St. Francis Xavier
He sailed for India in 1541 and spent the rest of his life preaching across southern India, the Molucca Islands and Japan: ringing a bell in the streets to gather children for the catechism, nursing the sick in hospitals, and learning languages to teach in them. He died trying to reach China.
Born 1506 · Died 1552 · Canonized 1622
Born on 7 April 1506. The day he died is given two ways in what is held here: the 1909 encyclopedia says "2 December, 1552", and Pope Francis, in 2023, says 3 December 1552 in both the English and the Italian editions. This page does not choose between them. He was forty-six on either date. His feast is kept on 3 December.
A lifelong Catholic
Francis Xavier was born in 1506 in the castle of Xavier in Navarre, in Spain, into a noble family that had lost its money. In Paris, where he studied from 1525, he met Ignatius of Loyola, who gave him the Spiritual Exercises; in Pope Francis's words, they changed his life. He became one of the first Jesuits and was ordained a priest in 1537.
At the King of Portugal's request he was sent to the East Indies and landed at Goa, in India, in May 1542. He nursed the sick and walked the streets ringing a little bell to call children to the catechism. Then he went south to the pearl-fishing coast, where the faith had nearly died out for want of priests, and on to Malacca and the Molucca Islands, teaching the catechism in the local language so it could be sung. Local rulers persecuted his converts, and Portuguese soldiers undid his work by their example. By Pope Francis's count he spent over three and a half years of his mission on ships, when many died at sea. One of his letters says dangers and discomforts, "when borne for the love of our Lord Jesus Christ, are treasuries filled with heavenly consolations".
At Malacca he met a Japanese man named Anger, and in August 1549 he landed at Kagoshima. He spent the first year learning the language. When he made converts he was driven out of the city, and moved on, leaving small Christian communities behind.
Then he turned to China. In 1552 he sailed with an embassy to its emperor and reached the island of Sancian, off the coast near Canton. While he looked for a way onto the mainland he fell ill, and in December he died in a rough hut on the shore, at forty-six, with one Chinese man beside him. He was canonized with Ignatius in 1622.
What they carried
Months at sea on ships where many died; converts persecuted by local rulers and soldiers whose example undid his work; a year learning Japanese, then expulsion from the city where he began. His plan for China failed, and he died ill on an island off its coast, almost alone.
Patron of
- the Society for the Propagation of the Faithformal
State of life
priest · Jesuit · missionary
Themes
mission · travel · friendship · teaching · care of the sick · prayer · joy
St. Francis Xavier (Catholic Encyclopedia)
- There are many saints called Francis, and this is the Jesuit missionary to Asia who died in 1552. He is not Francis of Assisi or Francis de Sales, who have their own pages here. He is not Francis Solanus, a Spanish Franciscan missionary to South America who died in 1610, nor Francis Borgia, a Spanish Jesuit of the same century, nor Francis de Geronimo, an Italian Jesuit preacher. He is not Blessed Francis Regis Clet, also a missionary to China, martyred in 1820. Two later saints carry his name as their own: Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini, kept in the United States on 13 November, and Blessed Francis Xavier Seelos, kept there on 5 October.
- His feast is 3 December, and it is a memorial. The Universal Calendar of the Bishops' Conference of England and Wales prints under 3 December "St Francis Xavier, Priest" with the word memorial beside it. https://www.liturgyoffice.org.uk/Calendar/Universal/DecUC.shtml The United States calendars agree: "Saint Francis Xavier, Priest" on 3 December, marked Memorial, in 2026 and in 2027. https://www.usccb.org/resources/2026cal.pdf https://www.usccb.org/resources/2027cal.pdf The Spanish section of the 2026 calendar names him on the same day as "San Francisco Javier, presbítero". The 1909 encyclopedia gives no feast day for him at all, so there is nothing in it to agree or disagree with; what it does give is a different day for his death, which is the next note.
- Two documents held here disagree about the day he died, and this page reports both. The encyclopedia article, written in 1909, gives "2 December, 1552" twice, once in its opening line and once in the dates it puts on his ten years of mission. Pope Francis, at the General Audience of 17 May 2023, says "On 3 December 1552, he died in total abandonment", and the Italian edition, the language he spoke in, has the same day: "Il 3 dicembre 1552, muore in totale abbandono". The current feast is also 3 December. Nothing held settles which is right, and the feast is not evidence for the death day, so neither is preferred. The same two documents also differ on smaller things: the article counts "ten years" of mission and "about two years and a half" in Japan, where Pope Francis says "more or less 11 years" and "three years". This page says only that his mission lasted about ten years, and gives no figure for Japan.
