John Descalzo

Who they were

Known as Descalzo, 'the Barefoot', for going shoeless even before becoming a friar out of a spirit of poverty, Giovanni was born around 1278 in the diocese of Saint-Pol-de-Léon in Brittany. He first served for thirteen years as a priest, parish priest and canon in the diocese of Rennes before entering the Franciscans of the province of Tours, where he lived for thirty-three years as a penitent, sought-after confessor and spiritual director.

He had a special love for the sick and the poor, so generous toward them that he was called 'bursarius pauperum', bursar of the poor. He died of the Black Death in 1349 at the friary of Santa Maria Maddalena in Quimper, where he had spent his final years, and was buried in the chapel of Saint Anthony there; favours and cures, especially of headaches, were reported at his tomb. His feast is kept on 14 December in the Franciscan Martyrology, and at the time of writing the process to confirm his immemorial veneration was still under way.

The miracles

The source does not describe the miracles approved in the cause.

Why that counted as sanctity

Franciscan friar of Brittany known for barefoot poverty and care of the sick and poor, called 'bursar of the poor'; died of plague in 1349.