St. John of Capistrano

St. John of Capistrano (24 June 1386 – 23 October 1456) was born at Capestrano in the Abruzzo region of Italy and trained as a lawyer, becoming governor of Perugia. Imprisoned during a war and undergoing a profound conversion, he abandoned his career and entered the Franciscan Order, where he became a disciple of St. Bernardine of Siena and, like him, one of the most powerful preachers of the age, promoting the strict Observant reform of the Franciscans and spreading devotion to the Holy Name of Jesus across Italy and central Europe.

A tireless traveler, preacher, and papal legate, he combated laxity, heresy, and moral decay and helped renew religious life in many lands. In his old age, after the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans, he preached the crusade to defend Christendom and, at nearly seventy, personally rallied and accompanied the Christian forces under John Hunyadi to the decisive victory that broke the Turkish siege of Belgrade in 1456. He died of plague soon after and was canonized in 1690; he is honored as a patron of military chaplains and of jurists.