Blessed Francis Xavier Seelos was a German religious priest and a missionary to the United States. Francis was born in 1819 to Mang and Franziska Seelos, one of twelve children. The family lived at Füssen in the Kingdom of Bavaria, currently near the southern border of Germany. The family was...

St. Catherine of Genoa was a married woman and charity worker, as well as a mystic. Catherine was born in 1447 to the prominent Fieschi family at Genoa, Italy, the youngest of five children. When she was thirteen, Catherine expressed a desire to enter into religious life, but because of...

St. Peter Julian Eymard was a priest and founder, and is known as The Apostle of the Eucharist. Peter was born in 1811 in a small town near Grenoble in the French Alps. His father had been a widower who remarried Peter’s mother, and he owned a cutlery shop and...

Venerable Antonietta Meo was a twentieth-century child who lived a life of great spiritual depth and could become the youngest non-martyr ever canonized by the Catholic Church. Antonietta was born in Rome in 1930 to Michele and Maria Meo, their second and youngest daughter. She was known to all as...

St. José de Anchieta was a religious and a pioneering missionary priest. José was born in 1534 at Tenerife on the Canary Islands, then a Spanish Colony. José’s parents were Juan Anchieta and Mencia Díaz, wealthy landowners who had left their native Basque Country in northern Spain. Juan’s father was...

Servant of God Emil Kapaun was a priest, chaplain, prisoner of war, and a war hero. Emil was born to Czech immigrants Enos and Elizabeth Kapaun in 1916 in the farming town of Pilsen, Kansas. They were a devout Catholic family, and Emil and his brother learned their prayers in...

St. Fidelis of Sigmaringen was a lawyer, a religious order priest, a missionary, and a martyr for the Catholic Faith during the Counter-Reformation. Mark Rey was born in 1577 at Sigmaringen, Prussia, located in modern-day southwestern Germany. His father, Johannes, was burgomaster, the position roughly the equivalent to mayor. Mark...

Servant of God Thea Bowman was a religious sister and teacher who intrepidly brought people of different races together in Jesus Christ. Bertha Bowman was born in 1937 in Yazoo City, Mississippi. Her grandfather was born a slave. Her parents, Theon and Mary Esther, had their only child late in...

Blessed Benedict Daswa was a husband and father, a school teacher and principal, and a modern-day martyr for his Catholic beliefs. Tshimangadzo Daswa Bakali was born in 1946 at the village of Mbahe in the Province of Limpopo, in South Africa. His given name was Tshimangadzo; his family name Daswa;...

St. Basil the Great, Father and Doctor of the Church, was a monk, bishop, and one of the most significant figures in the early centuries of the Church. Basil was born into a saintly family ca. 329 at Caesarea, Cappadocia in Asia Minor (present-day Turkey). The family was well-educated and...