St. Charles Borromeo, †1584, is the patron Saint of bishops, cardinals, and seminarians. The Cardinal Archbishop of Milan, he was a tireless worker and leader in the Church. In his short life of forty-six years, he accomplished more than several men who lived longer might have. In 1562, his maternal uncle, Pius IV, formerly Giovanni Angelo Cardinal de’ Medici, called on him to reassemble the Council of Trent, interrupted a decade earlier. He brought it to a close.
Ignoring the long-held lax habits of prelates, he moved from Rome, and became the first Archbishop in eighty years to live among his flock in Milan. For the rest of his life, he put in practice the Council’s decisions, beginning with his household, then in his entire Ecclesiastical Province, which at the time was the largest in the Church, with fifteen suffragan bishops and 1,200 priests spread over areas ruled by Spain, and the independent states of Venice, Genoa, and Novara, as well as Switzerland. His work of reform is collected in the Acta Ecclesiæ Mediolanensis, considered a blueprint on how to govern a diocese.
St. Charles led the effort to produce the Catechism, and joined the commission on church music. He paid special attention to the changes needed in seminaries, monasteries and convents. He also founded the Congregation of Oblates of St. Ambrose, a society of secular priests who would carry out the reforms. But his greatest work arguably was in ministering to his flock. He founded the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine to instruct children with care and in a recognized system—the precursor of Sunday school. He carried his work to every parish, sometimes risking great danger in his journeys; but in the Milan plague of 1576-78, he risked even death to feed the hungry, care for the people sickened by the disease, and bury the dead. He kept an enormous volume of correspondence with all and sundry. Everywhere, he celebrated Mass and preached the Word.
St. Charles died shortly after his return from his last pastoral journey. Cesare Cardinal Baronio called him “a second Ambrose, whose early death, lamented by all good men, inflicted great loss on the Church.” He was canonized by Pope Paul V in 1610. The feast day of St. Charles is November 4.
