PETER CLAVER, Saint. - Jesuit, missionary, called the "Apostle of the Negroes," b. at Verdú (Cartagena) in June 1580, d. at Cartagena (Colombia) on 8 Sept. 1654. Having entered the Order at Tarragona (1602), during his studies of philosophy at Majorca he met the coadjutor brother St. Alphonsus Rodriguez, whose humble disciple he became in the ways of perfection, and by whom he was kindled with a lively desire to devote himself to the conversion of the Indians and the Negroes in America.
He set out, in fact, for Colombia in 1610, completed his studies at S. Fé de Bogotá and was ordained a priest at Cartagena on 19 March 1616. The city was the center of the slave trade and thousands of Negroes, captured by force in the Congo and in Angola, were landed there every year, a wretched human flock, awaiting sale to the American colonists for the mines or the plantations. To them Claver devoted himself with a special vow through 40 years of grueling labor; he awaited them at their landing, gathered them into sheds, assisted them in their hard labor, visited them in the hospitals, provided them with food, clothing and money, and above all instructed them in religion to the point of leading them to Baptism. According to his own admission, more than 300,000 were the Negroes baptized by him. The rest of his time he spent for the good of the citizens, so much so that he also earned the title of "Apostle of Cartagena." That life of his, impossible to sustain, so much so that by common judgment it was interpreted as a miracle, was nourished by prayers and extraordinary penance, which won him the most consoling conversions even among the Mohammedans and the heretics with whom he came into contact. Beatified in 1851, he was canonized by Leo XIII in 1888 and in 1896 declared patron of the African missions. Feast on 9 Sept.
After his name are named the indigenous Congregation of the Brothers of St. P. C., in the French Congo, and the Sodality of St. P. C., founded by Countess M. Teresa Ladochiwska in favor and aid of the missionaries of Africa.
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