Saint John Joseph of the Cross

Saint John Joseph of the Cross was a priest of the Order of Friars Minor, a Franciscan of the austere branch reformed by Saint Peter of Alcántara. He trained novices, built a friary and a hermitage, governed a province, and in Naples became known as a confessor and as one who cared for the poor. The Roman Martyrology commemorates him on March 5, the day of his death.

He was born on August 15, 1654, on the island of Ischia in the Bay of Naples, as Carlo Gaetano Calosirto, the son of a well-to-do and deeply religious family. He was schooled by the Augustinians on his native island.

In 1670, not yet sixteen, he entered the friary of Santa Lucia al Monte in Naples, which belonged to the Discalced Franciscans known as Alcantarines. He took the name John Joseph of the Cross and made his profession a year later. In 1674 he was sent with a group of friars to Piedimonte d’Alife, where a new friary was being built beside the shrine of Santa Maria Occorrevole; he worked on its construction himself. In 1677 he was ordained a priest, although, according to his biographers, he had resisted it. In the nearby woods he set up a small hermitage, called the Solitude (La Solitudine), to which pilgrims still come today.

For many years he was by turns novice master in Naples and guardian at Piedimonte. At the beginning of the eighteenth century a dispute between the Spanish and the Italian Alcantarines led to their separation, and the friary of Santa Lucia al Monte fell to the Spaniards. In 1703 the Italian friars elected him their first provincial. During his three years in office he restored fidelity to the rule and put the studies in order. He answered unjust accusations and slander with silence. He used to say: “Everything that God permits, he permits for our good.” In 1722 the two branches were united again, and he returned to his home friary.

He saw himself above all as a priest. The archbishop of Naples, Cardinal Francesco Pignatelli, entrusted him with the spiritual care of the convents of nuns, and Saint Alphonsus Liguori and Saint Francis de Geronimo sought his advice. He himself sought out the poor and the sick in the most wretched dwellings of the city. He went barefoot and all his life wore a single habit, so patched that he was nicknamed “the friar of a hundred patches.” His contemporaries attributed to him ecstasies, the gift of prophecy, and healings.

From childhood he had a fervent devotion to the Mother of God and encouraged his penitents in it. He died on March 5, 1734, in Naples, in his eightieth year, in the same friary he had entered as a boy. To the friar who was keeping watch beside him he said at the end: “I commend Our Lady to you.” He was buried in the church there.

Pius VI beatified him in 1789, and Gregory XVI canonized him on May 26, 1839, in the Vatican Basilica. On the same day Alphonsus Liguori and Francis de Geronimo were also declared saints. His native island of Ischia venerates John Joseph as its co-patron alongside Saint Restituta.