St Fidelis of Sigmaringen: Capuchin Martyr, Prayer, Feast

St Fidelis of Sigmaringen (c. 1577-1622) was a German lawyer, known as "the Poor Man's Lawyer", who left the courts to become a Capuchin friar and priest, and was killed by armed men at Seewis, in the Swiss Grisons, on 24 April 1622, for refusing to abandon the Catholic faith he had come to preach. He is honoured as the protomartyr, the first martyr, of the Congregation de Propaganda Fide, the Roman congregation for the missions. The calendar of 1962 keeps his feast on 24 April, a feast of the third class in red vestments; here is his life, his martyrdom and last words, and the prayers of his Mass in Latin and English.

Who was St Fidelis of Sigmaringen?

He was born at Sigmaringen, in Swabia, in 1577 according to the Catholic Encyclopedia (some modern sources say 1578), of the respectable family of Rey, and was baptized Mark: Mark Rey. His father, Johannes Rey, was burgomaster of the town. The lessons of his feast in the Roman Breviary, in the full form read before the reform of 1960, say that "from his earliest years he shone with singular gifts of nature and of grace".

He was sent to the University of Freiburg in Breisgau, where he taught philosophy while working for his degree in law. Already, Butler says, he had begun to lead a penitential life, wearing a hair shirt and abstaining from wine.

In 1604 he became tutor to a small party of young Swabian noblemen who were completing their education by travelling through the chief cities of Europe. The journey lasted some six years. He set his pupils an example of devotion and of generosity to the poor, to whom he sometimes gave the very clothes off his back; the Breviary adds that he so mastered himself that "amid so many changes of circumstance he was never seen to be moved by anger".

The Poor Man's Lawyer

Back in Germany, he took his doctorate in law and began to practise as an advocate in Alsace. He soon became known for his integrity and for refusing the invective and personal attacks then commonly used against an opponent. Because he took up the cause of the oppressed, he was nicknamed the Poor Man's Lawyer.

But the crooked expedients of his colleagues gave him a disgust for the law. In the Breviary's words, "having experienced the perils of the courts, he resolved to enter upon a safer way to eternal salvation", and, "enlightened by a call from above", he asked to be received among the Capuchin Friars Minor, the reformed branch of the Order of St Francis of Assisi, which his brother George had already entered.

Why was he called Fidelis?

After receiving holy orders, Mark took the Capuchin habit and with it the name Fidelis, "faithful", in allusion to the promise of the Apocalypse to those who persevere:

"Be thou faithful unto death: and I will give thee the crown of life." (Apocalypse ii. 10, Douay-Rheims)

The name became the programme of his life, and the Collect of his feast asks the same grace for us: to be found "faithful in Thy service even unto death".

He divided his inheritance in two: one part went to the poor, the other to the bishop to help needy seminarians. His constant prayer, Butler says, was to be preserved from sloth and lukewarmness, and he was heard to exclaim: "Woe betide me if I should prove myself but a half-hearted soldier in the service of my thorn-crowned Captain!"

Capuchin friar and guardian

As soon as he had finished his theology, he was set to preaching and hearing confessions, and he was made guardian (superior) of the friaries of Rheinfelden, Freiburg and Feldkirch in turn. The Breviary praises his prudence, justice, meekness and humility in office; a zealous lover of the strictest poverty, he removed from the friary whatever seemed less than necessary. Harsh to himself in fasts, vigils and disciplines, he showed to others, it says, the love of "a mother for her children".

When a deadly fever struck the Austrian troops, he gave himself wholly to nursing the sick, many of whom, Butler says, he cured; and he settled quarrels and relieved the needs of his neighbours so well that he deserved to be called "father of his country". He was, the Breviary adds, a great lover of the Mother of God and of her Rosary, and through her intercession and that of the saints he begged God for the grace to shed his blood for the Catholic faith. At Feldkirch his preaching reformed the town and the country round it, and brought many Protestants back to the Church.

The mission in the Grisons

At the request of the bishop of Chur, his superiors sent him with eight other Capuchins to preach among the Calvinists and Zwinglians of the Grisons (the Rhaetia of the Breviary, today a canton of Switzerland), the first attempt since the Reformation to bring that country back to the Catholic faith. The newly founded Congregation de Propaganda Fide named him head of the mission.

