Giovanni Leonardi

John Leonardi, OMD (Italian: Giovanni Leonardi; 1541 – 9 October 1609) was an Italian Catholic priest and the founder of the Clerics Regular of the Mother of God of Lucca.

Biography He was the youngest of seven children born to middle-class parents in Diecimo (now within the comune of Borgo a Mozzano) in the Republic of Lucca. From childhood, he sought solitude and wished to dedicate himself to prayer and meditation. At age 17, he began his ten-year study to become a certified pharmacist's assistant in Lucca. Afterward, he studied for the priesthood and was ordained in 1572, as a member of the now defunct Apostolic Clerics of St. Jerome. He first dedicated himself to the Christian formation of adolescents in his local Lucca parish. He also gathered a group of laymen around him to work in hospitals and prisons.

In 1574, he founded a group charged with deepening Christian faith and devotion; this foundation was part of the wider movement of the Counter-Reformation. Leonardi worked with this group to spread devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary and devotion to the Forty Hours, as well as spreading the message of the importance of frequent communion.

Founding the order He became interested in the reforms instituted by the Council of Trent, and he proposed a new congregation of secular priests to convert sinners and to restore Church discipline. In 1595, his congregation was confirmed by Pope Clement VIII, and he assumed the religious name "Giovanni of the Mother of God". This foundation received approval from Pope Paul V on January 14, 1614. The pope, encouraged by the cardinal protector Giustiniani, issued a papal decree approving the union of the Lucca Fathers with the Piarists of Saint Joseph Calasanz. This union would last only until the beginning of 1617, when Paul V issued another decree constituting the Piarists as a separate congregation.

Civic leaders in Lucca opposed the establishment of a new religious order for political reasons and acted to stop its formation. While ultimately ineffective, their efforts forced John Leonardi to spend most of the remainder of his life outside Lucca,

In 1603, he founded, along with Cardinal J. Vivès, the seminary of the Propagation of the Faith for the philosophical and theological training of missionary priests. In 1621, his community would formally be designated "Clerks Regular of the Mother of God'". The final Rule of his institute was published in 1851. Two houses of the Clerks Regular of the Mother of God were opened when he died, and three others were opened in the seventeenth century.

Death and sainthood He died on 9 October 1609, of influenza, which he contracted while ministering to his brothers suffering from the epidemic raging in Rome at the time. The church of San Giovanni Leonardi in Zone XV Torre Maura in the east of Rome is named in his honour.