Saints and Heroes of the Reformation

Jesuits

The Jesuit order produced many of the greatest heroes of the Reformation era, and was renowned for its scholarly work in philosophy and theology, and for its preaching, missions, and service. Notable Jesuit Saints of the Reformation era include:

Founders of Religious Orders

Many of the most notable saints of the Reformation era were known as founders of new religious orders, and their contributions are detailed elsewhere. Saints notable for founding religious orders are listed below.

Notable Popes of the Reformation Era

Other Well known Catholic Heroes of the Reformation (not known primarily as founders)

There are many lesser-known heroes of the Catholic Reformation. Most of these saints founded lesser-known, or local religious orders and spent their life exemplifying Christian virtues and works of mercy.



The following excerpt is from 'Leading Events of Church History: Early Modernd Period'. It provides an overview of the early movement for Catholic Reform


Saints of the Reformation

It must not be forgotten that momentous events had been occurring in England, France, Germany, and the Netherlands during the eighteen years over which the sessions of the Council of Trent were spread. But during these troublous times the work of God, too, had been going on, and the state of the Church was full of promise. The reforms already noticed were bearing rich fruit. Institutes for the formation of a holy secular clergy Lad sprung up under the hands of St. Philip Neri and St. Charles Borromeo—the older Orders had been reformed, new religious congregations had arisen, and the nations severed from the Church by heresy were in many places being won back to the unity of the faith. The impetus given to the Christian education of youth was little short of 76 marvellous, and from recently-discovered lands stories were coming of hosts of the heathen being received into the bosom of the Church. Everything seemed to promise a Golden Age. But, though these glorious works developed as time went on, there has never been a truce in the deadly warfare waged against them by Protestant sectaries; and that so little, comparatively speaking, has been realized by such splendid activities must be reckoned to the account of the hand-to-hand struggle going on all over the globe between the Church and the spirit of heresy and of infidelity engendered by the great revolt of the sixteenth century.

Philip Neri and the Oratorians

Perhaps no other feature of the period was more powerful in effecting a return to Catholicism in heretical countries, and in arousing anew the true spirit of the faith where the fundamentals had not been lost, than the Jesuit schools. But there were many other influences at work, though perhaps more local in character than those due to the Society of Jesus. The city of Rome itself owes its spiritual renovation to St. Philip Neri. The ministrations of this gentle saint were long almost unnoticed, for his method was unostentatious, and his works of zeal of the humblest character. He frequented hospitals, aided the dying, talked cheeringly and lovingly of the good God and the way of serving Him, and exercised an almost magnetic influence over all that came under the spell of his gracious presence and winning manners. Men gathered round him instinctively; where he led they followed, whether it was to perform self-denying acts of charity for the sick or for pilgrims, or to make the stations of Rome, or to assist at exposition of the Blessed Sacrament. At length his director insisted on his embracing the priesthood, and Philip, without changing his methods, found his power over men grow. The results of his sacred ministration in the confessional, and his familiar but priestly conversations, will be known only at the last day. Philip loved to gather the young around him, and to make virtue attractive by surrounding it with sweet and beautiful associations. Wise religious superiors sent their novices to join the happy throng of lads that sang and prayed and played round that gentle master on the fair slopes of the Aventine.

Among the disciples who clustered round St. Philip, a little bind of priests attached themselves more closely to him and lived under his guidance, forming something like a community, though Philip had no thought or desire of becoming a religious founder. The first church where they met, and whither crowds repaired to assist at the simple sermons and glorious choral services which, from the first, characterized the meeting of St. Philip's sons, was called the Oratory. Though one church after another was taken—as each in turn became too small to admit the ever-increasing number that flocked thither—the name remained. St Philip's churches are Oratories, his sons Oratorians; and a species of sacred drama set to music, first brought to perfection in the church of St. Philip, and under his inspiration, is still called an oratorio.