Saint Anthony Mary Claret

Bishop

Feast Day

October 24

Life

1807–1870

Canonized

1950

Order

Missionary Sons of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (Claretians)

Born

Sallent, Catalonia, Spain

Antoni Maria Claret i Clarà was born at Sallent in Catalonia on 23 December 1807, son of a weaver, and worked as a weaver and printer himself before entering the seminary of Vic. Ordained priest in 1835, he served briefly as a parish priest before being released by his bishop for a missionary apostolate of preaching parish missions throughout Catalonia. In 1849 at Vic he founded the Missionary Sons of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, called Claretians after his death, dedicated to popular missions.

Pope Pius IX in 1850 named him Archbishop of Santiago de Cuba, where for six years he undertook a sweeping reform of a colonial church marked by neglect: in three pastoral visitations he confirmed nearly 100,000 persons, regularized 9,000 marriages, opened nineteen new parishes, founded a credit union and the first agricultural school of Cuba, and survived an assassination attempt at Holguin in 1856. Recalled to Spain in 1857 as confessor to Queen Isabella II, he founded the Academy of Saint Michael for the Catholic intellectual apostolate and labored at the printing apostolate, founding the Religious Library that distributed millions of devotional books.

Exiled with the Queen in 1868, he attended the First Vatican Council (1869-1870) and powerfully supported the definition of papal infallibility. He died at the Cistercian abbey of Fontfroide in southern France on 24 October 1870. Pope Pius XI beatified him in 1934, and Pope Pius XII canonized him on 7 May 1950. His Optional Memorial is observed on 24 October.