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event · AVIGNON, September 28, 1394 AD

Avignon cardinals elect the patron St. Vincent Ferrer would not follow

Cardinal Pedro de Luna, still a deacon, swore to resign if the cardinals asked, and the next year called St. Vincent Ferrer to Avignon as his confessor.

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Saint Vincent Ferrer
A painting in the fifteenth-century manner of a tall pale-ochre Gothic palace with crenellated towers and a shut pointed doorway, two red-jacketed guards with halberds on the step, and small cloaked townspeople waiting across a paved square under a clear blue sky.
The papal palace at Avignon, France, in September 1394 AD, where the cardinals of the Avignon obedience met to elect Cardinal Pedro de Luna as successor to Clement VII.
About this picture

AI-generated image, in the manner of a fifteenth-century panel painting in egg tempera and early oil on gessoed poplar, from the paper's reference portrait based on Szene aus dem Leben des Hl. Vinzenz Ferrer: Der Heilige legt in Avignon in Gegenwart des Papstes und der Kardinaele das Wort aus (GG 6692) (Agnolo degli Erri, c. 1470-1490 AD, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna) View source artwork.

AVIGNON, September 28, 1394 AD — The cardinals at Avignon unanimously elected Cardinal Pedro de Luna on September 28 to succeed Clement VII, the Avignon claimant to the papacy. Clement VII had died in the city twelve days earlier. The man they chose had been the patron of Saint Vincent Ferrer, the Dominican preacher of Valencia, since 1379 AD. Earlier this year St. Vincent Ferrer had turned down de Luna’s invitations to come to the Avignon court.

The Church has been split by a schism since 1378 AD. That year cardinals meeting at Fondi declared the election of Pope Urban VI void, chose Robert of Geneva as Clement VII, and took their court back to Avignon. Since then two men have claimed to be pope, and each kingdom has chosen which of them to obey. That allegiance is called its obedience, and the two obediences divide Christendom almost evenly. The kingdoms of the other obedience follow Pope Boniface IX in Rome. Aragon chose Avignon, and its people followed their king’s choice in good faith. St. Vincent Ferrer, a subject of the king of Aragon, was convinced the Avignon claim was just and became one of its strongest champions.

St. Vincent Ferrer and de Luna had known each other since the first years of the schism. In 1379 AD de Luna was Clement VII’s envoy to the court of Aragon, working to win King Peter IV over to Avignon, and he took St. Vincent Ferrer into his service. At Lérida the cardinal conferred St. Vincent Ferrer’s doctorate on him, handing him the doctor’s cap. In 1390 AD de Luna passed through Valencia on his way to France and made St. Vincent Ferrer come with him. The journey ended St. Vincent Ferrer’s five years teaching theology in Valencia cathedral.

In France de Luna worked at the politics of his mission, while St. Vincent Ferrer spent all his time bringing people to God. At the start of this year de Luna went back to Avignon and invited St. Vincent Ferrer to follow him to Clement VII’s court. St. Vincent Ferrer refused and went home to Valencia. St. Vincent Ferrer’s biographer, the Dominican historian Matthieu-Maxime Gorce, writes that the two men were friends and that St. Vincent Ferrer cherished de Luna.

When Clement VII died, the French court pressed the cardinals at Avignon to put off the election in the hope of ending the schism. The cardinals met anyway. Before the vote, each of them swore that if he was elected he would resign whenever a majority of the cardinals judged it right. De Luna was ready to end the schism even if it cost him the papacy, and that won him every cardinal’s vote. After the vote he formally renewed his promise. The French court and the University of Paris welcomed the choice.

De Luna was still only a deacon. He was ordained a priest on October 3. On October 11 he was consecrated bishop and enthroned, taking the name Benedict XIII.

St. Vincent Ferrer spent the autumn at home in Valencia. The next year de Luna ordered St. Vincent Ferrer to Avignon and made him his confessor. Gorce judged that the summons changed the whole course of St. Vincent Ferrer’s life.

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. AI-generated image, in the manner of a fifteenth-century panel painting in egg tempera and early oil on gessoed poplar, from the paper's reference portrait based on Szene aus dem Leben des Hl. Vinzenz Ferrer: Der Heilige legt in Avignon in Gegenwart des Papstes und der Kardinaele das Wort aus (GG 6692) (Agnolo degli Erri, c. 1470-1490 AD, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna) — see the original.

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More on this saint

In a plain whitewashed church with a green-and-white tiled floor, a priest in surplice and cassock lifts a lock of a kneeling fair-haired boy's hair with shears in his hand, an open manuscript book on a lectern beside them and the boy's family standing behind in plain wool gowns and veils.
About this picture

AI-generated image, in the manner of a fifteenth-century panel painting in egg tempera and early oil on gessoed poplar, from the paper's reference portrait based on Szene aus dem Leben des Hl. Vinzenz Ferrer: Die Mutter des Heiligen fragt den Bischof von Valencia nach den Wunderzeichen vor der Geburt ihres Kindes (GG 6700) (Agnolo degli Erri, c. 1470-1490 AD, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna) View source artwork.

profile · VALENCIA, Crown of Aragon, 1357 AD

St. Vincent Ferrer, aged seven, is enrolled among the clergy of Valencia

A boy of seven in Valencia had his hair cut short and a white linen surplice put on him, and by those two acts St. Vincent Ferrer was received into the clerical order. His father, William Ferrer, a notary of the city, made the decision, because he wanted a churchman in the family. A small church income, the revenues of a chapel in one of the city parishes, is to follow.

Edition of

A painting of a bare whitewashed cell at night: a thin tonsured friar lies on a low wooden bed with his hands joined on his chest, while one friar in a black cloak holds a candle, a second kneels wringing a cloth over an earthenware basin and a third stands with clasped hands; a crucifix hangs on the wall, a book, a jug and a cloth sit on a stool, and a small window shows the towers of a city under a starry sky.
About this picture

AI-generated image, in the manner of a fifteenth-century panel painting in egg tempera and early oil, from the paper's reference portrait based on Szene aus dem Leben des Hl. Vinzenz Ferrer: Durch Aufregungen infolge des Schismas erkrankt der Heilige; er wird am Krankenbett vom hl. Dominikus besucht und von Christus geheilt (GG 6695) (Agnolo degli Erri, c. 1470-1490 AD, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna) View source artwork.

Saint Vincent Ferrer, a Dominican friar, was thought to be dying of a fever at Avignon on October 3, 1396 AD. He wrote years later, without giving his name, that Christ came to the sick man's bed with St. Dominic and St. Francis, cured him with a touch and commanded him to go through the world preaching. Benedict XIII, the Avignon claimant to the papacy who had made him his confessor, kept him at court for two more years before letting him go.

Edition of · 4 min read

Also in the edition of Monday, 28 September 2026

Saint Dominic, a canon from Castile who had preached for ten years in the south of France, came to Rome in 1215 AD to ask Pope Innocent III to confirm a new order of preachers while the Pope's council was forbidding new religious orders. Tradition holds that while the Pope hesitated, he dreamed the Lateran basilica was collapsing and St. Dominic was holding it up. Pope Innocent III told St. Dominic to adopt a rule the Church had already approved, and the next Pope, Pope Honorius III, confirmed the order in December 1216 AD.

4 min read