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The saints

St. Aloysius Gonzaga

The heir to a marquis who gave up a title to be a Jesuit and died nursing plague victims.

Feast: 21 June · 1568 to 1591 · Reformation and missions · Castiglione and Rome, Italy

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Painting of St. Aloysius Gonzaga in a white surplice, kneeling before an angel, with angels above.

Guercino, 1650. Wikimedia Commons, Public domain.

Home / The saints / St. Aloysius Gonzaga

Rome, 1591

Aloysius was the oldest son of a noble family, and his father wanted him to be a soldier.1

He wanted to be a Jesuit, and he fought his father for years to give up his inheritance.1

At eighteen he finally entered the Jesuits in Rome.

Patron of young people and students1; seminarians1

01St. Aloysius Gonzaga

The plague

In 1591 plague broke out in Rome, and he carried the sick to the hospital and cared for them.1

He caught the disease himself and died at twenty-three.1

Live it this week

Do the gross job of care

Aloysius carried the sick no one wanted to touch. This week, do one caregiving task that makes you squeamish (changing a bed, cleaning up after a sick relative, a hospital visit) and offer it to God.

Notes

How we know · 1 source for this page
  1. Franciscan Media, Saint of the Day: “Saint Aloysius Gonzaga”. franciscanmedia.org. franciscanmedia.org

The Catholic Encyclopedia (1913) is in the public domain; we quote the New Advent edition. Texts of the Holy See are quoted briefly from vatican.va. Scripture: World English Bible, Catholic edition (public domain); Verse numbers are modern, with Douay-Rheims numbers in brackets where they differ. Photographs: Wikimedia Commons, credited under each image; full list on the photo credits page.

Lines in the narrator’s voice, without a note, are our reflection, not a historical claim. Stone & Incense restates Church teaching in plain words; our wording is not an official Church text. Report an errorCorrections.