Anthony Mary Claret

On July 16, 1849, the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Anthony Mary Claret founded the Congregation of the Missionary Sons of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (Cordis Mariae Filii, C.M.F.) at the seminary of Vic, with a few priests, known as the Claretians and dedicated to missionary preaching. That same year, he was designated by Pius IX, at the request of the Spanish crown, as Archbishop of Santiago de Cuba; he was consecrated bishop in October 1850. During his Cuban episcopate, he reorganized the seminary, strengthened the discipline of the clergy, regularized several thousand matrimonial unions, and worked for religious instruction and social promotion, notably defending the dignity of the poorest. His reformist action earned him strong opposition: he escaped an assassination attempt in Holguín, being wounded in the face. Recalled to Spain, he was appointed confessor to Queen Isabella II in Madrid in 1857, a position he held while continuing his apostolic and editorial work, a prelude to a new exile linked to political upheavals.

The spirituality of Anthony Mary Claret was entirely ordered toward evangelization and devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, which he made the center of the congregation he founded. His reputation for holiness rested first on an exceptional apostolic zeal: he preached popular missions tirelessly in Catalonia, the Canary Islands, and Cuba, and deployed a considerable effort in distributing devotional writings, which earned him the reputation of being a pioneer of the Catholic press. This apostolate was accompanied by a life of intense prayer, personal austerity, and a deep attachment to the Roman Church. During the First Vatican Council (1869-1870), which he attended before his declining health forced him to retire, he proved to be a fervent defender of the authority of the Apostolic See. Persecuted, slandered, and threatened several times, he faced adversity in a spirit of patience and fidelity to his mission. His writing of a spiritual autobiography, undertaken out of obedience, bears witness to his interior journey and nourished the memory of his virtues after his death.

The process for the recognition of the holiness of Anthony Mary Claret first led to his beatification, celebrated in Rome by Pope Pius XI on February 25, 1934. Sixteen years later, on May 7, 1950, he was canonized in Saint Peter's Basilica by Pope Pius XII, before a large crowd of pilgrims. The following day, May 8, 1950, Pius XII addressed the Spanish pilgrims and members of the Claretian religious families who had come to Rome for the canonization, hailing him as an eminent figure offered as a model to the faithful. According to several hagiographic sources, the miracle accepted for the beatification concerned a healing recognized in the early 1930s, and that for the canonization another healing attributed to his intercession; these elements could not be fully confirmed by primary sources and are reported with reservation. The liturgical memorial of Saint Anthony Mary Claret is set for October 24, the anniversary of his death; in the calendar prior to the 1969 reform, his feast was celebrated on October 23.

The most enduring legacy of Anthony Mary Claret is the Congregation of the Missionary Sons of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, the Claretians, which developed after his death to become an international missionary institute present on several continents and involved in preaching, education, and publishing. The Claretian spiritual family also includes female and lay branches claiming the same charism. Due to his working-class origins in the Catalan textile industry, Saint Anthony Mary Claret is traditionally invoked as the patron saint of weavers and the textile trade; his intense activity in disseminating religious writings earned him the honor of being the patron saint of the Catholic press. His memory remains particularly alive in Catalonia, in Vic and Sallent, as well as in Cuba, where the memory of his reforming episcopate in Santiago is preserved. Numerous educational institutions and parishes bearing his name, as well as Claretian communities, perpetuate his example of apostolic zeal and devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary throughout the world.