Saint Bonaventure, Bishop and Doctor of the Church

Giovanni di Fidanza was born about 1217 at Bagnoregio near Viterbo. He joined the Franciscans, taking the name Bonaventure, studied in Paris under Alexander of Hales, and taught theology there; in 1257 he and Thomas Aquinas were admitted together as masters of the university.

That same year he was elected minister general of the Franciscans and led them for seventeen years, through bitter disputes about how strictly to keep poverty; he wrote the official Life of Saint Francis, and The Journey of the Mind into God. In 1273 he was made a cardinal; tradition tells that the envoys found him washing dishes. He helped organize the Council of Lyon, where he died on 15 July 1274. He was canonized in 1482 and named a Doctor of the Church, the “Seraphic Doctor,” in 1588.