During a celebration in the cathedral of Naples, Italy, the blood of St Januarius, contained in ampoules, liquefied, according to local media.
The event takes place three times a year, on the first Saturday in May, on 19 September, the patron saint's feast day, and on 16 December.
The celebration was presided over by Auxiliary Bishop Francesco Beneduce, as Cardinal Domenico Battaglia is in Rome for the preparatory stages of the conclave.
St Januarius was Bishop of Benevento. He was beheaded in 305 AD during the persecutions of Diocletian.
The liquefaction of Saint Januarius' blood is interpreted as a sign of protection and prosperity for the city and its inhabitants.
FaroDiRoma.it (4 May) believes that the liquefaction of St Januarius' blood is also a good omen for the forthcoming conclave.
St. Thomas Aquinas, in the provided text, teaches that divination through auguries, omens, and similar observations of external things is generally unlawful and superstitious when extended beyond specific limits. There is no causal relationship between the Miracle of the Liquefaction of St. Januarius and a good outcome from the Conclave Election. Interpreting the miracle as an omen ordered by Divine Providence causally to ensure a good outcome from the papal election is pure superstition and, therefore, with deliberate consent, and full knowledge, is a grave sin. Why? The miracle does not and will not 'cause' a good outcome from the Conclave. There is no causal relationship whatsoever between the two. The miracle occurred in 2013 and we got Francis....These superstitions need to be purified by teaching Catholics true doctrine. (Summa Theologiae. Secunda Secundae, Q. 95, Art. 7) Here's a breakdown of St. Thomas Aquinas' reasoning: -Future events cannot be known causally from these external signs. The movements, and/or cries of birds, or other observed dispositions do not inherently 'cause' future events. This is why the avian auguries of the Roman pagan priests are without merit and are pure superstitious. One cannot reliably predict the future directly from them as if they were causes as they are not. -If future knowledge is gleaned from actions of birds, it is due to an underlying cause: If these observations do provide insight into the future, it is because the 'causes' of these signs are also the causes of future events, or have knowledge of them. St. Thomas Aquinas identifies two potential sources for this underlying cause that predicts future events. Bodily Causes (Natural Instinct): Non-rational animals operate by instinct influenced by bodily causes, particularly the heavenly bodies. Their actions, therefore, might align with the dispositions of the stars and the surrounding environment, which in turn influences certain future events. However, St. Thomas Aquinas sets two crucial limitations here: Such observations should only be used to forecast things that can 'already' be known from the movements of the heavenly bodies. This is discussed in previous articles of the Summa Theologiae. They should only relate to matters that somehow concern these animals, as they possess a natural instinct, and knowledge about things necessary for their survival, like weather changes ahead of time, or earthquakes ahead of time, or ocean tides, derived from planetary, or celestial influences on their environment. Spiritual Causes (Divine or demonic): The instinct of animals can also be influenced by spiritual beings-either God (as seen in the examples in the Bible), or by demons, who might manipulate these signs to deceive and mislead. Demons cannot foresee the future. Only God has the Divine Power needed to do so. Demons, through their angelic nature, can 'connect the dots' between various complex causes hidden to men to predict the future but without absolute certainty. Demons might manipulate celestial signs in order to deceive and mislead. Human words taken as omens, while not subject to stellar influence, are also ordered by Divine Providence, for example, the prophecy of Caiphas, the Great High Priest, uttered before the Sanhedrin: St John 11: 49-51: "Caiphas, who held the high priesthood in that year,[3] said to them, You have no perception at all; 50 you do not reflect that it is best for us if one man is put to death for the sake of the people, to save a whole nation from destruction. 51 It was not of his own impulse that he said this; holding the high priesthood as he did in that year, he was able to prophesy that Jesus was to die for the sake of the nation;" The Prohibition in Deutronomy: St. Thomas Aquinas acknowledges the scriptural prohibition against observing omens (Deuteronomy 18: 10) as evidence against their lawfulness. Conclusion: Consequently, Aquinas concludes that all such forms of divination are superstitious and unlawful if they go beyond the natural order or the scope of divine providence as outlined above. This implies that attributing predictive power to random external occurrences, outside of these specific, limited connections to natural or divine causes, is a forbidden practice.