A Companion to Hildegard of Bingen

the canonization and doctorization of hildegard 313
God, listened happily to her.20 Signifijicantly, in both addresses Benedict
clearly and repeatedly referred to Hildegard as a saint.
Even more than in these two public orations, Benedict also spoke of
Hildegard elsewhere. For example, on December 20, 2010, as part of a
speech of Christmas greetings to the Roman curia, the Pope spoke of the
highlights as well as the problems of the past year. Concerning the latter,
with regard to scandals involving the abuse of minors by priests, Pope
Benedict gave a lengthy citation of a letter from Hildegard to Werner of
Kirchheim and his clerics. Here she presents a vision, part of which portrays
a beautiful woman with a soiled face and a ripped robe. Benedict
presents an exegesis of this vision:
In the vision of Saint [sic] Hildegard, the face of the Church is stained with
dust, and this is how we have seen it. Her garment is torn—by the sins of
priests. The way she saw and expressed it is the way we have experienced it
this year. We must accept this humiliation as an exhortation to truth and a
call to renewal. Only the truth saves.21
But the offfijicial kick-start to the fijinal phase of the process came from the
very place that gave rise to its beginning. Clementia Killewald, the abbess
of the “Benediktinerinnenabtei Sankt Hildegard” in Eibingen—the monastic
community that is the efffective heir to the nuns led by Hildegard herself—
wrote to Pope Benedict XVI in December 2010, asking that the “deutsche
Prophetin” be made a Doctor of the Church.22 At this very time, the Congregation
for the Causes of Saints was itself in contact with the nuns of
Eibingen as well as the German Episcopal Conference. Two meetings were
held at Eibingen in April 2011, organized by the Congregation and hosted
by the Abbey of Saint Hildegard; here, scholars were invited to join the
other parties, and a plan for the creation of a formal documented investigation
of Hildegard’s sanctity and doctrine, known as a positio, took place.
With the full-time work of several scholars as well as several of the
abbey’s nuns (not to mention the effforts of Vincenzo Criscuolo and the
stafff of the Congregation), this positio was compiled with great alacrity
20 September 8, 2012, address (http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/audiences/
2010/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20100908_it.html, accessed 25 August 2013): “Ildegarda si
mise in viaggio . . . per parlare di Dio alla gente. Tutti l’ascoltavano volentieri . . . : la consideravano
una messaggera mandata da Dio.”
21 The English version of this address may be found at http://www.vatican.va/holy_
father/benedict_xvi/speeches/2010/december/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20101220_curiaauguri_en.html
(accessed 25 August 2013).
22 The letter is conserved in the Archive of the Congregazione delle Cause dei Santi,
Prot. N. 1590–4/93.