- He is the patron of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, and the act that made him so is held. Pius X, Apostolic Letter, 25 March 1904, printed in the Acta Sanctae Sedis, volume 36, pages 580 to 582. Its heading says what it does: "Quibus Pio Operi Propagationis Fidei Patronus caelestis datur Franciscus Xaverius", by which Francis Xavier is given as heavenly Patron to the Pious Work of the Propagation of the Faith. The operative sentence is "SANCTUM FRANCISCUM XAVERIUM caelestem eidem Patronum eligimus, damus": we choose and give Saint Francis Xavier to it as its heavenly Patron. The same letter raised his feast for the whole Church. Pius XI repeated the patronage twice in 1922, both times naming the same Work: in the motu proprio of 3 May 1922 that moved it to Rome, "Francisci Xaverii, huius sodalitatis patroni caelestis", and in his letter of 3 December 1922 for the three-hundredth anniversary of the canonization, which says Xavier was made "Operis a Propagatione Fidei caelestis Patronus" by a solemn decree of the Apostolic See. https://www.vatican.va/archive/ass/documents/ASS-36-1903-4-ocr.pdf https://www.vatican.va/archive/aas/documents/AAS-14-1922-ocr.pdf
- He is very widely called the patron of the missions, and popes call him that. No act declaring it is held, and so it is not listed above. What is held is stranger and in one way stronger. On 14 December 1927 Pius XI, through the Sacred Congregation of Rites, declared Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus patron of all missionaries and of the missions throughout the world, "Patronam aeque principalem" — equal and principal patron — with Saint Francis Xavier. The decree is printed in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis, volume 20, pages 147 to 148. It only makes sense if he already held the title: nobody is made an equal of a patron who does not exist. But the decree is about her. It does not say who made him patron, or when, or whether anyone ever formally did, and the scope it gives is the scope of her patronage, not a statement of his. So it is good evidence that he was treated as patron of the missions by 1927, and no evidence of how he came to be. https://www.vatican.va/archive/aas/documents/AAS-20-1928-ocr.pdf
- Benedict XVI said in 2006 that Pius XI proclaimed him the "Patron of Catholic Missions", and the Italian edition says the same, "patrono delle Missioni cattoliche". He gives no year and names no document. If such an act existed it would be the missing declaration, so the volume of the Acta Apostolicae Sedis most likely to hold it was searched: 1922, the first year of Pius XI's reign and the three-hundredth anniversary of the canonization. It holds two acts of Pius XI naming Xavier patron, and both name the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, not the missions (see the note on that patronage above). The volumes for 1927 and 1928 were searched too, and the only Pius XI act there touching his patronage is the 1927 decree for Thérèse. So on what is held, Benedict XVI's sentence restates Pius XI's acts in wider words than those acts use. That is a real and respectable reading, by a pope, of what his predecessor did. It is not the act. https://www.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/speeches/2006/april/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20060422_gesuiti.html https://www.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/it/speeches/2006/april/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20060422_gesuiti.html https://www.vatican.va/archive/aas/documents/AAS-14-1922-ocr.pdf
- Popes have called him patron of the missions for more than a century, as something already known. Benedict XV, addressing the Roman Curia on 24 December 1921, called him the apostle of the Indies, "meritamente chiamato" — rightly called — patron of the missions. John XXIII, writing to contemplative nuns in 1962, said Pius XI chose Thérèse "as co-patron of the missions—and a rival therefore of St. Francis Xavier". Pius XII, in 1952, told the Catholics of India that "the highest authority of the Church has declared him to be the patron of the whole East and then patron of all Missions", without saying which authority or when. Pope Francis, in 2023: "Xavier is the patron of missions, like Saint Therese of the Child Jesus." None of these is an act; each is a pope using a title. https://www.vatican.va/content/benedict-xv/it/speeches/documents/hf_ben-xv_spe_19211224_curia-romana.html https://www.vatican.va/content/john-xxiii/en/letters/1962/documents/hf_j-xxiii_let_19620702_tempio-massimo.html https://www.vatican.va/content/pius-xii/it/speeches/1952/documents/hf_p-xii_spe_19521231_apostoli-india.html https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/audiences/2023/documents/20230517-udienza-generale.html
