Saint Paul of the Cross, Priest

Paolo Francesco Danei was born in 1694 at Ovada in Piedmont, the son of a merchant. In 1720, after an experience in prayer he understood as a call, his bishop clothed him in a black tunic, and in a forty-day retreat in a small cell at Castellazzo he wrote the rule of a new community devoted to the memory of the Passion of Christ, taking the name Paul of the Cross. With his brother John Baptist he settled on Monte Argentario on the Tuscan coast, where the first retreat of the Passionists opened in 1737; the rule was approved in 1741. For decades he preached missions in the towns of central Italy and directed many by letter. In 1771 he founded the Passionist nuns. He died in Rome on 18 October 1775 and was canonized in 1867.