St. Anthony of Padua
His preaching got a law passed at Padua protecting people who could not pay their debts, freed prisoners and debtors, and he risked his life asking a tyrant to release the ones he held.
Born 1195 · Died 1231 · Canonized 1232
The birth year is approximate. The Catholic Encyclopedia gives 1195 flat; Benedict XVI gives 'in about 1195'. The death on 13 June 1231 is agreed by both. His age at death is recorded as 36 because the encyclopedia states it outright — 'he died at the age of thirty-six years' — and because it checks against that article's own accounting of his life: 'He had lived fifteen years with his parents, ten years as a Canon Regular of St. Augustine, and eleven years in the Order of Friars Minor.' The figure is stated, not derived, but it rests on the approximate birth year like everything else here.
A lifelong Catholic
He was born at Lisbon in about 1195 and baptized Fernando. His family were people of standing, but almost nothing else about them is known. At fifteen he joined the Augustinian canons, and moved two years later to Coimbra, where he spent eight years reading Scripture and the Fathers.
In 1220 the bodies of five Franciscans killed in Morocco were brought into his church. He asked to leave the canons, took the Franciscan habit and the name Anthony, and set out for Morocco himself to preach and, if it came to it, to die there. He got sick instead and had to sail home, and the ship was blown onto Sicily. He reached the general chapter at Assisi and nobody took any notice of him. He was sent to a hermitage near Forlì, where his job was to say Mass for the lay brothers.
Then, at an ordination, the preacher failed to appear and nobody would stand in. They told Anthony to speak — they thought he could just about read the Missal. He preached, and everyone present was astonished. Francis of Assisi heard about him and wrote asking him to teach theology to the brothers.
After that he preached everywhere, sometimes to crowds of thirty thousand. His last Lent was 1231 at Padua, and it emptied the prisons: enemies were reconciled, stolen money was handed back, debtors were released. On 15 March that year the city passed a law he had pressed for, protecting people who could not pay their debts. He had already gone to the tyrant Ezzelino to ask for the release of his prisoners, and failed, and risked his life doing it.
He died on 13 June 1231, thirty-six years old. Gregory IX canonized him the next year.
What they carried
He joined the friars in order to die in Morocco and got no further than an illness and a shipwreck. Afterwards nobody in the order could see anything in him: he went unnoticed at the great chapter, and was set to say Mass for lay brothers. He was dead at thirty-six.
State of life
priest · friar · Doctor of the Church
Themes
preaching · care of the poor · speaking truth to power · prayer · hidden work · questions and study
Benedict XVI on Anthony of Padua (2010 General Audience)
- Catholic Encyclopedia (Herbermann, 1907-1913), 'St. Anthony of Padua' — source of the birth at Lisbon in 1195, the baptismal name Ferdinand, the Canons Regular of St. Augustine at fifteen (1210) and Santa Croce at Coimbra from 1212 'where he remained for eight years', the Franciscan martyrs of Morocco brought to Santa Croce in 1220, the taking of the name Anthony, the illness and the shipwreck onto Sicily in 1221, 'The chapter over, Anthony remained entirely unnoticed', the hermitage of Montepaolo near Forlì, the ordination sermon at Forlì and 'With that moment began Anthony's public career', Francis's letter of 1224, the title Malleus hereticorum, the Lenten crowds of '30,000 and more', the Padua debtors' law of 15 March 1231, the embassy to Ezzelino at Verona, the death 'at the age of thirty-six years, on 13 June, 1231', and the canonization at Pentecost, 30 May 1232. https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01556a.htm
- WHERE HE DIED — THE ENCYCLOPEDIA IS WRONG AND ITS OWN PUBLISHER SAYS SO. The Catholic Encyclopedia states Vercelli twice: the headnote reads 'died at Vercelli' and the narrative reads 'Transferred to Vercelli, and strengthened by the apparition of Our Lord, he died at the age of thirty-six years'. NEW ADVENT'S EDITOR OVERRIDES THE TEXT IN A BRACKET IN THE HEADNOTE ITSELF: 'died at Vercelli [actually Arcella --Ed.]'. Arcella is at the gates of Padua, and Benedict XVI agrees with the correction: 'he died at the city gates on 13 June 1231'. This record follows Benedict XVI and puts Padua in region. The case is recorded rather than quietly fixed because it is worth a reader seeing that the encyclopedia's own publisher corrects the encyclopedia, and that a 1907 article is a source to be read rather than copied.