- Two English translations give him a title the Italian original does not. In the homily for the canonizations of 23 October 2011, the English says the missionary institute of Guido Maria Conforti was placed under the patronage of the great "Patron of the Orient", St Francis Xavier; the Italian, the language Benedict XVI spoke in, says "apostolo dell’Oriente", the apostle of the East. At the General Audience of 4 December 2013, the English calls him "Patron of Missionaries", where the Italian has "patrono delle Missioni", patron of the missions. In both cases the title exists only in English. https://www.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/homilies/2011/documents/hf_ben-xvi_hom_20111023_canonizzazioni.html https://www.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/it/homilies/2011/documents/hf_ben-xvi_hom_20111023_canonizzazioni.html https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/audiences/2013/documents/papa-francesco_20131204_udienza-generale.html https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/it/audiences/2013/documents/papa-francesco_20131204_udienza-generale.html
- He wrote many letters, and this page quotes one sentence from one of them, the sentence Pope Francis quoted at the General Audience of 17 May 2023. The English edition gives it as "All these dangers and discomforts, when borne for the love of our Lord Jesus Christ, are treasuries filled with heavenly consolations", from a letter to the Society at Rome dated 21 January 1548, and cites the 1872 English translation of his letters by H. J. Coleridge. The Italian edition, the language the audience was given in, uses a different translation of the same passage and dates it 20 January 1548. The encyclopedia article does not quote his letters at all. No collection of his letters is held here, so everything else on this page is what others wrote about him. https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/audiences/2023/documents/20230517-udienza-generale.html https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/it/audiences/2023/documents/20230517-udienza-generale.html
- He is sometimes called the first apostle of the Philippines, and the encyclopedia rejects it. It reports that some seventeenth-century writers, and the bull of canonization issued in 1623, say he preached on Mindanao, and then concludes that "up to the present time it has not been proved absolutely that St. Francis Xavier ever landed in the Philippines". This page does not say he went there. https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06233b.htm
- The life on this page comes mainly from the Catholic Encyclopedia article by Antonio Astrain, 1909: born in the castle of Xavier near Sanguesa in Navarre; Paris in 1525 and the Collège de Sainte-Barbe; Ignatius, "who was already planning the foundation of the Society of Jesus"; the vow of Montmartre, 15 August 1534; ordination on 24 June 1537; sent "at the earnest solicitation of John III, King of Portugal"; Goa on 6 May 1542, where "He would go through the streets ringing a little bell and inviting the children to hear the word of God"; the pearl fisheries, where the faith "had almost disappeared on account of the lack of priests"; the Portuguese soldiers who "retarded it by their bad example and vicious habits"; Malacca, the Moluccas, Anger, Kagoshima on 15 August 1549, the first year spent learning the language, expulsion at the instigation of the bonzes; the embassy to China, Sancian, the hut; canonization with Ignatius in 1622. https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06233b.htm From Pope Francis, General Audience, 17 May 2023: the family "noble but impoverished"; Ignatius, "who made him do spiritual exercises and changed his life"; the catechism taught in the local language to be sung; and his death "with only a Chinese man standing beside to watch over him". https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/audiences/2023/documents/20230517-udienza-generale.html https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/it/audiences/2023/documents/20230517-udienza-generale.html
- He was born into a Catholic noble family in Navarre in 1506 and was never anything but Catholic. What happened in Paris was a change of direction in a believer, which Pope Francis describes as a worldly young man who "left all his worldly career, to become a missionary". It is not a conversion in the sense of coming into the Church. https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/audiences/2023/documents/20230517-udienza-generale.html
- He was canonized in 1622 with Ignatius of Loyola, and the date has two witnesses. The encyclopedia says so, and adds that because Gregory XV died, the bull "was not published until the following year". Pius XI, writing in 1922, marks the occasion as the third century since the two were raised to the altars. No beatification year is given here because no held document states one. https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06233b.htm https://www.vatican.va/archive/aas/documents/AAS-14-1922-ocr.pdf