Portal:Catholicism/Patron Archive/November 4
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Saint Charles Borromeo (Italian: Carlo Borromeo; Latinized as Carolus Borromeus) (October 2, 1538 – November 3, 1584) was an Italian saint and cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church.
The son of Giberto II Borromeo, conte (count) of Arona, and Margherita de' Medici, Carlo Borromeo was born at the castle of Arona on Lago Maggiore.
When he was about twelve years old, Carlo's uncle, Giulio Cesare Borromeo, resigned to him an abbacy (the office and dignity of an abbot), the revenue of which he applied wholly in charity to the poor. He studied the civil and canon law at Pavia. In 1554 his father died, and although he had an elder brother, Count Federigo, he was requested by the family to take the management of their domestic affairs. After a time, he resumed his studies, and in 1559 he took his doctoral degree. In 1560 his uncle, Cardinal Angelo de' Medici, was raised to the pontificate as Pius IV.
Borromeo was made protonotary apostolic, entrusted with both the public and the privy seal of the ecclesiastical state, and created cardinal with the administration of Romagna and the March of Ancona, and the supervision of the Franciscans, the Carmelites and the Knights of Malta.
He was thus at the age of twenty-two, practically the leading statesman of the papal court. Soon afterwards he was raised to the archbishopric of Milan. In compliance with the pope's desire, he lived in great splendor; yet his own temperance and humility were never brought into question. He established an academy of learned persons and published their memoirs as the Noctes Vaticanae.
Owing to his influence over Pius IV, he facilitated the final deliberations of the Council of Trent, and he took a large share in the drawing up of the Tridentine Catechism (Catechismus Romanus).
On the death of Pius IV (1566), the skill and diligence of Borromeo contributed materially to suppressing the cabals of the conclave. Subsequently he devoted himself wholly to the reformation of his diocese, which had fallen into an unsatisfactory condition owing to the prolonged absences of its previous archbishops. In conformity with the decrees of the Council of Trent, he cleared the cathedral of its ornate tombs, rich ornaments, banners, arms, sparing not even the monuments of his own relatives. He divided the nave of the church into two compartments for the separation of the sexes. He extended his reforms to the collegiate churches (even to the fraternities of penitents and particularly that of St. John the Baptist), and to the monasteries.
Borromeo established seminaries, colleges and communities for the education of candidates for holy orders. The most remarkable, perhaps, of his foundations was the fraternity of the Oblates, a society whose members were pledged to give aid to the church when and where it might be required.
He further paved the way for the Golden (or Borromean) League formed in 1586 by the Swiss Catholic cantons of Switzerland to expel heretics if necessary by armed force.
He was seized with an intermittent fever, and died at Milan on 4 November 1584. He was canonized in 1610, and his feast is celebrated on 4 November.
Attributes: cord, red cardinal robes
Patronage: against ulcers; apple orchards; bishops; catechists; catechumens; colic; intestinal disorders; Lombardy, Italy; Monterey California; seminarians; spiritual directors; spiritual leaders; starch makers; stomach diseases; São Carlos city in Brazil
Prayer: O Saintly reformer, animator of spiritual renewal of priests and religious, you organized true seminaries and wrote a standard catechism. Inspire all religious teachers and authors of catechetical books. Move them to love and transmit only that which can form true followers of the Teacher who was divine. Amen.
