THOMAS OF TOLENTINO, Blessed Martyr. - B. at Tolentino in the Marches ca. 1260, d. in India in 1321.

Having entered the Franciscan Order, he was part of the group of the Spirituals of Angelo Clareno. Around 1274 he was relegated to a hermitage in the Marches and then condemned to perpetual imprisonment. Freed in 1289, the following year he went to Armenia. In 1291, King Hethum II sent him to Pope Nicholas IV and to the kings of France and England to solicit aid against the Saracens. He returned to Italy in 1295 to defend the Clareni before the general Giovanni di Morovalle. He came to the West once again in 1307, as the bearer of letters from the founder of the mission of Peking, Giovanni di Montecorvino, with which the latter requested missionaries; he went to Poitiers to Pope Clement V and in consistory pleaded the cause of the Chinese mission. Toward the end of 1320, he embarked at Hormuz bound for China with the Franciscans Pietro di Siena, Giacomo di Padova and Demetrius and the Dominican Giordano Cathala. Against their will they were put ashore, in March of the following year, on the island of Salsette, near Bombay (India), and received at Thana by the Nestorians; but shortly afterward, seized by the Muslims, they were killed on 9 and 11 April 1321; the Dominican escaped death by having gone to visit some Christians at Supera. Odorico da Pordenone in 1326 transported his body to Zaiton in China. Leo XIII confirmed his cult in 1894. Feast at Tolentino on 6 April (minor patron); in his Order on 5 September.

Bibliography4 works

BIBL.: G. Golubovich, Bibl. bio-bibliogr. di Terra Santa..., III, Quaracchi 1919, pp. 219-22; A. Van den Wyngaert, Sinica Francisc., I, ibid. 1929, pp. 424-39; R. Loemertz, Les missions dominic. en Orient..., in Arch. Fr. Praed., 16 (1932), pp. 48-51, 77-83; H. Delchaye, Saints de Tolentino, in Anal. Bolland., 61 (1943), p. 5.

Clemente Schmitt

@incollection{ec12_tommaso_da_tolentino_martire_b, author = {Schmitt, Clemente}, title = {Tommaso da Tolentino, martire, beato}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {XII}, pages = {251--252}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1954}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/tommaso-da-tolentino-martire-beato} }

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Thomas of Tolentino, Blessed Martyr

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