St. Peter Claver, Jesuit Priest.

 

Born at 1581 at Verdu, Catalonia, Spain in 1581, SAINT PETER CLAVER was the son of a farmer. He studied at the University of Barcelona and entered the Jesuits at age 20. After his ordination as a priest he was influenced by Saint Alphonsus Rodriguez to become a missionary in America. He ministered physically and spiritually to slaves when they arrived in Cartegena, Colombia, having converting a reported 300,000, and working for the humane treatment on the plantations for 40 years. He organized charitable societies among the Spanish in the New World similar to those organized in Europe by Saint Vincent de Paul.

Saint Peter died on 8 September 1654 at Cartegena of natural causes