Paul of the Cross

Who they were

Paolo Francesco Danei was born at Ovada in Piedmont, eldest of sixteen children of a noble but impoverished family, and worked with his father to support them while living a life of daily Mass and prayer. In 1713 he began to live as a hermit, and at 26 the bishop let him settle in a cell behind the church of Castellazzo Bormida, where he conceived and wrote the rule of a new congregation, the Poor of Jesus.

His Passionists devoted themselves to preaching the Passion of Christ. He spent much of his life in solitude on Monte Argentario, where he founded the first house, going out to preach missions in the poorest parts of the Maremma and the remote Tuscan islands. In 1771, with Mother Crocifissa Costantini, he founded the contemplative Passionist Nuns at Tarquinia. He died in Rome in 1775.

The miracles

The miracles examined for his canonisation are not described in the sources we have used.

Why that counted as sanctity

Paul of the Cross carried the Passion of Christ in his heart and spent his life preaching it to the poorest and most forgotten.

Connected on this site

• Marie Crucifiée Costantini Saint
  “In 1737 she met Paolo della Croce (Paul of the Cross), who became her spiritual director for nearly forty years and to whom she confided her mystical experiences.” — this site's research
• Vincent Strambi Saint
  “Strambi entered at the Passionists despite the congregation's founder, Paul of the Cross, refusing him several times due to Strambi's frail constitution.” — Wikipedia
• Bernard Mary of Jesus Blessed
  “He re-entered the order after his ordination and went on to hold several positions of leadership within his own order; he was even likened to Saint Paul of the Cross while Pope Leo XIII and Pope Pius X held him in high esteem.” — Wikipedia
• Eufemia Gemma Giannini Venerable
  “She became novice mistress, then superior of a new Passionist monastery at Itri, and later founded the Missionary Sisters of Saint Gemma Galgani, a congregation of active life under the rule of Saint Paul of the Cross, which received diocesan approval in 1964 and sent its first sisters to the Congo.” — this site's research
• Maria Maddalena Frescobaldi Capponi Venerable
  “Maria Maddalena Frescobaldi Capponi was a laywoman and mother of a family who founded the Congregation of the Passionist Sisters of St Paul of the Cross; she was born in Florence, Italy, on 11 November 1771 and died there on 8 April 1839.” — this site's research
• Benito Arrieta Gorrochategui (Severiano Arrieta Gorrochategui, Benedict of Saint Paul of the Cross) Servant of God
  “A professed priest of the Congregation of the Passion under the name Benedict of Saint Paul of the Cross, he worked with the sick and with refugees, including at Bethany in the Holy Land, and after arriving in the Dominican Republic organised electricity, a post office, schools, roads, rural chapels and…” — this site's research