Saint Fidelis of Sigmaringen

Saint Fidelis of Sigmaringen was a German Capuchin, priest, and martyr. Before entering religious life he was a lawyer known as the advocate of the poor. He was killed in 1622 during a mission in the Grisons, in present-day Switzerland. The Church commemorates him on April 24.

He was born in 1578 in Sigmaringen as Markus Roy, the son of the town’s mayor; older works give the year 1577. He studied at the University of Freiburg im Breisgau, where he earned a doctorate in philosophy in 1603. From 1604 to 1610 he accompanied young noblemen as their tutor on journeys through France, Spain, and Italy. In 1611 he became a doctor of civil and canon law.

He then practiced law at Ensisheim in Alsace, with the government of Further Austria. He defended people who could not afford a lawyer, and that is how he got his nickname. The dishonesty he met in the courts, however, turned him away from the profession. In the fall of 1612 he was ordained a priest, and on October 4 he entered the Capuchins in Freiburg. He received the name Fidelis, meaning Faithful, in allusion to the words of the Book of Revelation: “Remain faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life.”

After his theological studies he preached and heard confessions, and from 1618 he was guardian of successive friaries, in his last years at Feldkirch in Vorarlberg. He spoke simply and clearly, and through him many Protestants embraced the Catholic faith. During an epidemic he courageously cared for the sick. He also wrote down spiritual exercises for his own use, which were later published many times.

In 1621 his superiors sent him on a mission to the Grisons, which the bishop of Chur had been requesting for years. Most of the people in those valleys had adopted the Reformed faith. From the end of 1621 Fidelis preached in Maienfeld and in the Prättigau valley, then occupied by Austrian troops. The Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, established in Rome in 1622, entrusted him with the leadership of this mission. Many inhabitants, however, saw the missionaries as allies of a foreign power, and in the spring of 1622 an uprising against the Austrians broke out in the valley.

On April 24, 1622, he celebrated Mass and preached in Grüsch, and then went on to Seewis. During his sermon in the church there a tumult broke out, and armed peasants attacked him. Fidelis went outside, where armed men surrounded him. According to the accounts, they demanded that he renounce the Catholic faith. He refused and was struck down, forgiving his killers. His body rests in the cathedral of Chur, and his head is kept in the Capuchin church at Feldkirch.

Benedict XIII declared him blessed in 1729, and Benedict XIV canonized him on June 29, 1746. The Church honors him as the first martyr of the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith; Pius XI also called him so on the three hundredth anniversary of his death. He is the patron saint of lawyers.