Hodie...
The site received some face-lifting and content-wise improvements. Here you go.

Diese Seite ist derzeit vorwiegend in Englischer Sprache. Manche Artikel (So Goethes Portrait des Heiligen) sind jodeoch in Deutsch. Wenn Sie mehr Infos brauchen können Sie mir gerne ein e-mail schicken. Eine andere Deutschsprachige Seite mit Biographie des Heiligen und des Oratoriums finden Sie unter www.oratorium.at

Humor v.s Sanctity?
Well, here's the Catholic Answer! Rome in the 16th century was a mess. The protestant reformation and numerous heresies that came with it shook the Church. Reform through Clarity and Sanctity had to be the way out of the crisis. The Council of Trent, the leadership of the holy Pope Saint Pius V, the formation and reformation of orders like the Jesuits, Cappucines and the Theresian Carmel fall into this period - and so did St. Philip who was to become the "2nd Apostle of Rome"

Read his Life

The Oratory
A unique form of life. It's like an order and yet it is not. It's like a secular Institute and yet it is not. What exactly it is nobody can really say. For the last 400 years or so, people have been trying to classify it. But before I get to mystical - the best thing is you have a look at it yourself.

The History of the Oratory

The Constitution of the Oratory [Rome]

Deus,
qui beatum Philippum Confessorem tuum Sanctorum tuorum gloria sublimasti: concede propitius; ut, cuius sollemnitate laetamur, eius virtutum proficiamus exemplo. Per Dominum nostrum. [Die 26 maii - Oratio]

Click below and you'll find some prayers and devotions to the saint (both english and latin)

Prayers & Devotion

Goethe
Well here's an excerpt from Johann Wolfang Goethes "Italienische Reisen" in which he also describes "what has come to his ears" about the "second apostle of Rome". This article is currently only available in the german original.

Goethe on St. Philip [German]

John Henry Newman
This Anglican convert led to a renaissance of the oratory by his foundations in England (London and Birmingham)