels, Demons, and the New World" by Ferando Cervantes, Andrew Redden, Cambridge Un. Press, (2013), p. 180.
(3) Ibid.
Footnotes:
(1) "Sebastiano del Piombo and His Collaboration with Michelangelo: Distance and Promximity to the Divine in Catholic Reformation Rome," by Marsha Libina, p. 195 (n.9), p. 227.
(2) "Angels, Demons, and the New World" by Ferando Cervantes, Andrew Redden, Cambridge Un. Press, (2013), p. 180.
(3) Ibid.
