Feast day: April 24
St. Fidelis of Sigmaringen
A successful lawyer nicknamed 'the advocate of the poor' who gave it up to become a Capuchin friar and was killed by a mob while preaching reunion to Swiss Protestants.
Fidelis was born Mark Rey in 1577 at Sigmaringen, in the German lands, and trained as a lawyer, earning doctorates in canon and civil law. He practised as an advocate with a reputation for defending the poor without charge — earning the nickname 'the poor man's lawyer' — but grew disillusioned with the corruption and intrigue of the courts.
Abandoning the law, he was ordained a priest and entered the Capuchin Franciscans, taking the name Fidelis — 'the faithful one.' He gave away his share of the family inheritance, devoted himself to preaching and to the care of the sick and the poor, and became known for his austerity and zeal.
In 1622 he was sent to lead a mission in the largely Protestant Grisons of Switzerland, charged with winning the region back to the Catholic faith. His success, and the political tensions of the moment, made him enemies, and he knew well that his life was in danger.
Surrounded by a hostile crowd at Seewis who offered to spare him if he would renounce his faith, he answered that he had come to root out heresy, not to embrace it, and was struck down on the spot in April 1622. The first martyr of the Church's missionary congregation, he was canonized in 1746.
He left the law because he would not defend injustice, became a friar, and was cut down preaching in the mountains — the first martyr of the missions of his order.
“I came to extirpate heresy, not to embrace it.”
— St. Fidelis of Sigmaringen
Image: Photo: Andreas Praefcke (Public domain), via Wikimedia Commons.
Source: newadvent.org/cathen/06069a.htm
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