Francisco Coll Guitar

Francisco Coll y Guitart (Catalan: Francesc Coll i Guitart) was born on 18 May 1812 in Gombrèn, a small mountain village in the Ripollès district of Catalonia, in northeastern Spain. He was the tenth of eleven children in a family of modest means; his father worked as a wool carder and died when Francisco was still a young child. Raised by his mother in a devout Catholic household, he showed an early inclination toward the priesthood and was sent to study at the diocesan seminary of Vic, the principal ecclesiastical centre of inland Catalonia.

In 1830 he entered the Dominican convent in Girona and received the habit of the Order of Preachers. The anti-clerical legislation and exclaustration of religious houses that followed in the mid-1830s, amid civil conflict in Spain, disrupted conventional Dominican formation and community life. Coll was ordained a priest in 1836 and thereafter devoted himself to itinerant missionary preaching across Catalonia. He became known as a popular preacher of parish missions, retreats, and Lenten exercises, travelling through rural towns and mountain districts to catechize and call people to conversion, often under difficult political and social conditions.

In 1856 he founded the Congregation of the Dominican Sisters of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Hermanas Dominicas de la Anunciata), a community dedicated especially to the education of girls from poor families. The new congregation combined Dominican contemplative tradition with an active teaching apostolate. Coll remained its spiritual director while continuing his own preaching. He was associated with other Catalan missionary figures of the period, including Saint Anthony Mary Claret.

In December 1869 Coll suffered a stroke that left him nearly blind and in declining health. He spent his last years in Vic, where he died on 2 April 1875. He was beatified by Pope John Paul II on 29 April 1979 and canonized by Pope Benedict XVI on 11 October 2009. His liturgical memorial is kept on 2 April. The congregation he founded continues educational and pastoral work in Spain and in other countries.