Lawrence of Brindisi

Born at Brindisi in 1559 and orphaned early, he entered the Capuchins at sixteen and studied at Padua. He learned Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic, German, Czech and Spanish, well enough to preach to the Jewish communities of Rome in their own tongue and to expound Scripture from the original text. Elected minister general of his order in 1602, he planted it in Germany and Bohemia, where the Reformation had swept all before it. In 1601, as chaplain to the imperial army before Székesfehérvár, he rode at the head of the troops holding a crucifix and carrying no weapon; the chroniclers credited him with the victory, which embarrassed him. The rest of his life went in diplomatic missions for the Holy See and the Catholic princes, until a last journey to Lisbon to plead with Philip III of Spain the cause of the subjects of Naples against their viceroy. He died there on 22 July 1619, his sixtieth birthday, the errand accomplished. John XXIII proclaimed him a Doctor of the Church in 1959, with the title of ‘apostolic doctor’.