Francis Bianchi

Francis Xavier Mary Bianchi (; ) (December 2, 1743 – January 31, 1815), was an Italian Barnabite priest and noted scholar, who also gained a reputation for sanctity during his lifetime from both his commitment to his students and to the poor of Naples. He has been proclaimed a saint by the Catholic Church and declared the Apostle of the city.

Life

Early life Bianchi was born in 1743 in Arpino in the Lazio region, then part of the Papal States, into a loving and pious family. His mother taught him to care for the poor around them, giving him example by setting up a small clinic in the family home where she would nurse up to 16 needy people. He was, nevertheless, far from a standard pious child. He would later confess to how he would occasionally pilfer money from his parents. Giovanni Battista Jossa, and Agnello Coppola. He was in frequent communication with Vincent Romano as well as with King Charles Emmanuel IV of Sardinia and his niece, Princess Maria Clotilde of Savoy, then in exile in Naples.

Bianchi's life changed in 1800, when he fell into a state of religious ecstasy while praying before the exposed Blessed Sacrament on Pentecost of that year. Shortly after this, he developed an illness which left his legs twisted and with open sores for the rest of his life. During the last three years of his life, he continued to preside daily at Mass, despite the agony of having to stand. Mostly bedridden, he used this time to deep his spiritual life even further.

Bianchi also begun to tremble and experiences huge palpitations of his heart whenever he prayed, in a manner similar to that which had been experienced by St. Philip Neri two centuries earlier. The tertiary Mary Frances commented that we have two Philip's, one white and one black, which was a pun on the meanings of their family names in Italian.

Bianchi was still living in the Barnabite monastery of Naples when it was closed in 1809, as part of the suppression of all monasteries and religious houses under the Napoleonic Kingdom of Naples. He was able to remain in the city, where he died in 1815.

Veneration Bianchi was beatified on January 22, 1893, by Pope Leo XIII, who also declared him to be the "Apostle of Naples". He was later canonized on October 21, 1951, by Pope Pius XII. His remains are enshrined in the Church of Santa Maria di Caravaggio in Naples. His feast day is celebrated on January 30 by the Barnabites and the Catholic Church in Naples.