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Who gave up all rights to his family's inheritance to join the Society of Jesus?

   St Aloysius Gonzaga
   St Robert Cardinal Bellarmine
   St John Fisher
   St Francis Borgia

Your answer was: St Francis Borgia.


Answer: St Aloysius (Luigi) Gonzaga (1568-1591) was born at his family’s castle in Castiglione delle Stiviere, between Brescia and Mantova in northern Italy. In November 1585, at the age of 17, Aloysius gave up all rights of inheritance, went to Rome and joined the Society of Jesus. He was best known for his spiritual life and rejecting the pleasurers of the world.

In 1590, St Aloysius, suffering from his kidney problems and other ailments, received a vision of the Archangel Gabriel, who told him that he would die within a year. When a plague broke out in Rome in 1591, St Aloysius volunteered to work with plague victims, and he contracted the disease. He received the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick and recovered, but, in another vision, he was told that would die on June 21, the octave day of the Feast of Corpus Christi that year. His confessor, St Robert Cardinal Bellarmine, administered Last Rites, and St Aloysius died shortly before midnight at the young age of 23.

CLICK HERE to learn about
'Who Was The Real St Aloysius Gonzaga?'
by James Martin, S.J.
on AmericaMagazine.org.



Aerogramme - St Aloysius (Luigi) Gonzaga
5th Centenary of Death
A29 (1991)


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