Italy Symposium 2007

The name "Forgiveness" comes from the Papal Bull of Forgiveness that Pope Celestino V issued from L'Aquila at the end of September, 1294. The hermit Pietro Angelerio of Morrone was a native of Isernia and chose, as his preaching location, that of the internal Abruzzo. Among these, the Aquilano and the neighborhood of Sulmona, the city of Ovidio in the province of Aquila.

On July 5th 1294, after two years of contrasting ideas, the Conclave, reunited in Perugia, designated the monk- founder of an order that had been in use for centuries, to note the name of Celestini – as pontiff. A procession accompanied the Pope from Sulmona to L’Aquila, to the Basilica of Collemaggio, who he himself ordered to be built several years before, and where his pontiff attire was assigned on August 29th, 1294, in front of an enormous crowd, and most importantly, in front of King Carlo d’Angiò and Carlo Martello. Celestino V was the protagonist of a short papacy: he discharged himself- only case in the history of a Pontiff - in December of the same year and died in the exile of Fumone (in the province of Frosinone) two years later.

Some of the followers of his order purloined his naked remains and brought them to the Santa Maria of Collemaggio Basilica of Aquila, where they still remain today. In those few months of papacy, Pope Celestino left the city of L'Aquila, but also to the entire world, an extraordinary inheritance. At the end of September, 1294, in fact, from the Basilica of Collemaggio a bull was issued on which was granted an indulgence both plenary and universal to humanity, without distinctions. An extraordinary event, seeing as it took place during a time when forgiveness was only granted based on money or speculation. The Papal Bull of Forgiveness of Saint Peter Celestino, that introduced the concepts of peace, solidarity and reconciliation, set forth only two conditions to the attainment of forgiveness. The entrance to the Basilica of Collemaggio, in the arc of time between the 28th and 29th of August of every year, and being "truly sorry and confessed". Six years before the Bull of Bonifacio VIII, that founded the official Holy Year of the Church, the opening of the Holy Door, the night of August 28th, was preceded by a long historical procession(about 1.000 people dressed in costumes of the time period, in representation of the historic group of the Municipality of L'Aquila, of other groups of Italian cities, in addition to administrations and government representatives) which, in the first afternoon, starts from the Palazzo Comunale towards Collemaggio.