St Charles Borromeo helping the poor in Rome
Today's saint would have been a great Pope if he was elected, but the other cardinals did not want a relative the previous Pope. St. Charles Borromeo was the son of Count Gilbert
Borromeo and Margaret Medici, sister of Pope Pius IV. He was born at the family
castle of Arona on Lake Maggiore, Italy on October 2, 1538. He received the
clerical tonsure when he was twelve and was sent to a Benedictine abbey at
Arona for his education. In 1559 his uncle was elected Pope Pius IV and the following year, named Charles
his Secretary of State and created him a cardinal and administrator of the see
of Milan. He served as Pius' legate on numerous diplomatic missions and in
1562, was instrumental in having Pius reconvene the Council of Trent, which had
been suspended in 1552. Charles played a leading role in guiding and in
fashioning the decrees of the third and last group of sessions. He was ordained
a priest in 1563, and was consecrated bishop of Milan the same year. Before
being allowed to take possession of his see, he oversaw the catechism, missal,
and breviary called for by the Council of Trent. When he finally did arrive at Trent (which had been without a
resident bishop for eighty years) in 1556, he instituted radical reforms
despite great opposition, with such effectiveness that it became a model see.
He put into effect, measures to improve the morals and manners of the clergy
and laity, raised the effectiveness of the diocese, established seminaries for
the education of the clergy, founded a Confraternity of Christian Doctrine for
the religious instruction of children and encouraged the Jesuits to be more
visible and active. He founded a society of secular priests, Oblates of St.
Ambrose (now Oblates of St. Charles) in 1578, and was active in preaching,
resisting the inroads of Protestantism, and bringing back lapsed Catholics to
the Church. He encountered opposition from many sources in his efforts to
reform people and institutions. He died at Milan on the night of
November 3-4, 1584 and was canonized in 1610. He was one of the towering figures of the Catholic Reformation, a patron
of learning and the arts, and though he achieved a position of great power, he
used it with humility, personal sanctity, and unselfishness to reform the
Church, of the evils and abuses so prevalent among the clergy and the nobles of
the times.