Saint John of Capistrano, Priest

John was born in 1386 at Capestrano in the Abruzzi, studied law at Perugia and became a judge and governor of that city. Imprisoned during a war in 1416, he resolved to change his life and joined the Observant Franciscans, a disciple of Bernardine of Siena. He became one of the great preachers of his age, drawing huge crowds in Italy and, from 1451, as papal envoy in Austria, Bohemia, Germany and Poland; his campaigns against the Hussites and his preaching against the Jews, which led to their trial and burning at Breslau in 1453, are part of his record. In 1456, aged seventy, he raised troops and with John Hunyadi defended Belgrade against the Ottoman siege. He died of plague at Ilok soon after, on 23 October 1456, and was canonized in 1690.