WEDNESDAY May 17, 2000 volume 11, no. 94

Historical Events in Church Annals for May 17:

• 352 A.D.
• Pope Saint Liberius becomes the 36th successor of Peter. Throughout his papacy he was shadowed by the Arian heresy and Arian sympathizers who elected the antipope Felix II. It was St. Liberius who laid the foundations for the Basilica of Saint Mary Major tracing out the perimeter of the church in the snow after a miraculous snowfall on August 15 in Rome. This is where Our Lady of Snows originated.

• 884 A.D.
• Pope Saint Adrian III becomes the 109th successor of Peter. Little is known of this holy pontiff who died a year and a half later on his journey to San Cesario on his way to France at the invitation of Charles the Gross.

• 1198 A.D.
• Frederick II Hohenstaufen is crowned King of Sicily at the tender age of four. His mother would turn him over as a ward of the Vatican court but he would come back to be a true thorn in the Holy See throughout his life as well as his son Conrad and grandson Conradin the last of the Hohenstaufen line.

• 1592 A.D.
• Death of Saint Pascal Baylon, a Franciscan Lay Brother who was purported to have supernatural gifts. He is the patron saint of Eucharistic confraternities and congresses.