St. Peter Claver

Jesuit Vocation and Voyage to Cartagena

St. Peter Claver was born in 1580 at Verdú in Catalonia, Spain, to a farming family, and entered the Society of Jesus in 1602. While studying on the island of Majorca he met the holy doorkeeper St. Alphonsus Rodriguez, who discerned the young Jesuit's vocation and urged him toward the missions of the New World. In 1610 Claver sailed for Cartagena, in present-day Colombia, where he was ordained a priest in 1616.

Slave of the Slaves

Cartagena was then one of the principal ports of the Atlantic slave trade; thousands of captive Africans arrived each year in the holds of slave ships, starved, diseased, and terrified. Claver made these men, women, and children his life's work. At his final vows he signed himself 'Peter Claver, slave of the slaves forever.' Whenever a ship arrived he went aboard with food, medicine, and interpreters, tending the sick and dying in the pestilent holds, and then instructing and baptizing those who wished it — by the estimate of his contemporaries, some 300,000 souls over four decades.

Beyond the Docks and Final Neglect

His ministry did not end at the dock. He followed the enslaved into the city's yards and plantations, defended their dignity as children of God against the prejudice of colonial society, heard confessions for hours on end, and preached missions to sailors, traders, and the condemned. In his last four years, weakened by plague, he was left largely neglected in his room, cared for carelessly by a hired attendant — a final poverty he bore without complaint. He died on September 8, 1654, and the city that had ignored his decline buried him with civic honors.

Canonization and Shrine in Cartagena

Peter Claver was canonized in 1888 by Pope Leo XIII, together with his old mentor Alphonsus Rodriguez, and in 1896 was declared patron of missionary work among African peoples. His remains are venerated beneath the high altar of the church of San Pedro Claver in Cartagena, a major place of pilgrimage. His feast is celebrated on September 9, and he is invoked as a patron of enslaved people, racial justice, and Colombia.

Significance

Peter Claver met human beings at their most degraded and treated each one as a beloved child of God. Going into the holds of slave ships with food, medicine, and the sacraments, and defending the dignity of the enslaved against the prejudice of his society, he gave the Church a lasting example of solidarity with the oppressed. Enslaved people, those who work for racial justice, and the people of Colombia look to him as patron, and his quiet endurance of neglect at the end reveals deep humility.