FRANCISCO DEL CASTILLO, Venerable. — Peruvian Jesuit, born in Lima on 9 February 1615, died there on 18 April 1673. He entered the novitiate in 1632 and was ordained priest in 1642. He was the apostle of his native city and its suburbs, especially among the Indians and blacks, even when he was confessor to the viceroy.
He enjoyed a reputation for holiness because of his practice of austere virtues, apostolic zeal, and mystical gifts. Indeed, guided in the ways of the spirit by Fr. Antonio Ruiz de Montoya, Fr. del Castillo was favoured by God with extraordinary charisms.
His cause of beatification, begun as early as 1677 in Lima and in 1698 in Rome, was resumed in 1922. An autobiography of his remains in manuscript form.
