WorldEducation

SAINT PROFILE: TURIBIUS OF MOGROVEJO

1538-1606

3/23/2020

In times of crisis, God always surprises the Church with unlikely saints, through whom Christ’s light radiates beyond their local communities to illumine the universal Church. Charles Borromeo was such a saint: appointed Archbishop of Milan at twenty-one by his papal uncle, epitomizing the corruption that the reformers condemned, Charles instead inspired a revival that reinvigorated a Church devastated by the Reformation. His less well-known contemporary, Turibius of Mongrovejo, was God’s “saintly surprise” in the New World. Spanish-born lawyer, professor, head of the feared Inquisition, Turibius was still a layman when a grateful king appointed him Archbishop of far-off Lima. He became the natives’ devoted advocate, building churches, schools, hospitals, and the first seminary in the Americas.