MALACHIA, Saint. - In the world O' Morgair, b. at Armagh ca. 1095, d. at Clairvaux on 2 Nov. 1148. A priest at 25 years of age, he was taken by Celsus, archbishop of Armagh, primate of Ireland, as a collaborator in the ecclesiastical reform that M. began from the historic monastery of Bangor (v.); elected bishop of Connor (ca. 1125), a diocese completely abandoned, he was forced to flee because of a revolt that broke out in Ulster and took refuge in County Kerry, where he built the monastery of Ibrach.
Designated by Celsus as his successor, he had to struggle for six years with two intruders before occupying the see. After three years of wise government he renounced the dignity of primate and returned to Connor, where he surrounded himself with monks, sharing their austerities, venerated by all as the spiritual head of Irish Christianity. Fearing that the split between the south and the north of Ireland, which was then emerging, might affect the hierarchical structure of the Church, he set out for Rome (1138). But having stopped at York he came to know the Cistercians of Rievaulx and decided to pass through Clairvaux, where he met St. Bernard. Received kindly by Innocent II, he reported to him on the religious and social state of Ireland and asked to be able to retire to Clairvaux; the Pope instead sent him back to his homeland as his legate.
He resumed the reform with greater vigor, especially of the monasteries, and now a friend of St. Bernard he sent young Irishmen to complete their novitiate at Clairvaux, and after a few years there arose, in the diocese of Armagh, the Cistercian abbey of Millefont (1142), from which originated those five monasteries that St. Bernard named with pride. In 1148 M. resumed the journey to Rome to treat with Eugene III the question of the pallium of the Irish archbishops. Tired and ill, toward the middle of Oct. he arrived at Clairvaux, and on 2 Nov. he died there assisted by St. Bernard. The great monk, at the request of Abbot Congano, wrote that Vita s. Malachiae (PL 182, 1073-1118), which is considered the pearl of medieval hagiography.
Interesting are the mentions of the use of Extreme Unction (chs. 24 and 31, coll. 1104 and 1115) and of the Eucharistic dogma (ch. 26, coll. 1105-1106), and the biting parallel between the life of the holy bishop and that of the other prelates (ch. 19, coll. 1098-1099). St. Bernard also delivered two discourses in transitu Malachiae (PL 183, 481-90), which are an anticipated canonization, later carried out by Clement III on 6 July 1190 (PL 204, 1466).
Bibliography4 works
Antonio Piolanti
THE PROPHECY OF THE PSEUDO-M
Under the name of M. a famous prophecy about the succession of the Roman pontiffs, from Celestine II (1143) onward, to the end of the world, enjoyed credit. Each pontiff is designated by a short motto: in all III. This prophecy began to circulate in 1595, when the Benedictine Arnold Wion inserted it into his Lignum vitae, published in that year in Venice.
Its apocryphal character emerges from an examination of the prophecy, which must have been written only a few years before its publication. In fact, from Celestine II to Gregory XIV (excluded), the short mottos applied to the pontiffs are related either to the coat of arms, or to the family name, or to the baptismal name, or to the cardinalitial title, or to the pope's country of origin. From Gregory XIV onward, however, the mottos become enigmatic, and, if some fit, the majority remain wrapped in great uncertainty, many are even absurd and can be made to agree with actual history only by force (Pastor). The text of the prophecies is in close connection, even verbally, with the Epitome of the history of the popes by Platina, made by Panvinio and published in 1557, whose errors it also follows. In Wion's edition, the prophecies up to Gregory XIV are accompanied by a brief explanation by Ciacconio. The reason why it was composed is not clear. Harnack, for example, connects it with the Conclave of 1590, as disseminated by the supporters of Card. Simoncelli, to whom the motto Ex antiquitate urbis would have applied well, which was to fall to the new Pontiff. Instead Gregory XIV was elected, and the mottos began no longer to fit. Two other prophecies are likewise attributed to M., equally apocryphal and less well known, one on Ireland and the other on Spain. - See pl. CXXV.