The mission was greatly blessed: day after day, Butler says, he gathered new converts into the Church, owing his success even more to the nights he spent in prayer than to his sermons. The leading Protestants answered with threats. To rouse the peasants, his enemies represented him as an agent of the Austrian emperor and an enemy of their independence. Fidelis knew what awaited him. He spent several nights in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament or before his crucifix; he spoke of his approaching death in a sermon at Feldkirch, and signed his last letter: "Brother Fidelis, who will soon be food for worms."

The martyrdom of St Fidelis

On 24 April 1622, he preached at Grüsch. At the end of the sermon, delivered with more than his usual fire, he stood silent for some time, rapt in ecstasy, his eyes raised to heaven. Then he went on to Seewis. There, the Breviary says, heretics who had pretended to wish for conversion had invited him to preach. He was in the middle of a sermon on the words of St Paul, "One Lord, one faith, one baptism" (Ephesians iv. 5, Douay-Rheims), when a shot was fired at him; the bullet missed and lodged in the wall.

A tumult broke out, and the Austrian soldiers who were in the place were set upon. A Protestant offered Fidelis shelter; he thanked him, but declined, saying that his life was in the hands of God. He set out on the road back to Grüsch, and was surrounded by some twenty armed men, who called on him to renounce his faith.

The last words of St Fidelis

His answer has come down to us in two forms. Butler gives it as: "I came here to enlighten you, not to accept your errors." The Catholic Encyclopedia of 1909 renders it: "I came to extirpate heresy, not to embrace it." He was struck down, and, as Butler relates, called on God to forgive his murderers while they mangled his body with their weapons. He was forty-five years old, according to Butler.

So, in the Breviary's words, he "consecrated with his own blood the first-fruits of the martyrs" of the Congregation of Propaganda. Among the first fruits of his death was the conversion of a Zwinglian minister who had been present.

His relics are kept, as the Breviary says, at Chur and at Feldkirch, where they were held in the highest veneration by the people, and he became famous for many signs and miracles, above all in those two places.

He was beatified by Pope Benedict XIII in 1729 and canonized by Pope Benedict XIV.

The prayer of St Fidelis (Missal of 1962)

The Mass of St Fidelis has a proper Collect; the rest is taken from the Common of one Martyr not a Bishop. Since his feast, when it is kept, always falls in Paschaltide, the Mass is normally the Easter form, Protexisti me, with the Gospel "I am the vine: you the branches" (St John xv. 1-7). There is a Gloria but no Credo. Here are the three prayers in Latin, as the Missal gives them, with our own English translation.

Collect, 24 April

Deus, qui beátum Fidélem, seráphico spíritus ardóre succénsum, in veræ fídei propagatióne martýrii palma et gloriósis miráculis decoráre dignátus es: ejus, quǽsumus, méritis et intercessióne, ita nos per grátiam tuam in fide et caritáte confírma; ut in servítio tuo fidéles usque ad mortem inveníri mereámur. Per Dóminum nostrum Jesum Christum, Fílium tuum: qui tecum vivit et regnat in unitáte Spíritus Sancti Deus, per ómnia sǽcula sæculórum. Amen.

O God, who didst vouchsafe to adorn blessed Fidelis, kindled with the seraphic ardour of the spirit, with the palm of martyrdom and with glorious miracles in spreading the true faith: by his merits and intercession, we beseech Thee, so strengthen us by Thy grace in faith and charity, that we may deserve to be found faithful in Thy service even unto death. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen.

Secret

Munéribus nostris, quǽsumus, Dómine, precibúsque suscéptis: et cœléstibus nos munda mystériis, et cleménter exáudi. Per Dóminum nostrum Jesum Christum, Fílium tuum: qui tecum vivit et regnat in unitáte Spíritus Sancti Deus, per ómnia sǽcula sæculórum. Amen.

Receive, we beseech Thee, O Lord, our gifts and our prayers: cleanse us by these heavenly mysteries, and mercifully hear us. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen.

Postcommunion

Da, quǽsumus, Dómine, Deus noster: ut, sicut tuórum commemoratióne Sanctórum temporáli gratulámur offício; ita perpétuo lætémur aspéctu. Per Dóminum nostrum Jesum Christum, Fílium tuum: qui tecum vivit et regnat in unitáte Spíritus Sancti Deus, per ómnia sǽcula sæculórum. Amen.

