Friar and Preacher
Together with James of the Marches, John entered the Order of Friars Minor at Perugia on October 4, 1416. At once he gave himself up to the most rigorous asceticism, violently defending the ideal of strict observance and orthodoxy, following the example set by Bernardine. From 1420 onwards, he preached with great effect in numerous cities and eventually became well known.
Unlike most Italian preachers of repentance in the 15th century, John was effective in northern and central Europe, in Germany, Bohemia, Austria, Hungary, Croatia and Poland. The largest churches could not hold the crowds, so he preached in the public squares--at Brescia in Italy, he preached to a crowd of 126,000.
John was known as the "Scourge of the Jews" for his fanatical anti-semitism. In 1447 he offered the Pope a small fleet on which to load all the Jews of the papal states in order to ship them to some faraway land. Between 1451 and 1453, his fiery sermons against Jews persuaded many southern German regions to expel their entire Jewish population, and at Breslau some were burned at the stake.
Read more about this topic: John Of Capistrano
Famous quotes containing the word preacher:
“That poor little thing was a good woman, Judge. But she just sort of let life get the upper hand. She was born here and she wanted to be buried here. I promised her on her deathbed she’d have a funeral in a church with flowers. And the sun streamin’ through a pretty window on her coffin. And a hearse with plumes and some hacks. And a preacher to read the Bible. And folks there in church to pray for her soul.”
—Laurence Stallings (1804–1968)