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legacy · LAGOS, Portugal, September 12, 1693 AD

Portugal promotes St. Anthony of Padua to captain, 462 years dead

The army has listed him as a private soldier in the regiment of Lagos since 1688 AD, and promoted him for good services and miracles worked on its troops.

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Saint Anthony of Padua
A head-and-shoulders panel painting of St. Anthony of Padua, tonsured and wearing a brown Franciscan habit, set against a gold background with an ornamented halo.
St. Anthony of Padua, depicted in Franciscan habit with a gold halo, in a devotional panel painting from around 1340 AD.

LAGOS, Portugal, September 12, 1693 AD — The Portuguese army today promoted Saint Anthony of Padua to the rank of captain, four hundred and sixty-two years after his death. The army gave the reason as his good services and “the miracles performed for the benefit of our troops.” He has been listed on the roll of the regiment of Lagos as a private soldier since January 24, 1688 AD.

The rank carries a salary with it. St. Anthony has been dead since 1231 AD, so the pay goes to others.

St. Anthony was born at Lisbon in 1195 AD and baptised Ferdinand. At fifteen he entered the Augustinian canons at St. Vincent’s outside the walls of the city. Two years later he moved to the monastery of the Holy Cross at Coimbra. He spent eight years there at study and prayer. In 1220 AD the bodies of five Friars Minor put to death in Morocco were brought back to Coimbra. Seeing them decided him: he left the canons, took the Franciscan habit and set out to preach to the Muslims. He died at Arcella, outside the gates of Padua, on June 13, 1231 AD, aged thirty-six.

Eleven months later Pope Gregory IX canonised him in the cathedral of Spoleto, on Pentecost Sunday, May 30, 1232 AD. At the ceremony the Pope intoned the antiphon proper to the Doctors of the Church. The Mass of Doctors has been said for him ever since. Pope Pius V left it standing when he revised the liturgical books in 1570 AD, and it is still used by all the Franciscan families and in the dioceses of Padua, Portugal and Brazil.

Portugal has been at peace with Spain for twenty-five years. The revolution of 1640 AD freed the kingdom from Spanish rule and began a war with Spain that lasted twenty-eight years. King Alfonso VI was deposed in 1667 AD. His brother took the government as regent and has held the throne as King Pedro II since 1683 AD. Lagos, where the regiment has its seat, is a praça de guerra (a fortified garrison town) on the Algarve coast. The fort of Ponta da Bandeira was built over the approach to its quay between 1680 and 1690 AD.

At Coimbra he is shown in the dress of an Augustinian canon. In the Lisbon parish church where he used to serve Mass he is shown as an altar boy. In Brazil, where his Portuguese birth has given him the name St. Anthony of Lisbon, he is frequently shown as an officer of the army.

The Franciscans of Brazil have collected the salary that goes with his rank for years. From today that salary is a captain’s.

About this story

Catholic Saints News tells the lives of the saints as news from their own time and place. This story was written with AI from the historical record, and we read and approved it before it ran.

The Saints' words. This newspaper will never make a saint say something the historical record does not preserve.

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Image. Saint Anthony of Padua, Maso di Banco, c. 1340 AD, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (Maitland F. Griggs Collection, Bequest of Maitland F. Griggs, 1943; acc. 43.98.13) — see the original.

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A young tonsured priest in a white tunic and black hooded cape stands at a wooden choir stall in a pale stone Romanesque church, a closed clasped manuscript beside his hand, four older canons at the stalls around him and an open book on a lectern behind.
About this picture

AI-generated image, in the manner of a Trecento buon fresco, from the paper's reference portrait based on St Anthony of Padua, from the fragments of a double-sided dossal from San Francesco al Prato, Perugia (Master of Saint Francis (Maestro di San Francesco); photograph by Sailko, 2020, c. 1272 AD, Galleria Nazionale dell'Umbria, Perugia) View source artwork.

St. Anthony of Padua, still known by his baptismal name Ferdinand, has been ordained a priest about this year, at twenty-three. He is a canon of the monastery of the Holy Cross at Coimbra, a community of priests living under the rule of St. Augustine, and he is not a Franciscan. The authorities differ on the year: one critical life reasons to about 1218 from his age, while other authors put the ordination four years later, in Italy.

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About this picture

AI-generated image, in the manner of a Trecento buon fresco, from the paper's reference portrait based on St Anthony of Padua, from the fragments of a double-sided dossal from San Francesco al Prato, Perugia (Master of Saint Francis, c. 1272 AD, Galleria Nazionale dell'Umbria, Perugia) View source artwork.

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