Saint Robert Southwell, was an English Roman Catholic priest of the Jesuit Order. He was also a poet, hymnodist, and clandestine missionary in post-Reformation England. After being arrested and imprisoned in 1592, and intermittently tortured and questioned by Richard Topcliffe, Southwell eventually was tried and convicted of high treason for his links to the Holy See. On 21 February 1595,...

Quodvultdeus (Latin for "what God wills", died c. 450 AD) was a fifth-century church father and bishop of Carthage who was exiled to Naples. He was known to have been living in Carthage around 407 and became a deacon in 421 AD. He corresponded with Augustine of Hippo, who served as Quodvultdeus' spiritual teacher. Augustine also dedicated some of his writings to Quodvultdeus....

St. Flavian, the patriarch of Constantinople from 446 to 449, opposed the heretical doctrine which claimed that Jesus was totally divine and in no sense human. This heresy has been proposed by the monk Eutyches. In response to St. Flavian’s denunciation of this heresy, the followers of Eutyches beat St. Flavian to death three days after his denunciation. The Council of Chalcedon, held in...

Between 1225 and 1227 in the city of Florence, Italy, seven cloth merchants from the city's prominent families joined the Confraternity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. They desired to live a penitential life dedicated to her title of Mother of Sorrows. Our Lady appeared to the seven men on the feast of the Assumption in 1233, asking them to live a life of seclusion and prayer. They obeyed and...