FERRER, Vincent (Ferrer), Saint. - Spanish Dominican, famous for his apostolic wanderings and thaumaturgic power, as well as for the part he played in the religious and political events of his time; b. at Valencia on 23 (?) January 1350, d. at Vannes in Brittany on 5 April 1419.
He took the religious habit in the convent of his city in February 1367. Barely twenty years old, he taught logic at Lérida. In the year 1378, while he was being consecrated a priest, the great schism broke out. The Saint, probably urged on by the Aragonese cardinal Pietro de Luna, sided with Clement VII, the pope of Avignon, and won for him the obedience of part of Spain. From 1383 to 1389 he was lector of theology in the cathedral of Valencia. When de Luna was elected at Avignon under the name Benedict XIII (1394), the Saint was summoned to Avignon as his confessor and counsellor. But after three years, disgusted by the conduct of Benedict XIII, and under the impulse of a vision following a grave illness, he obtained permission to leave the Curia (Nov. 1399), in order to devote himself to a more fruitful apostolate. Thus he began, in the capacity of legatus a latere Christi, his apostolic wanderings through south-western Europe. For twenty years enormous crowds were often drawn along by the new apostle, who announced the imminent end of the world, which moreover the calamities of the age lent credence to. Public penances and numerous miracles accompanied his preaching, together with an abundant harvest of conversions among the Jews and the Moors in Spain.
Meanwhile he did not cease to work for the unity of the Church: in 1408 he tried in vain to bring the two rival Pontiffs together for a solution of the schism; and in 1415 he did everything possible to convince Benedict XIII to renounce. Seeing all attempts shattered, the Saint definitively broke with him and, by his preaching, withdrew from him the obedience of Spain, thus becoming one of the principal restorers of the unity of the Church.
In 1412, with the compromise of Caspe, by designating the successor of the deceased king of Aragon he contributed to the unity of Spain. He also sought to put an end, or at least to obtain a truce, to the Hundred Years' War, and it was precisely at Vannes that he closed his busy and eventful life. Among his writings are remembered the two philosophical treatises Incipiunt suppositiones and De unitate universali (Paris 1900); Tractatus de vita spirituali sive de interiori homine (Spanish trans. in 1520, and French in 1920: Latin text and note of the various Latin editions in H. D. Fages [v. bibl.]); De moderno schismate (Rome 1901; 2nd ed., Bologna-Modena 1906); sermons, etc.
Callistus III on 3 June 1455 declared him blessed and Pius II on 12 Oct. 1458 published the bull of canonization. Feast on 5 April. Art usually depicts St. Vincent F. with a flame on his head and an open book on which is read Timete Deum et date illi honorem. Sometimes he has the wings of the Angel of the Apocalypse.
Bibliography9 works
Abele Redigonda