Saint Vincent Strambi

He was born on January 1, 1745, at Civitavecchia, the port of Rome, where his father had opened a pharmacy. ²⁴ He was an only child, the Passionist Nuns write, and was taught as a boy by the Franciscans. ⁴ Pius XII said that from boyhood he stood out among his companions for the honesty of his ways and the innocence of his life. ¹

At fifteen he asked to enter the clerical state. The Dicastery for the Causes of Saints says he overcame his father's resistance; the Passionist Nuns say his father gave permission. ²⁴ He received the tonsure and entered the seminary at Montefiascone in November 1762, where, Pius XII said, he became a model to his fellow students and his superiors alike. ¹²⁴ He went on to study in Rome and then with the Dominicans at Viterbo. ²⁴

He was ordained deacon on March 14, 1767, at Bagnoregio, became rector of the seminary there that November, and was ordained a priest at Bagnoregio on December 19, 1767. ² He was twenty-two and already in charge of a seminary.

He wanted a stricter life. The Dicastery says the Vincentians and the Capuchins both turned him away before he found the Passionists of Saint Paul of the Cross. ² Pius XII says that he asked humbly to be received, drawn by the holiness he had seen in the founder himself. ¹ He made his novitiate on Monte Argentario, took the name Vincent Mary and was professed, against several objections from his father, on September 24, 1769. ²⁴

In 1773 Paul of the Cross put him in charge of training the young Passionist students for missionary preaching at the new house of Saints John and Paul in Rome, and he later wrote a manual on sacred eloquence. ⁴ He was with Paul in the founder's last years. ⁴ The nuns write that "Father Vincent had just six years to absorb the spirit of the congregation from St. Paul." ⁴

He became rector of Saints John and Paul in 1780 and provincial in 1781, and also served as a general consultor. ⁴ In those years he published a life of the founder, built from the testimony of eyewitnesses given in the canonization process; the nuns call it a classic. ⁴ From 1792 until his death he was the congregation's postulator general. ²

He was also a preacher in demand. The Passionist General Curia calls him "one of the greatest missionaries of the century," preaching the Passion across almost the whole of Italy, and says that at the pope's request he often preached in Rome to the clergy, the cardinals, the bishops and the papal court, and was known as "the holy Passionist preacher." ³ The Dicastery says he several times preached missions together with Saint Gaspar del Bufalo. ² He guided many souls: the Dicastery names Venerable Luisa Maurizi and Blessed Anna Maria Taigi, and the Curia adds Gaspar del Bufalo himself and Maria Clotilde of Savoy. ²³

He was named bishop of Macerata and Tolentino on July 5, 1801. ² Pius XII said he came to it still vigorous in years and already holy, and that he began nothing without first praying for light. ¹ He built a new seminary and gave it every attention, from the choice of teachers to receiving each seminarian himself; he taught there every week and encouraged the study of Gregorian chant. ²

He set up hemp spinning to give the poor work and income, enlarged the orphanage of the Somascan Fathers and the conservatory at Tolentino, built a home for the old, and organized catechism in proper schools, adults included. ² The Dicastery heads its page with a saying of his, translated here from the Italian: "The poor are my masters, and I am only their steward." ² The Curia gives it in other words, "They are my supervisors. I am their treasurer," and adds that his phrase "Hear the clamor of the poor" was well known. ³

He refused the oath of allegiance to Napoleon that the laws of the time required, laws that had already dissolved and dispersed several religious orders. ² The Curia says he preferred "an unjust and painful exile" to an unlawful oath. ³ The Dicastery says he was confined at Novara for a year and in October 1809 moved to Milan, where he lived with the Barnabites and then with various families. ² The Curia speaks of nearly six years of exile in Novara and Milan. ³

Pius XII put it as a contest between a bishop and an emperor he did not name. Strambi defended the rights of God and of the Church against those who seemed to hold almost absolute power, and taught that no kingdom has firmer foundations than the protection of the Church's freedom. ¹ For that he was driven from his diocese, but within a few years, the pope said, the man who had seemed to rule nearly all Europe was himself defeated and sent into exile. ¹ When Pius VII returned to Rome, Strambi went back to his see amid general rejoicing. ¹

He returned, the Curia says, with even greater zeal, and when foreign troops came to Macerata he opposed them so strongly that he was called "father of the city." ³ The Martyrology remembers him for this whole chapter: he governed his dioceses in holiness and suffered exile for his fidelity to the Roman Pontiff. ⁵

He asked many times to be released from his diocese, and in 1823 Pope Leo XII accepted his resignation, reluctantly, and kept him in Rome as adviser and confessor. ²³ The Dicastery says he served as the pope's counselor for forty days before a stroke. ² The Curia says he died having offered his life to the Lord in place of the pope, who was gravely ill. ³ He died in Rome on January 1, 1824, the same day of the year on which he had been born. ²³

He was buried in the basilica of Saints John and Paul. ² On November 12, 1957, his body was moved to the church of San Filippo in Macerata, the city where, the Curia says, he had been a shepherd for twenty-two years. ²³ Pius XI beatified him on April 26, 1925, and Pius XII canonized him on June 11, 1950. ¹²

None of the sources consulted for this page names a patronage for him, so none is given here. ¹²³⁴

Saint Vincent Strambi's feast is January 1, the day he died in 1824. ²⁵ The date was fixed at the canonization: the formula Pius XII pronounced directs that the universal Church keep his memory each year on his heavenly birthday, the first of January. ¹ The Roman Martyrology enters him on January 1. ⁵ The Passionists keep his memorial on September 24, as the calendar of the Passionist Nuns shows; the Dicastery gives September 24, 1769, as the day of his religious profession. ²⁴

Pius XII held him up in a Holy Year to people unsure of their footing. Those who are uncertain, wavering and fearful in the present difficulties, he said, should take heart from Christ's promises and try to copy this saint's unconquered courage. ¹ What the bishop of Macerata had done was refuse an oath and accept the exile that followed. ²³

His devotion was to the Passion. Pius XII describes a man who wept at the image of the crucified Christ and wished to offer himself in expiation for his own sins and those of others. ¹ The Curia adds that he wrote on the Precious Blood, to which he had a particular devotion. ³

The saying about the poor comes down in two wordings, as masters and steward, or supervisors and treasurer. ²³ Either way it puts the bishop below them. He organized spinning work, an old people's home and an orphanage, and he called himself the one who kept their accounts. ²