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| Saint John of Capistrano |
| 28 March 2023 |
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John of Capistrano (Italian: San Giovanni da Capestrano, Hungarian: Kapisztrán János, Polish: Jan Kapistran, Croatian: Ivan Kapistran) (24 June 1386 – 23 October 1456) was a Franciscan friar and Catholic priest from the Italian town of Capestrano, Abruzzo. Famous as a preacher, theologian, and inquisitor, he earned himself the nickname “the Soldier Saint” when in 1456 at age 70 he led a crusade against the invading Ottoman Empire at the siege of Belgrade with the Hungarian military commander John Hunyadi.
Elevated to sainthood, he is the patron saint of jurists and military chaplains, as well as the namesake of the Franciscan missions San Juan Capistrano in Southern California and San Juan Capistrano in San Antonio, Texas.
Early life
As was the custom of this time, John is denoted by the village of Capestrano, in the Diocese of Sulmona, in the Abruzzi region, Kingdom of Naples. His father had come to Italy with the Angevin court of Louis I of Anjou, titular King of Naples. He studied law at the University of Perugia.
In 1412, King Ladislaus 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 the Malatestas in 1416, John was sent as ambassador to broker a peace, but Malatesta threw him in prison. It was during this imprisonment that he began to study theology. When he was released in he decided to give up the world and become a Franciscan friar, citing a dream where Saint Francis of Assisi ordered him to enter the Order. He had married before the war, but asserted the marriage was never consummated and received permission to take holy orders.
Friar and preacher
Together with James of the Marches, John entered the Order of Friars Minor at Perugia on 4 October 1416. Along with James, he studied theology at Fiesole, near Florence, under Bernardine of Siena. He soon gave himself up to the most rigorous asceticism, violently defending the ideal of strict observance and orthodoxy,[4] following the example set by Bernardine. From 1420 onwards, he preached with great effect in numerous cities and eventually became well known. He was ordained in 1425.
Unlike most Italian preachers of repentance in the 15th century, John was effective in northern and central Europe—in German states of Holy Roman Empire, Bohemia, Moravia, Austria, Hungary, Croatia and the Kingdom of Poland. The largest churches could not hold the crowds, so he preached in the public squares—at Brescia in Italy, he preached to a crowd of 126,000.
Reformer
San Giovanni di Capistrano, by Santi Buglioni c.1550
When he was not preaching, John was writing tracts against heresy of every kind. This facet of his life is covered in great detail by his early biographers, Nicholas of Fara, Christopher of Varese and Girlamo of Udine. While he was thus evangelizing, he was actively engaged in assisting Bernardine of Siena in the reform of the Franciscan Order, largely in the interests of a more rigorous discipline in the Franciscan communities. Like Bernardine, he strongly emphasized devotion to the Holy Name of Jesus, and, together with Bernardine, was accused of heresy on this account. In 1429, these Observant friars were called to Rome to answer charges of heresy, and John was chosen by his companions to speak for them. They were both acquitted by the Commission of Cardinals appointed to judge the accusations.
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. As legate, or inquisitor, he prosecuted the last Fraticelli of Ferrara, the Jesuati of Venice, the Crypto-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 talks impossible between the representatives of Rome and the Bohemians, for every attempt at conciliation seemed to him to be conniving at heresy.
He also worked for the reform of the Order of Friars Minor. He upheld, in his writings, speeches and sermons, theories of papal supremacy rather than the theological wranglings of councils (see Conciliar Movement). John, together with his teacher, Bernardine, his colleague, James of the Marche, and Albert Berdini of Sarteano, are considered the four great pillars of the Observant reform among the Friars Minor. |
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