Confessor Cardinal Raymond

Raymond, known as Nonnatus (from the Latin non natus, not born), belongs to the circle of thirteenth-century Catalan saints connected with the Mercedarian Order. Traditional hagiography places his birth at Portell (also called Portello), a locality in the diocese of Urgell in Catalonia, then part of the Crown of Aragon. Contemporary documentation of his early life is lacking; later accounts conventionally place his birth in the opening years of the thirteenth century. The distinctive surname Nonnatus arose from the claim that he was extracted from his mother’s womb after she had died in childbirth, an event that later made him a favoured patron of difficult deliveries.

He entered the Order of Our Lady of Mercy, founded in Barcelona by Saint Peter Nolasco for the redemption of Christian captives held in Muslim territories. Raymond is presented in the order’s later chronicles as one of its early ransomers. He is said to have travelled to North Africa, where he expended the funds entrusted to him in freeing prisoners. When money was exhausted he offered his own person as a hostage so that remaining captives might be released. While detained he continued to preach the Christian faith among the Muslim population. Later legend, which cannot be confirmed from thirteenth-century sources, asserts that his captors bored a hole through his lips and fastened them with a padlock to silence him. He was eventually ransomed and returned to Spain.

According to Mercedarian tradition, Pope Gregory IX created Raymond a cardinal deacon and summoned him to Rome. No entry corresponding to this promotion appears in the surviving papal registers of the period, and modern historians treat the cardinalate as uncertain or legendary. While travelling toward the papal court he fell ill at Cardona in Catalonia and died there on 31 August 1240. He was interred in the castle chapel at Cardona; subsequently his relics became associated with the sanctuary of Saint Nicholas at his birthplace of Portell.

Popular devotion to Raymond developed in Catalonia and within the Mercedarian Order. In 1657 Pope Alexander VII confirmed his cult and inscribed him among the saints. Because of the story of his own birth he is invoked by women in labour, by midwives and obstetricians, and for the safety of newborn children. The padlock motif led to his being regarded as a protector of those who must keep secrets and of persons falsely accused. His liturgical feast is kept on 31 August. Relics and images of the saint, often showing him in the Mercedarian habit, remain objects of veneration in Catalonia and in churches of the Mercedarian family.