Saint Anthony Maria Zaccaria

Priest, Founder of the Barnabites
(1502–1539)

Saint Anthony Maria Zaccaria was born in 1502 at Cremona in northern Italy into a noble and wealthy family. His father died when he was very young, and he was raised by his mother, a woman of exceptional piety whose influence shaped his character decisively. He studied medicine at the University of Padua, and for a time practised as a physician in Cremona, serving the poor with great charity. But he felt called to a deeper form of service and, after a period of spiritual discernment, he was ordained to the priesthood in 1528 at the age of twenty-six.

As a priest, Anthony Maria burned with apostolic zeal at a time when the Church was facing the twin challenges of Protestantism from without and moral laxity from within. He believed that the renewal of the Church must begin with the renewal of priests, and he gathered around himself a group of like-minded clergy who wished to live the apostolic life more perfectly. From this gathering emerged the Congregation of Saint Paul, known popularly as the Barnabites from their first church of Saint Barnabas in Milan, which Anthony founded in 1530 with two companions, Bartolomeo Ferrari and Giacomo Morigia.

The Barnabites devoted themselves to preaching, the administration of the sacraments, and the care of the sick and poor. Anthony himself was a preacher of great power, who was not afraid to bring the Gospel into the streets and public squares, ringing a bell to summon listeners as he had seen done by the Franciscans. He promoted frequent Communion and the Forty Hours devotion before the Blessed Sacrament, practices that were then unusual and which would later become standard in Catholic life.

He also founded, together with the Countess Ludovica Torelli, the Angeliche, a congregation of religious women who worked alongside the Barnabites in the apostolate. His spiritual children spread throughout Italy and beyond, carrying his spirit of apostolic renewal wherever they went.

He died on July 5, 1539, at the age of only thirty-six, worn out by his labours and by the spiritual struggles of a reformer in a difficult age. He was canonised by Pope Leo XIII in 1897. His feast is observed on July 5th.