- Benedict XVI, General Audience of 10 February 2010 — source of the birth 'in Lisbon in about 1195', the baptismal name Fernando, the relics of 'the first five Franciscan missionaries' at Coimbra in 1220, the Chapter of the Mats in 1221, the concealment at Forlì, the preaching 'so intense and effective that it induced many people who had left the Church to retrace their footsteps', the death 'at the city gates on 13 June 1231', the canonization 'in 1232, only a year after his death', and the Doctor of the Church declaration. Also the quotation used for what he asked of the rich: 'O rich people, befriend... the poor, welcome them into your homes.' https://www.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/audiences/2010/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20100210.html
- DOCTOR OF THE CHURCH — DECLARATION HELD. Pius XII, apostolic letter Exulta, Lusitania felix, 16 January 1946. LATIN ONLY; no vernacular version exists on vatican.va, so this record uses it to establish that the declaration happened and its date, and takes the substance from Benedict XVI, who states it in English: 'in 1946 Venerable Pope Pius XII proclaimed Anthony a Doctor of the Church, attributing to him the title "Doctor Evangelicus", since the freshness and beauty of the Gospel emerge from these writings.' Independently corroborated by the current calendar, which prints him as 'Priest, Doctor of the Church'. https://www.vatican.va/content/pius-xii/la/apost_letters/documents/hf_p-xii_apl_19460116_antonio-di-padova.html
- FRANCIS'S LETTER EXISTS IN TWO WORDINGS AND THE SUMMARY QUOTES NEITHER. Catholic Encyclopedia: 'To Brother Anthony, my bishop... It is my pleasure that thou teach theology to the brethren, provided, however, that as the Rule prescribes, the spirit of prayer and devotion may not be extinguished. Farewell. (1224)'. Benedict XVI: 'I would like you to teach the brethren theology'. Gregory IX's title for him varies the same way — 'Ark of the Covenant' in the encyclopedia, 'Ark of the Testament' in the audience. Same treatment as Padre Pio's two sayings: the variance is recorded rather than resolved.
- ONLY BENEDICT XVI SAYS HE MET FRANCIS. The audience places him at the Chapter of the Mats 'where he also met St Francis'. The encyclopedia puts him at the same chapter but says only that he arrived in time to take part and that afterwards he 'remained entirely unnoticed'. The summary follows the encyclopedia on the chapter and does not assert the meeting.
- NO PARENTS ARE NAMED IN THIS RECORD, DELIBERATELY. Fifteenth-century writers gave them as Martin Bouillon and Theresa Tavejra, and the encyclopedia repeats the claim only to reject it: 'Unfortunately, however, his genealogy is uncertain; all that we know of his parents is that they were noble, powerful, and God-fearing people.'
- THE MIRACLES ARE NOT IN THIS RECORD. The encyclopedia devotes most of its length to them — the kneeling horse at Rimini, the sermon to the fishes, the amputated foot rejoined, the usurer's heart found among his coins — and then undercuts them itself: 'It may be true that some of the miracles attributed to St. Anthony are legendary'. It also observes that 'his very popularity has to a certain extent obscured his personality'. The record is built from the civic acts instead, which are dated and documented; the debtors' law survives, and the encyclopedia says so: 'A copy of this law is still preserved in the museum of Padua.'
- EZZELINO — THE RECORD KEEPS THE FAILURE, WHICH THE SOURCE INSISTS ON. The encyclopedia rejects the legend that the tyrant relented: 'An apocryphal legend relates that the tyrant humbled himself before the Saint and granted his request. This is not the case, but what does it matter, even if he failed in his attempt; he nevertheless jeopardized his own life for the sake of those oppressed by tyranny.'
- Feast 13 June, memorial. Universal Calendar, Liturgy Office of the Bishops' Conference of England and Wales, which prints '13 St Anthony of Padua, Priest, Doctor of the Church — memorial'. https://www.liturgyoffice.org.uk/Calendar/Universal/JunUC.shtml
- THE SEAM WAS REPAIRED ON 2026-08-17. struggles had restated three of the summary's facts — the wrecked mission, the storm, and the chapter where nobody noticed him rather than indexing it, which is the Padre Pio failure named in the docstring: the two most expensive fields spent on the same list twice. The field now points at those sentences instead of repeating them, and carries the connection between them, which the summary narrates and the field had lost: the obscurity was one continuous experience rather than three incidents, and the hermitage job of saying Mass for the lay brothers is its measure. The encyclopedia's own sentence is 'The chapter over, Anthony remained entirely unnoticed.'
- PATRONAGE — CHECKED AGAINST THE PROMISE ON /about, AND THE CHECK FAILED, SO THE FIELD IS EMPTY. That page states that no patronage is assumed because it is widely repeated. Anthony as the saint you pray to for lost things is about as widely repeated as an association gets — very likely the only thing a candidate already knows about him — which is exactly the pattern the rule exists to catch, so all three documents held were searched for 'patron' before anything was written. THERE ARE ZERO OCCURRENCES IN ANY OF THEM, including the Latin of Exulta, Lusitania felix. WHAT THE ENCYCLOPEDIA ACTUALLY SAYS IS AN OBSERVATION ABOUT DEVOTION, NOT AN ACT OF DESIGNATION: 'He is especially invoked for the recovery of things lost, as is also expressed in the celebrated responsory of Friar Julian of Spires.' Being invoked for something is not being declared patron of it. An earlier draft of this record carried it as a traditional patronage on the argument that an empty array would read as incomplete; that argument is the one the rule refuses, and Faustina is the governing precedent — Divine Mercy is a stronger association still and her patronages stayed empty. This field stays empty until an actual act of designation is fetched. THIS CASE IS STATED PUBLICLY ON /patronages, WHICH IS BUILT FROM THIS NOTE. If this record ever gains a source that changes the answer, that page is wrong until it is changed too — it names the documents searched and the result, in the first person, and nothing links the two automatically.