St. John Baptist de Rossi
Born at Voltaggio in the Diocese of Genoa, 22 February, 1698; died at
Rome, 23 May, 1764; feast on 23 May. His parents, Charles de Rossi and
Frances Anfossi, were not rich in earthly goods, but had solid piety and
the esteem of their fellow-citizens. Of their four children, John
excelled in gentleness and piety. At the age of ten he was taken to
Genoa by friends for his education. There he received news of the death
of his father. After three years he was called to Rome by a relative,
Lorenzo de Rossi, who was canon at St. Mary in Cosmedin. He pursued his
studies at the Collegium Romanum under the direction of the Jesuits, and
soon became a model by his talents, application to study, and virtue.
As a member of the Sodality of the Blessed Virgin and of the Ristretto
of the Twelve Apostles established at the college, he led the members in
the meetings and pious exercises, in visits to the sick in the
hospitals and in other works of mercy, and merited even then the name of
apostle.
At the age of sixteen he entered the clerical state. Owing to
indiscreet practices of mortification he contracted spells of epilepsy,
notwithstanding which he made his course of scholastic philosophy and
theology, in the college of the Dominicans, and, with dispensation, was
ordained priest on 8 March, 1721. Having reached the desired goal, he
bound himself by vow to accept no ecclesiastical benefice unless
commanded by obedience. He fulfilled the duties of the sacred ministry
by devoting himself to the labourers, herds, and teamsters of the
Campagna, preaching to them early in the morning, or late in the
evening, at the old Forum Romanum (Campo Vaccino), and by visiting,
instructing, and assisting the poor at the hospital of St. Galla. In
1731 he established near St. Galla another hospital as a home of refuge
for the unfortunates who wander the city by night (“Rom. Brev.”, tr.
Bute, Summer, 573). In 1735 he became titular canon at St. Mary in
Cosmedin, and, on the death of Lorenzo two years later, obedience forced
him to accept the canonry. The house belonging to it, however, he would
not use, but employed the rent for good purposes.
For a number of years John was afraid, on account of his sickness, to enter the confessional, and it was his custom to send to other priests the sinners whom he had brought to repentance by his instructions and sermons. In 1738 a dangerous sickness befell him, and to regain his health he went to Cività Castellana, a day’s journey from Rome. The bishop of the place induced him to hear confessions, and after reviewing his moral theology he received the unusual faculty of hearing confessions in any of the churches of Rome. He showed extraordinary zeal in the exercise of this privilege, and spent many hours every day in hearing the confessions of the illiterate and the poor whom he sought in the hospitals and in their homes. He preached to such five and six times a day in churches, chapels, convents, hospitals, barracks, and prison cells, so that he became the apostle of the abandoned, a second Philip Neri, a hunter of souls. In 1763, worn out by such labours and continued ill-health, his strength began to ebb away, and after several attacks of paralysis he died at his quarters in Trinità de’ Pellegrini. He was buried in that church under a marble slab at the altar of the Blessed Virgin. God honoured his servant by miracles, and only seventeen years after his death the process of beatification was begun, but the troubled state of Europe during the succeeding years prevented progress in the cause until it was resumed by Pius IX, who on 13 May, 1860, solemnly pronounced his beatification. As new signs still distinguished him, Leo XIII, on 8 December, 1881, enrolled him among the saints.
