A Companion to Hildegard of Bingen

310 george ferzoco
better part of the next two centuries. One must wait until the middle of
World War II in order to fijind a high-level reference to Hildegard as a saint.
On February 21, 1940, not only did the Sacred Congregation of Rites (Sacra
Congregazione dei Riti) authorize the liturgy in honor of Hildegard that
had been in use in the German dioceses of Mainz, Trier, Speyer, and Limburg,
but the use of this liturgy—a “duplex” liturgical rite—was extended
throughout all of Germany. The Congregation’s document—known as a
“rescript,” and issued under the authority of Pope Pius XII—specifijically
refers to Hildegard as “Sancta Hildegardis Virgo.”13
The next offfijicial document relative to the curia takes the recognition
of Hildegard and her status in the Church one step further, and it is, on
the surface at least, a surprising one. This is a letter dated March 6, 1979,
in the year of the 800th anniversary of the death of Hildegard. Written in
the collective name of the German Episcopal Conference, it is addressed
to Pope John Paul II.14 Noting the conferral of the title of Doctor of the
Church to Teresa of Avila and Catherine of Siena by Pope Paul VI in 1970,
the bishops requested a similar honor for Hildegard. The letter underlines
the orthodoxy of Hildegard’s doctrine, examined and declared as early
as the 1140s by fijigures no less important than Bernard of Clairvaux and
Pope Eugene III in Trier; there, the Pope read and approved the contents
of the abbess’ fijirst major work, the Scivias. The missive of the German
bishops proceeds to note the devotion given to Hildegard throughout her
life, in part due to her unquestioned gift of visions and prophecy, and her
advice, sought after by the great and the good, as well as the common
people who lived near to her. They then note the enormous breadth of her
mystical and theological writings, which addressed not just theological
matters, but even topics such as medical and natural sciences. Finally, in
calling formally for Hildegard’s doctorization, the bishops argue this action
13 See, for example, “Adulphus Cardinalis Bertram, Archiepiscopus Wratislaviensis,
vota omnium Antistitum dioecesium Germaniae depromens, Sanctissimum Dominum
Nostrum Pium Papam XII ea qua par est reverentia, instanter adprecatus est ut concedere
dignaretur omnibus Germaniae dioecesibus indultum celebrandi sub ritu duplici festum
Sanctae Hildegardis Virginis.” Among the reasons provided for the extension of the cult,
in addition to, for example, her visionary gifts, one reads: “Ad exemplar Sancti Bernardi
per varias dioeceses itinera difffijicillima feliciter perrexit ad promovendam religiosam vitam
et emendationem morum in clero et in populo.” The original text of the entire document
is preserved in the Archive of the Congregazione delle Cause dei Santi, Decreta liturgica,
1940, fasc. 44 (document ‘D. 2/40’); the two-page document issued by the curia is conserved
in the Episcopal Ordinariate collection of Mainz, Dom- und Diözesanarchiv, n. H IX, 10.
14 The original letter is conserved in the Archive of the Congregazione del Culto dei
Santi, R. 638, prot. Var. 1762/980, cart. II, n. 7.