On June 13, Catholics honor the memory of the Franciscan priest St. Anthony of Padua. Although he is popularly invoked today by those who have trouble finding lost objects, he was known in his own day as the “Hammer of Heretics” due to the powerful witness of his life and …

Blessed Edward Poppe is a contemporary saint. He died at the young age of 33. He was an energetic child and an excellent student. His mischievousness saw him often knock things over even putting himself at risk of being harmed. He was also quite stubborn and never left his sisters …

St. Medard was born around 456 in Salency, France. His father Nectard was a noble Frenchman, and his mother, Protogia, descended from a Roman family that settled in Gaul. He was ordained at the age of 33, and did not wish to be made a bishop, but reluctantly became the …

Anthony grew up in a poor but pious family in a small farming village in Lombardy, Italy. The owner of his family farm paid for Anthony’s seminary education because he was such a promising student. He was very young for ordination and required a special dispensation, however he was ordained …

St. Charles and many other martyrs for the faith died between November 15, 1885 – January 27, 1887 in Namugongo, Uganda. St. Charles and his companions were beatified in 1920 and canonized by Pope Paul VI in 1964. In 1879 Catholicism began spreading in Uganda when the White Fathers, a …

On June 2, the Catholic Church remembers two fourth-century martyrs, Saints Marcellinus and Peter, who were highly venerated after the discovery of their tomb and the conversion of their executioner. Although the biographical details of the two martyrs are largely unknown, it is known that they lived and died during …

“We are slain with the sword, but we increase and multiply; the more we are persecuted and destroyed, the more are deaf to our numbers. As a vine, by being pruned and cut close, shoots forth new suckers, and bears a greater abundance of fruit; so is it with us.” …

Today is the feast of St. Joan of Arc, the patroness of France. Joan was born to a peasant family in Champagne, France in the early 15th century. From a young age she heard the voices of St. Michael, St. Catherine, and St. Margaret speaking to her. Then, in 1428, …

An Italian Benedictine monk who became the “Apostle of the English,” Saint Augustine of Canterbury is honored by the Catholic Church on May 27. Under the direction of Pope Saint Gregory the Great, Augustine founded the famous See of Canterbury and preached the Catholic faith to the country’s Anglo-Saxon pagans …

Philip Neri was born in Florence, Italy, in 1515. At the age of 18, Philip was sent to his uncle, Romolo, a wealthy merchant at San Germano, a Neapolitan town near the base of Monte Cassino, to assist him in his business, and with the hope that he might inherit …