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PB

"He was a priest among the Roman clergy in 418, when pope Zozimus condemned the Pelagian heretics. Sixtus was the first after this sentence, who pronounced publicly anathema against them, to stop their slander in Africa that he favored their doctrine, as we are assured by St. Austin and St. Prosper in his chronicle. The former sent him two congratulatory letters the same year, in which he applauds this testimony of his zeal; and, in the first of these letters, professes an high esteem of a treatise wrote by him in defense of the grace of God against its enemies. It was that calumny of the Pelagian heretics that led Garnier into the mistake that our saint at first favored their errors. But a change of this kind would not have been buried in silence. After the death of St. Celestine, Sixtus was chosen pope in 432. He wrote to Nestorius, to endeavor to reclaim him, after his condemnation at Ephesus, in 431: but his heart was hardened, and he stopped his ears against all wholesome admonitions. The pope had the comfort to see a happy reconciliation made, by his endeavors, between the Orientals and St. Cyril: in which he much commended the humility and pacific dispositions of the latter. He says "that he was charged with the care and solicitude of all the churches in the world, and that it is unlawful for anyone to abandon the faith of the apostolic Roman Church, in which Saint Peter teaches in his successors what he received from Christ." When Bassus, a nobleman of Rome, had been condemned by the emperor, and excommunicated by a synod of bishops, for raising a grievous slander against the good pope, the meek servant of Christ visited and assisted him in person, administered him the Viaticum in his last sickness, and buried him with his own hands. Julian of Eclanum or Eculanum, the famous Pelagian, earnestly desiring to recover his see, made great efforts to be admitted to the communion of the church; pretending that he was become a convert, and used several artifices to convince our saint that he really was so; but he was too well acquainted with them to be imposed on. This holy pope died soon after, on the 28th of March in 440, having sat in the see near eight years." Source: The Lives of the Primitive Fathers, Martyrs, and Other Principal Saints  By Rev. Fr. Alban Butler 1798

Prayer for the Pope and for the Church

O Jesus, invisible head of that Church which thou hast built upon a rock, and against which thou hast promised that the gates of hell shall never prevail, preserve, strengthen, and guide him, whom thou hast appointed its visible head. Grant that he may be the model as well as the pastor of thy flock. May he be the first in holiness, as well as dignity. May he be the worthy Vicar of thy charity, as well as of thy authority. Inspire him with an ardent desire for thy glory and for the salvation of souls; and give him faithful and zealous cooperators, who, by their example and words, will move and convert sinners; confirm the just, and lead them through the dangers of this life to the mansions of eternal bliss. Amen
St. Vincentʼs Manual, 1856 page 493