Feast day: November 4

St. Charles Borromeo

Cardinal & Reformer · 1538–1584

Patron of Bishops, catechists, seminarians

Cardinal at 22 by nepotism, he stunned everyone by actually reforming — implementing the Council of Trent, founding seminaries, and personally serving plague victims in Milan.

Charles Borromeo was born in 1538 into a noble Italian family, and when his uncle became Pope Pius IV, the young man — barely in his twenties — was made a cardinal and given great responsibilities in Rome. He might have become merely a pampered prince of the Church, but instead he turned his immense position to the reform of the whole Church, becoming one of the chief architects of the Catholic renewal of his age.

He played a decisive role in bringing the long-stalled Council of Trent to a successful close and in carrying out its decrees, helping to produce the catechism that taught the faith for centuries. Then, resigning his comfortable life in Rome, he went to take up in person the archdiocese of Milan, which had not had a resident archbishop in decades and was riddled with abuses.

There he became the model of the reforming bishop. He visited every corner of his vast diocese, even the remote alpine valleys; founded seminaries to train good priests; established what became the model for Sunday schools to teach children the faith; reformed the clergy and the religious houses; and gave away his wealth to the poor — surviving even an assassin's bullet fired by men who resented his discipline.

His greatest hour came during the terrible plague that struck Milan in 1576. While civil officials fled, Charles stayed, organizing care for the sick and dying, feeding thousands at his own expense, and walking barefoot in penitential procession through the stricken city — so that the epidemic is still remembered as 'St. Charles's plague.' Worn out, he died in 1584 at only forty-six, and is honored as a patron of bishops and catechists.

When plague struck Milan in 1576, the civil leaders fled. The cardinal stayed, organized relief, and went into the streets himself — in debt from feeding tens of thousands.

“Be sure that you first preach by the way you live.”
— St. Charles Borromeo

Image: Giovanni Ambrogio Figino (Public domain), via Wikimedia Commons.

Source: newadvent.org/cathen/03619a.htm