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The Intercession of Charles Borromeo supported by the Virgin Mary dome fresco by Johann Michael Rottmayr in St. Charles’s Church, Austria. / godongphoto/Shutterstock

St. Louis, Mo., Nov 4, 2022 / 06:00 am (CNA).

St. Charles Borromeo, whose feast day the Catholic Church celebrates Nov. 4, was a cardinal and a prominent teacher of the Catholic faith. He generously donated much of his considerable wealth to charity, and sacrificed his own health to help plague victims at a time when many other authorities fled.

And, despite what you might have heard, he probably wasn’t obese.

Why does that matter? Well, because Charles is popularly invoked as a patron saint of stomach ailments and also of obesity and dieting. These patronages — and whether or not he was himself obese — are not mentioned in hagiographies of St. Charles, so it’s unclear how this particular association began. Charles was known for helping the poor in times of famine and for practicing self-mortification, and he was certainly not known to indulge in food to excess.

Whether or not his invocation by dieters is appropriate, what is clear is that St. Charles Borromeo had a massive influence on the Church.

Charles was born in 1538 near Milan. He was born wealthy — in fact, he was part of the famously rich and influential Medici family — but sought to use his wealth to benefit the Church rather than himself.

Owing in part to his well-connected family, Charles soon assumed staggering responsibilities, serving as a papal diplomat and supervisor of major religious orders.

Charles was a central figure in the Council of Trent (1545–1563), which among other things served as the Church’s official answer to the Protestant Reformation. Its twofold mission was to clarify Catholic doctrine against Protestant objections and reform the Church internally against many long-standing problems. As a papal representative, Charles participated in the council’s conclusion in 1563, when he was only 25, and was ordained a priest during the council. He also played a leading role in assembling its comprehensive summary, the Catechism of the Council of Trent.

Charles’ uncle, Pope Pius IV, appointed him archbishop of Milan in 1563, and soon after he became a cardinal. He found his diocese in a state of disintegration, after two generations of virtually no local administration or leadership. Charles got straight to work establishing schools, seminaries, and centers for religious life. He constantly directed the work of restoration of ecclesiastical discipline, and the education of the young, even down to minute details. He tried as much as possible to live a simple life and give to the poor whenever possible, and he practiced self-mortification.

The clergy during this time were in many cases lax and careless, living scandalous lives, such that the people had grown to be equally negligent and sinful. While bishop of Milan, St. Charles oversaw many dramatic and effective reforms of the clergy, the liturgy, and of religious education. He encountered much opposition to those reforms, so much so that a group of disgruntled monks attempted to kill him, but he was miraculously unharmed when an assassin fired a gun straight at him while kneeling in prayer at an altar.

He was very active in preaching and ministry and was famous for bringing back many lapsed Catholics to the Church. As a result, today he is honored as the patron saint of catechists and catechumens, people who teach and learn the faith. In fact, he was the founder of the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, which systematically instructed children in the faith — the forerunner of the modern “Sunday school.”

In 1571, the region where Charles was working suffered a severe famine, during which he worked tirelessly to help the starving, supporting at his own expense as many as 3,000 people daily for three months. At the same time, Charles himself suffered various ailments, including a low fever.

A few years later, a plague struck Milan. Charles was convinced that the plague was sent as a chastisement for sin and sought to give himself all the more to prayer and to service to his people. He paid personal visits to plague-stricken houses to comfort those suffering, and as a spiritual penance, he walked in procession, barefoot, with a rope around his neck and a relic in his hand.

At the end of 1584 Charles suffered a skin infection in one of his legs but still continued to travel to take care of his diocese. He died young at the age of 46 on Nov. 3, 1584, and was canonized 26 years later, in 1610.

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Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jan 26, 2021 / 08:15 am (CNA).- The Vatican’s doctrinal congregation has exonerated retired Bishop Joseph Hart of Cheyenne over numerous accusations of the sexual abuse of minors, but issued a canonical rebuke. 

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Denver, Colo., May 27, 2017 / 04:02 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- In response to Denver’s large homeless population, the city is providing lockers for the homeless to place their belongings so they can take better advantage of local outreach programs.

If the homeless are worried about where to place their belongings and “don’t have access to safe, secure storage and those are all your possessions in the world,” then they aren’t going to utilize available resources said Julie Smith, a spokesperson from Denver Human Services, to the Denverite May 23.

Ten storage units were added to a street downtown, where many homeless shelters are located. Smith explained the containers will hold about as much stuff as will fit into a shopping cart, and can be reserved for 30 days with the option of an additional 30 day renewal. The sidewalk lockers cost about $3,000 for each installment.

Teaming up with the Saint Francis Center, Denver is also planning on adding 200 more storage spaces at the organizations employment service center, located near the city’s capital building. The contract between the city of Denver and the Saint Francis Center will start on June 1 and with $130,000 for the first year of storage space. After that, the center will then be given $100,000 a year if the contract continues.

Smith said the pilot program will measure the use and frequency of the storage systems, and will reassess in year. However, she said in order to access these lockers the person must be actively involved in one of Denver’s many homeless services.

Denver’s Road Home has over 20 community based organizations aiding thousands of homeless people to find a job, skill train, long term and short term shelters as well as providing food and clothing. According to their website, nearly a thousand people were provided with housing last year.

Part of Denver’s many programs is the Saint Francis Center, an Episcopal ministry serving homeless and ex-offenders. It was established in 1983 and has since developed career services and a housing program. An additional program providing permanent lower income housing will be made available in 2017 or 2018.

In 2015, the center served an average of 811 people per day, distributed nearly 90,000 units of clothing, and facilitated jobs for just under 400 people.

Colorado has a large homeless population, and it has increased by over six percent between 2015 and 2016, according to an annual report by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development. Over 10,000 people were considered homeless in 2016, and less than one third of that do not have a shelter.

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