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Saint Raymond of Penyafort

Priest

Feast Day
January 7
Life
1175–1275
Canonized
1601
Order
Order of Preachers (Dominicans, OP)
Born
Penyafort, near Villafranca del Penedes, Catalonia

Raymond of Penyafort was born about 1175 at the family castle of Penyafort in Catalonia. He taught philosophy at Barcelona and then took degrees in canon and civil law at Bologna, where he taught from 1218 to 1221. Returning to Barcelona, he entered the Order of Preachers in 1222, only six years after Dominic had received papal approval.

He served as confessor and adviser to Pope Gregory IX, who in 1230 commissioned him to compile and codify the scattered papal decretals issued since the Decretum of Gratian. The result, the Liber Extra or Decretales Gregorii IX, was promulgated by the bull Rex pacificus on September 5, 1234, and remained the principal collection of papal law until the Code of Canon Law of 1917.

Raymond also composed the Summa de casibus paenitentiae, an extensive penitential manual that shaped sacramental confession for centuries. With James I of Aragon and Saint Peter Nolasco he was associated with the foundation of the Order of Mercy (Mercedarians) for the redemption of Christian captives.

Elected Master of the Order of Preachers in 1238, he revised the Dominican Constitutions and resigned after two years on grounds of age. He devoted his last decades in Barcelona to encouraging the study of Arabic and Hebrew so that Dominicans could engage Jewish and Muslim interlocutors; according to early Dominican sources, he asked Thomas Aquinas to write what became the Summa contra Gentiles for missionary use.

He died at Barcelona on January 6, 1275, in his hundredth year. He was canonized by Pope Clement VIII on April 29, 1601.

The Decretals of Gregory IX gave the Western Church its first systematic, centrally promulgated body of canon law, fixing the form in which papal jurisdiction would be expressed for nearly seven centuries. Raymond's pastoral concern, however, was sacramental: his Summa de casibus made the Church's law accessible to confessors. He stands as a patron of canonists for combining juridical rigor with concern for souls.

Patronages

canon lawyers · medical record librarians

Catholic Churches Named After Saint Raymond of Penyafort

20 parishes on Catholic Church Times share Saint Raymond of Penyafort's name. Find their Mass times, confession schedules, and adoration hours:

Sources