Giovanni da Capistrano
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| Saint Giovanni da Capistrano | |
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| Confessor | |
| Born | June 24, 1386, Capestrano, Abruzzi, Kingdom of Naples |
| Died | October 23, 1456 (aged 70), Ilok, modern Croatia[1] |
| Venerated in | Roman Catholic Church |
| Canonized | 1690 or 1724, Rome by either Pope Alexander VIII or Pope Benedict XIII] |
| Feast | 23 October (Traditionalist Catholics, 28 March) |
| Attributes | Confessor; Friar; Theologian; Inquisitor |
| Patronage | Jurists |
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Saint Giovanni da Capestrano (in English, Saint John Capistrano, June 24, 1386 – October 23, 1456), Italian friar, theologian and inquisitor, was born in the village of Capestrano, in the diocese of Sulmona in the Abruzzi, Kingdom of Naples. His father had come to Italy with the Angevin court of Louis I of Anjou, King of Naples. He lived at first a wholly secular life, studied law at the University of Perugia under the legal scholar Pietro de Ubaldis, married, and became a successful magistrate. In 1412 Ladislas of Naples appointed him governor of Perugia, a tumultuous and resentful papal fief held by Ladislas as the pope's champion, in order to effectively establish public order. When war broke out between Perugia and Sigismondo Malatesta in 1416, John was sent as ambassador to broker a peace, but Malatesta threw him in prison.
During the captivity, in despair he put aside his new young wife, never having consummated the marriage, and, studying with St. Bernardine of Siena, together with St. James of the Marches, he entered the Franciscan order at Perugia on October 4, 1416. At once he gave himself up to the most rigorous asceticism, violently defending the ideal of strict observance and orthodoxy, following St. Bernardine as he preached, and from 1420 onwards, preaching himself with great effect in many cities. Unlike most Italian preachers of repentance in the 15th century, Giovanni da Capestrano was effective in the north, in Germany, Bohemia, Austria, Hungary and Poland. The largest churches could not hold the crowds, so he preached in the piazzas: at Brescia he preached to a crowd of 126,000. When he was not preaching, he was writing tracts against heresy of every kind. This facet of Giovanni's life is covered in great detail by his early biographers, Nicholas of Fara, Christopher of Varese and Girolamo of Udine. While he was thus evangelizing, he was actively engaged in assisting Bernardino in the reforms of the Franciscan Order, largely in the interests of more rigorous hierarchic discipline.
Like St. Bernardine of Siena, he strongly emphasized devotion to the Holy Name of Jesus, and, together with that saint, was accused of heresy on this account. In 1429, John, together with other Observant friars, was called to Rome on the charge of heresy, and he was chosen by his companions to defend them; the friars were acquitted by the Commission of Cardinals. He was frequently deployed to embassies by Popes Eugene IV and Nicholas V. In 1439 he was sent as legate to Milan and Burgundy, to oppose the claims of the Antipope Felix V; in 1446 he was on a mission to the King of France; in 1451 he went at the request of the emperor as Apostolic nuncio to Austria. During the period of his nunciature, John visited all parts of the Empire, preaching and combatting the heresy of the Hussites; he also visited Poland at the request of Casimir IV. As legate, or inquisitor, he prosecuted the last Fraticelli of Ferrara, the Jesuati of Venice, the Jews of Sicily, Moldavia and Poland, and, above all, the Hussites of Germany, Hungary and Bohemia; his aim in the last case was to make conferences impossible between the representatives of Rome and the Bohemians, for every attempt at conciliation seemed to him to be conniving at heresy.
After the Fall of Constantinople, when Mohammed II was threatening Vienna and Rome, Pope Calixtus III sent him at the age of seventy, to preach and lead a Crusade against the invading Turks at the Diet of Frankfurt in 1454, and he succeeded in gathering troops together, which in the summer of 1456, with Capistrano leading a contingent, helped John Hunyadi to raise the siege of Belgrade, which was being blockaded by Mahommed II.
He died of bubonic plague shortly afterwards at Ilok, Kingdom of Hungary (now a border town between Croatia and Serbia across the Danube from Backa Palanka). St. John Capistrano, in spite of this restless life, found time to work, both in the lifetime of his master St. Bernardine and after, at the reform of the order of the minor Franciscans, and to uphold both in his writings and his speeches the most advanced theories upon the papal supremacy as opposed to that of the councils (see Conciliar Movement).
The year of St. John Capistrano's canonization is variously given as 1690, by Pope Alexander VIII or 1724 by Pope Benedict XIII. In 1890, his feast day was included for the first time in the Roman Catholic calendar of saints and assigned to 28 March.[3] In 1969, Pope Paul VI moved his feast day to 23 October, the day of his death. Traditionalist Catholics commemorate his feast day on 28 March, as in the Church's calendar from 1890 to 1969.
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[edit] Popular Culture
- Capistrano is a character in the game Legendary Warriors. Far from the real franciscan monk he was, he is portrayed as a radical warrior priest who has mass support with the peasants. He is also shown to be a close friend of John Hunyadi. His history is changed slightly in that he actually dies at Belgrade. He wields a flail.
[edit] References
- ^ Biography in Croatian
- ^ Engelhardt, Zephyrin, O.F.M. San Juan Capistrano Mission. 1922. Standard Printing Co., Los Angeles, CA.
- ^ ST JOHN OF CAPISTRANO (A.D. 1456) Retrieved September 13, 2006; Calendarium Romanum (Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1969), p. 106)
[edit] See also
- Church of St. Wojciech, in Krakow, Poland, sermons
- Mission San Juan Capistrano in Southern California
- Mission San Juan Capistrano in San Antonio, Texas
