ANTONIO MARIA CLARET, Blessed. – Founder of the Congregation of Missionaries, Sons of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (q.v.), born at Sallent (Barcelona) on 24 Dec. 1807. After studying at Vic and being ordained priest at Solsona, he came to Rome in 1840 to devote himself to missionary work under the auspices of the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda Fide. After a brief stay in the Society of Jesus, he returned to Spain and dedicated himself with apostolic zeal to preaching and the reform of morals. In 1849, together with five other priests, he founded in the seminary of Vic the said Congregation of Missionaries, whose apostolic approval he obtained in 1860 and, six years later, that of its constitutions.
In the same year (1849) he was named Archbishop of Cuba, a see which he governed until 1857, when he was called to Madrid as confessor to Queen Isabella II. This important and delicate position did not prevent him from exercising a wonderful apostolate through word and pen, founding the famous “Libreria religiosa” and assisting other founders of religious institutes and pious societies. After Queen Isabella was driven from the throne in 1868, he followed her into exile. The following year in Rome he took an active part in the Vatican Council. He died shortly afterwards in the Cistercian monastery of Fontfroide (France). He was beatified by Pius XI in 1934, and his cause of canonization is now pending. His body is venerated in the mother-house at Vic.