Saint Joseph Pignatelli – A patron saint of vocations

Saint Joseph Pignatelli – A patron saint of vocations.

Voltaire the ideologue of the French Revolution said: “Once that we have destroyed the Jesuits, then we will have an open line of attack against the Infamous Thing”. “The Infamous Thing” of course was the whole Church. The order of St. Ignatius seemed then to be the most formidable bastion of Catholic principles.  The masons considered the Society of Jesus as the light cavalry of the Church.

     In 1767 the masons pushed European rulers to expel the Jesuits from their countries. King Charles III of Spain gave into the Masonic demands and expelled the Jesuits from Spain and her colonies.

Four years before the Young Joseph Pignatelli was ordained a Jesuit priest in his native Zaragoza Spain. The Pignatellis were a noble family of Naples Italy. So when Pope Clement XIV, a conventual Franciscan, suppressed the Society of Jesus by the bull Dominus ac Redemptor of the 21 July 1773 Joseph went to live in a family house in Bologna. It was in that house that Joseph kept alive the hopes of the now former Jesuits that the Society would be restored.

Joseph worked to preserve the books and archives of the Society and to aid his Jesuit brothers spiritually and materially.  He had an iron will and was determined to live his vows even though the Society of Jesus had officially ceased to exist. He was an “example of manly and vigorous holiness”.  He was the chief link between the old Society and the new and is considered the restorer of the Jesuits.

Joseph Pignatelli died on November 11 1811 three years before Pope Pius VII on 7 August 1814, by the bull Sollicitudo omnium ecclesiarum, reversed the suppression of the Order.

In an age where there is a vocation crisis, religious, priestly and married, Joseph is a saint to whom we should pray. Many Catholics today are soft, have weakened wills, and are incapable of faithfully responding to the call of God. That is why there are increasingly fewer priests, religious and faithful marriages. Let us ask God by the intercession of Joseph Pignatelli that we not be deaf to the call of the Eternal King and that we may faithfully live our particular vocations with energy and strength of will which is real love.