Saint Charles Borromeo was born on October 2, 1538 at the castle of Arona on Lake Maggiore near Milan. He was the second in the family of six and his father was the Count of Arona and his mother a member of the House of Medici.
The young Count Charles Borromeo entered the Church at the age of 12. Even as a youth he showed integrity. Thus when his uncle gave to him the family income from the Benedictine abbey of Saints Gratinian and Felinus, he told his father that he could only keep the money needed for his education and to prepare him for service to the Church. All other money belonged to the poor of the Church and were given to them.
Though the young count suffered from a speech impediment, he performed well and impressed his teachers. He attended the University of Pavia and learned Latin. In 1554 his father passed away and although Charles was a teenager, responsibility for his household fell to him. Charles continued in his studies and earned a doctorate in canon and civil law.
Life changed for the young count after his uncle, Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Medici became Pope Pius IV on December 25, 1559. The new pope asked his nephew to come to Rome and appointed him as a cardinal-deacon. With the rank came the responsibility of assisting and advising his uncle full-time. A month later, Pope Pius IV made his nephew a cardinal.
With the new rank came even more duties including the government of the Papal States, the supervision of the Knights of Malta, the Franciscans, and the Carmelites. The young Borromeo used his position in the Vatican to promote learning and he established a literary academy. He wrote of some of the lessons and lectures in the book, Noctes Vaticanae. In 1561, he founded a college at Pavia dedicated to St. Justina of Padua. He was ordained to the holy priesthood on September 4, 1563 and was ordained as a bishop on December 7, 1563. He became Archbishop of Milan in May 12, 1564. In 1566, Archbishop Borromeo’s benefactor and uncle, Pope Pius IV died.
The young Bishop was not afraid to defend the Church against the encroachments of the powerful; and he was not lacking in the courage necessary to renew ecclesial structures, correcting abuses wherever he found them. In 1576 a famine struck Milan followed by the plague, and many of the wealthy and powerful fled the city. Archbishop Borromeo remained. He used his own fortune to feed the starving people.
In 1583, Archbishop Borromeo traveled to Switzerland and began work suppressing heresy there. Protestant heresies, along with witchcraft and sorcery had been widely reported. He founded the Collegium Helveticum to serve and educate Swiss Catholics. However, after many years of labour, Charles Borromeo’s health began to fail and in November 1584, he died, aged 46 years. Charles was beatified in 1602 by Pope Clement VIII, and eight years later was canonized by Pope Paul V. Since that time, his relics have been venerated in the crypt of the Cathedral of Milan, in the so-called “Scurolo,” with scenes from his life portrayed in silver foil panels along the walls.
St. Charles Borromeo’s feast day is celebrated on November 4. He is the patron of bishops, catechists, Lombardy, Italy, Monterey, California, cardinals, seminarians, spiritual leaders, and Sao Carlos in Brazil. St. Charles Borromeo has a beautiful shrine in the Milan Cathedral and is often depicted in art wearing his robes, barefoot, carrying the cross with a rope around his neck and his arm raised in blessing.
