St. Lawrence, the Roman deacon martyred in 258, is a patron of the poor. The story of his martyrdom relates that when the Roman prefect demanded the Church deliver its "treasures," Lawrence brought before him the city's poor, saying "These are the treasures of the Church." St. Vincent de Paul, a 17th-century French priest and founder of the Congregation of the Mission, dedicated his life to the service of the poor and marginalized and is their primary patron in modern Catholic practice. His feast day is September 27.
St. Anthony of Padua, St. Francis of Assisi, and Blessed Frédéric Ozanam (founder of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul) are also closely associated with service to and advocacy for the poor.
Formally proclaimed patronage — sourced from canonized saints in the Roman Calendar.
Saint Anthony of Padua is invoked as patron of the poor. Saint Anthony of Padua was born Fernando Martins de Bulhoes in Lisbon, Portugal, in 1195, of a noble Portuguese family. About 1210 he entered the Augustinian Canons Regular, first at Lisbon and then at the great house of Santa Cruz in Coimbra, where he received his theological training and was ordained priest.In 1220, profoundly moved by the relics of the five Franciscan protomartyrs slain in Morocco that year, Fernando transferred to the Order of Friars Minor and took the religious name Anthony, after the desert father whose hermitage stood near his new friary. Sources: https://www.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/audiences/2010/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20100210.html.
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Saint Lawrence of Rome is invoked as patron of the poor. Saint Lawrence was one of the seven deacons of the Roman Church under Pope Saint Sixtus II and was martyred at Rome on August 10, 258, four days after his bishop. He is traditionally said to have come from the Roman province of Hispania Citerior, from a family of the modern Huesca in Aragon, but the earliest evidence (Saint Ambrose, Saint Augustine, the Roman Calendar) attests only his deaconate at Rome and his martyrdom there.Saint Ambrose of Milan, in his De officiis ministrorum (1.41) written about 391, gives the earliest extended narrative. Sources: https://www.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/angelus/2010/documents/hf_ben-xvi_ang_20100808.html.
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