St. Charles Borromeo

The nephew of Pope Pius IV, Charles was made a cardinal at twenty-two and Archbishop of Milan at twenty-five. He gave away his vast personal income to feed the poor during a famine, stayed at his post during the plague of 1576 walking the streets to administer the sacraments, and was the chief architect of the reforms of the Council of Trent in pastoral practice.

Despite being born into extraordinary wealth and ecclesiastical privilege, Charles lived with a severity that astonished his contemporaries. He ate little, slept on bare boards, and personally visited every parish in his vast diocese on foot, enforcing the Tridentine decrees with an energy that made him both beloved and resisted.

An assassination attempt by members of a suppressed religious order — a musket ball struck him during evening prayers — only deepened his resolve. He died at forty-six, worn out by labors that had transformed the Archdiocese of Milan into the model of Catholic reform for all of Europe. His glass coffin rests beneath the altar of Milan's cathedral, where pilgrims still venerate his remains.