The Saints: St. Peter Claver

1580 - 1654/ Feast Sept. 9

This Spanish-born saint of the slave trade entered the Society of Jesus in 1601. After studies in Barcelona and on Mallorca, where the Jesuit porter, Alphonsus Rodriguez, urged him to go to the New World, Peter went to South America in 1610 and was the first Jesuit ordained in Cartagena, Colombia, a port of entry for West African slaves. Peter ministered to this desolate human cargo aboard the ships and ashore before they were sold, feeding, comforting and baptizing, by his own count, 300,000 slaves. He and St. Alphonsus were canonized in 1888.