Saint Dominic

Dominic de Guzmán was born around 1170 at Caleruega in Castile. While he was a student at Palencia a famine struck, and he sold his precious books to feed the hungry: “I will not study on dead skins while men die of hunger.” He became a canon of the cathedral of Osma, living a common life of prayer under the Rule of Saint Augustine.

In 1203 he travelled north with his bishop, Diego, and they passed through Languedoc in southern France. The Cathars, or Albigensians, had won much of the region there. They taught that the material world was evil and pointed to the wealth of the clergy as proof that the Church was false. Dominic saw that the preachers sent against them, riding in state, could never convince them. The truth had to be preached by men as poor as the Apostles. He stayed for ten years, walking barefoot from town to town, begging, debating and praying. In 1206 he founded a convent at Prouille for women converted from the heresy.

From this work grew a new kind of religious order: friars devoted to study and preaching, living in poverty and moving where they were needed, rather than monks bound to one place. Pope Honorius III approved the Order of Preachers in 1216. Dominic at once scattered his few brethren across Europe, sending them especially to the great university cities of Paris and Bologna. “Seed that is hoarded rots,” he said.

He died at Bologna on 6 August 1221, and he was canonized in 1234. Tradition links him with the spread of the Rosary. His order has given the Church Saint Thomas Aquinas, Saint Catherine of Siena and many others.