At Valencia in Spain, Saint John of Ribera, bishop, who also held office in the king’s stead; a devotee of the most holy Eucharist and a defender of Catholic truth, he instructed his people with long and sustained teaching.
Lifespan: 1532–1611
Beatified: 18 September 1796 by Pope Pius VI
Canonized: 12 June 1960 by Pope John XXIII, Vatican Basilica
Memoria liturgica: 6 January
“By a natural law of the spirit, whoever possesses holiness very often wins the trust of all.”
John of Ribera
John of Ribera was born in Seville in 1532, son of Pedro Enríquez y Afán de Ribera, Duke of Alcalá and Marquess of Tarifa. He pursued studies in canon law, the arts, and theology at the University of Salamanca, where his professors included the great masters of the age: Domingo de Cuevas, Pedro de Sotomayor, Domingo de Soto, and Melchor Cano. Ordained to the priesthood and having obtained his doctorate in theology, he maintained close friendships with the Dominicans and Jesuits, and an epistolary relationship with Saint John of Ávila.
His father was appointed Viceroy of Naples and always maintained cordial relations with Pius IV. It was this Pope who appointed John bishop of Badajoz in 1562, at less than thirty years of age, granting a dispensation from the canonical age for receiving episcopal consecration. He soon came into contact with Friar Luis de Granada, who in turn introduced him to Saint Charles Borromeo, with whom he corresponded on their shared commitment to implementing the reforms of the Council of Trent. Saint Pius V held the young bishop of Badajoz in high regard and, at the consistory of 30 April 1568, conferred on him the title of Patriarch of Antioch. Two months later he appointed him Archbishop of Valencia.
The reform of the clergy was the central theme of John of Ribera’s ministry. In his pastoral work he supported the religious orders, contributing to the foundation of the Discalced Augustinian nuns and the Capuchin province of Sangre de Cristo. In 1602, Philip III appointed him Viceroy and Captain General of Valencia, a charge he discharged with great skill, suppressing banditry and corruption. John of Ribera’s relationship with the Moriscos encompasses many and controversial dimensions, the “Morisco question” being one of the most compelling topics in Spanish history and among the most studied.
For the solemn cult of the Most Blessed Sacrament he founded the Royal College Seminary of Corpus Christi (known as the Patriarch’s College), one of the most significant monuments in Valencia from an artistic and cultural standpoint. For his College the Patriarch wished to imitate the Palazzo della Cancelleria in Rome, seeking to reproduce its architectural form, with the church incorporated within the same building, in the manner of San Lorenzo in Damaso.
This Royal College and the sumptuous devotion of its chapel, so warmly praised by Baltasar Gracián, have kept alive to our own day the memory of the Patriarch, to whom Friar Luis de Granada dedicated his Vida del maestro Ávila.
He died in Valencia on 6 January 1611.