St. Gregory Barbarigo

Bishop, Confessor

Feast Day - June 17

Gregory Barbarigo, born at Venice of a very old family, obtained his degree in canon and civil law magna cum laude at the College of Padua. While attending the peace congress of Münster at the age of nineteen, he met the papal legate Fabio Chigi, and with his encouragement decided to become an ecclesiastic, and was admitted to holy orders. When Fabio Chigi became Pope under the name of Alexander VII, he appointed Gregory bishop of Bergamo, and soon raised him to the college of Cardinals, transferring him to the see of Padua. In entering upon his episcopal duties, he strove to model himself on St. Charles Borromeo. It was his lifelong endeaver to extirpate vices and cultivate virtues in obedience to the warning and decrees of the sacred synod of Trent. In both dioceses he enlarged the seminaries.

At Padua, especially, he improved the library and the press, which published books for distribution among the peoples of the Near East. He strenuously fostered catechetical instruction, and zealously traveled to every village of the diocese to teach and preach. He was distinguished for his works of charity and the holiness of his life. So generous was he to the needy and poor that he even gave away his household goods, his clothes and his bed to help them. Finally, after a brief illness, he fell asleep peacefully in the Lord on June 18, 1697. Renowned for his merits and his virtues, he was inscribed among the Blessed by Clement XIII and among the Saints by John XXIII.

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