Note 5 — XXXI SOUTHERN SAINTLINESS

“Vita della Venerabile Serva di Dio Suor Orsola Benincasa, Scritta da un cherico regolare,” Rome, 1796. There are, of course, much earlier biographies of all these saints; concerning Sister Orsola we possess, for instance, the remarkable pamphlet by Cesare d’Eboli (“Caesaris Aevoli Neapolitani Apologia pro Ursula Neapolitana quæ ad urbem accessit MDLXXXIII,” Venice, 1589), which achieves the distinction of never mentioning Orsola by name: she is only once referred to as “mulier de qua agitur.” But I prefer to quote from the more recent ones because they are authoritative, in so far as they have been written on the basis of miracles attested by eye-witnesses and accepted as veracious by the Vatican tribunal. Sister Orsola, though born in 1547, was only declared Venerable by Pontifical decree of 1793. Biographies prior to that date are therefore ex-parte statements and might conceivably contain errors of fact. This is out of the question here, as is clearly shown by the author on p. 178.