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September 9 across 2,026 years of Catholic history

Catholic history · Real stories · Every day

Catholic Saints for Kids

Junior Edition · September 9, 2026

True stories of the saints for curious readers ages 10–12.

An empty stone chapel with a green and white tiled floor, seen at a child's height through a low pointed arch: a linen-covered altar with two candlesticks and an open handwritten book, a small painted panel of St. Anne teaching the Virgin to read on the wall above it, and a brass lamp burning on three chains before the altar.
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 image 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.

Start here 2 min read

How it worked

He was seven, and a chapel paid him every year

A seven-year-old in Valencia joined the clergy this year, and a chapel's money came with two jobs attached.

His age
Seven
Where
Valencia, in the Crown of Aragon
When
1357 AD
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More from this edition

A dark oil painting of a low, damp, whitewashed church packed with African men, women and children holding lighted torches, standing in groups behind men with staffs; a priest preaches from a timber pulpit at the left beside a choir at a lectern, an empty bier under a black cloth stands on the floor, and Spanish officials in black sit on benches at the right.
About this picture

AI-generated image, in the manner of a seventeenth-century Spanish colonial oil painting on canvas, from the paper's reference portrait based on Portrait of St. Peter Claver, Museum of the Palace of the Inquisition, Cartagena de Indias (unknown, New Granadan colonial school, date not recorded; photographed 23 December 2019, Museo Palacio de la Inquisicion, Cartagena, Colombia) View source artwork.

Story 02 3 min read

Who arranged it

They were enslaved. They invited the governor to the funeral.

The people at the slave wharves arranged a funeral for a priest, and invited the men who run the port. Here is what the old records say.

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A Byzantine-style wall mosaic of a short, balding priest in a plain tunic and dark cloak speaking from beside a stone reading desk with an open codex on it, two notaries writing at his feet and a packed congregation of men and women pressed in around him under high windows.
About this picture

AI-generated image, in the manner of a Byzantine wall mosaic of glass and stone tesserae, from the paper's reference portrait based on Portrait of Saint John Chrysostom of Antioch (Hagios Ioannis Chrysostomos), Hagia Sophia (Anonymous Byzantine mosaicist, 9th century, Hagia Sophia, Istanbul) View source artwork.

Story 03 3 min read

The big question

Antioch pulled down the emperor's statues. Then it waited.

The riot lasted about three hours. The waiting lasted all spring. Here is what the old records say.

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A dark oil painting of a bearded Jesuit priest in a black soutane with a small crucifix at his breast, eyes cast down, kneeling on a plank platform in a crowded harbour warehouse and fanning smoke from a heap of coals over two gravely ill men, his cloak laid across them, with a second older priest tending another sick man on the right, a crowd of African men, women and children behind, and baskets of fruit, a wine flask, a water jar and a basin on the ground in front.
About this picture

AI-generated image, in the manner of a seventeenth-century Spanish colonial oil painting on canvas, from the paper's reference portrait based on Saint Peter Claver. Engraving by J. Vitta after P. Gagliardi (Giuseppe Vitta, engraver, active 1888, after Pietro Gagliardi, painter, 1809-1890; printed by Joseph Spellani, after 1888 AD, Wellcome Collection, London, reference 6820i). View source artwork.

Story 04 3 min read

In his own words

Two priests spoke to two dying men without words

A priest carried oranges and lemons down to a ship in 1627 AD, and told two dying men what he meant without words.

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An oil painting of an empty room with whitewashed walls and a beamed ceiling: a dark Spanish table with a red cloth holds an open manuscript, signed folios, quills, an inkwell, sand and sealing wax, with an empty high-backed chair behind it, and an open window looking out to a bare hill with a small adobe chapel at its foot beside a lake.
About this picture

AI-generated image, in the manner of New Spanish colonial baroque oil painting, from the paper's reference portrait based on The Virgin of Guadalupe with the Four Apparitions (Nicolas Enriquez, 1773, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, accession 2014.173) View source artwork.

Story 06 2 min read

The big question

Great ladies walked barefoot, and a friar wanted it stopped

Nine men in Mexico City swore an oath and answered fourteen written questions about one sermon. Here is what the old records say.

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Today in the Church for kids

Wednesday in Ordinary Time — Saint Peter Claver, a priest

  • Saint Peter Claver, a priest

Saint of the day for kids

Saint Peter Claver

Saint Peter Claver was a Jesuit priest from Catalonia who landed at Cartagena de Indias in 1610 AD and spent forty-four years with the Africans brought ashore at the port's slave wharves, working through interpreters he paid for with money people gave him. He died there in 1654 AD.

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On this day in the Church for kids

  • 1654 St. Peter Claver was buried at Cartagena de Indias in a niche cut into the wall of the chapel of the Christ, and the governor and the city's chief magistrates carried his body to the grave.Source
  • 1556 Archbishop Alonso de Montúfar of Mexico opened a formal inquiry into a Franciscan sermon against the chapel at Tepeyac, and nine witnesses answered fourteen written questions on oath.Our reportSaint Juan Diego CuauhtlatoatzinSource
  • 2025 The general chapter of the Order of Saint Augustine, meeting in Rome, elected Father Joseph Lawrence Farrell the Order's ninety-eighth Prior General.Saint MonicaSource