Suggest an Edit — Faithful of Sigmaringen

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Biography

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Saint Fidelis of Sigmaringen, whose religious name Fidelis is Latin for Faithful, was born Markus Roy (also rendered Mark or Markus Rey) in 1577 at Sigmaringen in Hohenzollern Swabia, in what is now Baden-Württemberg, Germany. His father, Johannes Rey, was a prominent citizen of the town, often described in older sources as its burgomaster. Fidelis studied philosophy and law at the University of Freiburg im Breisgau and took doctorates in both faculties. After a pilgrimage through parts of France and Italy undertaken with his brother George, he returned to practice as an advocate. Contemporary Catholic accounts stress his refusal of unjust causes and his willingness to defend the poor without fee, which later earned him the popular title of the poor man's lawyer. Disillusionment with the venality he encountered in the courts is given as a principal reason for his leaving the legal profession.

In 1612 he entered the Capuchin reform of the Franciscan order at Freiburg and took the name Fidelis. He was ordained priest and became known as a preacher, confessor, and austere religious. He served as guardian of Capuchin communities at Rheinfelden, Freiburg, and Feldkirch, and Catholic tradition records his care of the sick, including during plague. In the early 1620s the newly established Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith entrusted the Capuchins with missionary work in the Grisons (Graubünden) of eastern Switzerland, a mountainous region of mixed Catholic and Reformed population and of sharp political tension involving Habsburg Austria. Fidelis was appointed superior of this mission and preached in the Prättigau valley, seeking both the conversion of Protestants and the consolidation of remaining Catholic communities.

On 24 April 1622, after celebrating Mass and preaching at Seewis, he was attacked on the road by a group of armed Reformed opponents of the Habsburg-backed Catholic restoration. He was struck down and killed. Catholic sources from the period present him as having refused to abandon his faith and as dying with an invocation of Christ. He was at once treated as a martyr by Catholic authorities and was later styled the proto-martyr of Propaganda Fide, the congregation having been founded in the same year as his death. His cult spread among the Capuchins and in Habsburg territories. He was beatified by Pope Benedict XIII in 1729 and canonized by Pope Benedict XIV in 1746. His feast is observed on 24 April. Because of his earlier career at the bar he is invoked as a patron of lawyers; because of the circumstances of his mission and death he is also associated with the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, the successor body of Propaganda Fide.

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