Saint José Gregorio Hernández

Saint José Gregorio Hernández was a Venezuelan physician and scientist, a professor at the university in Caracas, a layman whom his countrymen called “the doctor of the poor.” The Church commemorates him on October 26, his birthday.

He was born on October 26, 1864, in Isnotú, in the state of Trujillo, the second of seven children. His parents were Benigno Hernández and Josefa Antonia Cisneros. He owed his faith above all to his mother; he recalled that from the cradle she taught him virtue and gave him charity as his guide. In 1878 he left for school in Caracas, and later took up medical studies there. He received his medical degree in 1888.

In 1889 the president of Venezuela sent him to Paris for further studies; he also trained in Berlin. On his return, at the age of 27, he began teaching at the university in Caracas, where he established the chairs of histology, experimental physiology, and bacteriology. He was among the founders of the Venezuelan Academy of Medicine. He did not hide his faith: he attended Holy Mass and received Communion every day, and he began his lectures with the sign of the cross. He joined the Third Order of Saint Francis.

He treated the poor above all. He took no payment from them, and often gave them money for medicine himself. Hence the name by which all Venezuela knows him. Pope Francis said of him that in the poor, the sick, and the suffering he saw Jesus.

He longed to give himself to God in religious life and the priesthood. In 1908 he entered the Charterhouse of Farneta near Lucca, where he received the habit and the name Brother Marcelo, but after nine months poor health forced him to return. He tried again at the seminary in Caracas, and in 1913 at the Pontifical Pio Latin American College in Rome, from which, after eight months, a lung disease sent him home once more. He accepted this as the will of God, and from 1914 on he devoted himself solely to teaching and healing.

On the morning of June 29, 1919, he was at Holy Mass as usual. That day he confided to a friend that he had offered his life to God for peace in Europe, and he rejoiced at the news of the Treaty of Versailles. In the afternoon, as he was carrying medicine to a sick person, he was struck by a car on a street in Caracas. He died in the hospital, speaking, as was reported, the name of Our Lady. He was 54 years old.

John Paul II recognized his heroic virtues in 1986. After the recognition of the miraculous healing of a girl who had been shot in the head, José Gregorio was beatified on April 30, 2021, in Caracas, during the pontificate of Pope Francis. Leo XIV canonized him on October 19, 2025, in Saint Peter’s Square, together with the Venezuelan religious sister Carmen Rendiles. The two are the first saints of Venezuela.