Stock, Saint Simon

STOCK, Saint Simon. - Carmelite, b. at Keanth (England) in 1165, d. at Bordeaux on 16 May 1265.

Having entered the Order in 1212, he was elected general of it in 1245. In 1251, while he was residing at Cambridge, he had a vision in which the Blessed Virgin is said to have promised him this: "Behold the privilege that I give to you and to all the sons of your Order. Whoever dies clothed in the Carmelite habit will be saved" (B. Zimmermann, Monumenta historica carmelitana, Lérins 1907, p. 339). The privilege did not take long to extend to all those who wore the scapular of Carmel. The promise did not agree very well with Catholic doctrine, according to which eternal salvation is bound to the practice of the Christian virtues and to the observance of the prescriptions of the Church. For this reason Launoi combated in 1642 the authenticity of that famous vision (Opera, II, II, Lyon 1731, pp. 379-403). After the 17th century the question remained controversial. Among the principal opponents are numbered A. Boudinon (Revue du clergé français, 36 [1903], pp. 634-37), and L. Sallet (Le prétendu Pierre Swanyngton, in Bulletin de littér. acclés. de Toulouse, 1911, pp. 24, 85, 120; Swanyngton, confessor of the Saint, is said to have drafted under his dictation a letter in which the reality of the vision is attested). Fr. X. Xiberta has gathered numerous documents in favor of authenticity (De visione Simonis S., Rome 1950). Nevertheless it should be noted that the Sacred Congregation of Indulgences, which confirmed, on 4 June 1908, the favors granted by the Holy See to the wearers of the Carmelite scapular, is completely silent on the question of the vision, with which St. [Simon] is said to have been favored.