From Lost Objects to the Doctrine of the Church

Anthony of Padua is one of the most rapidly canonized saints in Christian history, declared a saint less than a year after his death in 1231, and one of the most widely invoked, chiefly through the folk practice of praying to him to recover what is lost. That popular role obscures the substance of the man. A Portuguese-born Augustinian who joined the Franciscans hoping for martyrdom in Morocco, he became instead the order's first influential theologian, a preacher of such force that Francis of Assisi himself authorized him to teach the friars. His command of scripture earned him the later title Doctor of the Church (Doctor Evangelicus), and his surviving sermon notes are dense with allegorical exegesis. The legends, preaching to fishes when a town refused to listen, the Christ-child appearing in his arms, gathered around a reputation for eloquence that was real. He is buried in the great basilica at Padua that bears his name, one of the busiest pilgrimage churches in Italy.