Grant, we beseech Thee, O Lord our God, that as we rejoice in commemorating Thy Saints by this service in time, so we may rejoice in beholding them for ever. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen.

The Collect is the Church's own prayer to St Fidelis of Sigmaringen, and one of the most beautiful of the Missal: it plays on his name, asking that we too may be fideles usque ad mortem, faithful unto death. It is a fitting prayer for the grace of perseverance, and for those who work to bring others back to the faith; his own love of the Holy Rosary shows another way to ask it.

When is the feast of St Fidelis of Sigmaringen?

The feast of St Fidelis is on 24 April, the day of his martyrdom. In the calendar of 1962 it is a feast of the third class, in red vestments, the colour of martyrs. Because Easter can fall as late as 25 April, the feast is kept only when Easter falls on or before 16 April, so that 24 April comes after the Octave of Easter (as in 2026 and 2027); should 24 April then fall on a Sunday, the Sunday takes precedence and the saint is at most commemorated. When 24 April falls within the Octave of Easter, or on Holy Saturday, days of the first class that admit no commemoration of a saint, the feast is not kept that year.

You will find each year's arrangement in our traditional Catholic calendar of 1962, and St Fidelis among the saints of the year in our guide to the Catholic saints. In the same calendar, another missionary who gave his life to bring the German lands to the faith, St Boniface, is kept on 5 June.

What is St Fidelis of Sigmaringen the patron saint of?

The old liturgical books assign him no particular patronage, and we will not invent one. What the Church honours in him is clear from his titles: a priest and martyr, the first martyr of the Congregation of Propaganda Fide, and, from his years at the bar, "the Poor Man's Lawyer". He is venerated especially at Feldkirch and Chur, where his relics lie, and by the Capuchin Order, which counts him among its saints.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who was St Fidelis of Sigmaringen?

A German lawyer, Mark Rey (c. 1577-1622), who became a Capuchin priest under the name of Fidelis, preached the Catholic faith in the Grisons as head of a mission of the Congregation of Propaganda Fide, and was killed for the faith at Seewis on 24 April 1622.

What was the nickname of St Fidelis of Sigmaringen?

"The Poor Man's Lawyer", because as an advocate he took up the cause of the poor and oppressed and refused the dishonest methods of his colleagues.

What were the last words of St Fidelis of Sigmaringen?

To the armed men who demanded that he renounce his faith, he answered, in Butler's version, "I came here to enlighten you, not to accept your errors"; in the version of the Catholic Encyclopedia, "I came to extirpate heresy, not to embrace it". He died praying for his murderers.

Why is he called the protomartyr of Propaganda Fide?

Because he was the first member of a mission of the Sacred Congregation de Propaganda Fide, founded for the spreading of the faith, to die a martyr; the Breviary says he "consecrated with his own blood the first-fruits of the martyrs" of that Congregation.

What are some quotes of St Fidelis of Sigmaringen?

"Woe betide me if I should prove myself but a half-hearted soldier in the service of my thorn-crowned Captain!", and the signature of his last letter: "Brother Fidelis, who will soon be food for worms."

When was St Fidelis of Sigmaringen canonized?

He was beatified in 1729 by Benedict XIII and canonized by Benedict XIV.

When is the feast of St Fidelis of Sigmaringen?

24 April, a feast of the third class in the calendar of 1962.

The Iter Fidei app carries the traditional calendar of 1962, the Roman Missal with the prayers of each day and the Breviary, in Latin and English. Join early access here.

Sources. Alban Butler, Lives of the Saints, 24 April (St Fidelis of Sigmaringen, Martyr). Roman Breviary, 24 April (St Fidelis of Sigmaringen, Martyr), lessons in their full form before 1960, and the single contracted lesson of 1960. Roman Missal (1962), Proper of Saints, 24 April, and Common of one Martyr not a Bishop. The Catholic Encyclopedia (1909), "St. Fidelis of Sigmaringen". Holy Bible, Douay-Rheims version, Apocalypse ii. 10; Ephesians iv. 5; St John xv. 5.