Saint of the Day – 9 September – St Peter Claver  SJ (1581-1654) Confessor- Priest, Religious, Missionary.     Also known as • Apostle of Cartagena • Slave of the Blacks • Slave of the Slaves.   Born at 1581 at Verdu, Catalonia, Spain and died on 8 September 1654 at Cartegena, Colombia of natural causes.    During the 40 years of his apostolic work in Colombia, it is estimated he personally Baptised around 300,000 people.      The Congress of the Republic of Colombia declared September 9 as the Human Rights national Day in his honour.   Patronages – African missions (proclaimed in 1896 by Pope Leo XIII),  African-Americans, slaves, against slavery, black missions, black people, Human Rights, foreign missions, inter-racial justice, race relations, seafarers, Missionary Sisters of Saint Peter Claver, Colombia, Accra, Ghana, archdiocese of Lake Charles, Louisiana, Diocese of•Shreveport, Louisiana, Diocese of Witbank, South Africa, Apostleship of the Sea.

Claver was born in 1580 into a devoutly Catholic and prosperous farming family in the Catalan village of Verdú, Urgell, located in the Province of Lleida, about 54 miles (87 km) from Barcelona.   He was born 70 years after King Ferdinand of Spain set the colonial slavery culture into motion by authorising the purchase of 250 African slaves in Lisbon for his territories in New Spain, an event which was to shape Claver’s life.

As a student at the University of Barcelona, Claver was noted for his intelligence and piety.   After two years of study there, Claver wrote these words in the notebook he kept throughout his life:  “I must dedicate myself to the service of God until death, on the understanding that I am like a slave.”

After he had completed his studies, at the age of 20 years, Peter entered the Society of Jesus in Tarragona .   When he had completed the Novitiate, he was sent to study Philosophy at Palma, Mallorca.   While there, he came to know the porter of the college, St. Alphonsus Rodriguez, a Lay Brother known for his holiness and gift of prophecy.   St Alphonsus informed Peter  that he had been told by God that Peter was to spend his life in service in the Colonies of New Spain and he frequently urged the young student to accept that calling.

Peter volunteered for the Spanish Colonies and was sent to the Kingdom of  New Granada, where he arrived in the port City of Cartagena in 1610.   Required to wait six years to be Ordained as a Priest, while he completed his Theological studies, he lived in Jesuit houses at Tunja and Bogotá.  During those preparatory years, he was deeply disturbed by the harsh treatment and living conditions of the black slaves who had been brought from Africa.   By this time, the slave trade had already been established for a Century, in the Americas.   Local natives were considered not physically suited to work in the gold and silver mines and this created a demand for blacks from Angola and Congo.   These were bought in West Africa for four crowns a head, or bartered for goods and sold in America for an average of two hundred crowns apiece.  Others were captured at random, especially able-bodied males deemed suitable for labour.

Cartagena was a slave-trading hub. 10,000 slaves poured into the port annually, crossing the Atlantic from West Africa under such foul and inhuman conditions that an estimated one-third died in transit.   Although the slave trade was condemned by Pope Paul III and Urban VIII had issued a Papal Decree prohibiting slavery, (later called “supreme villainy” by Pope Pius IX), it was a lucrative business and continued to flourish.

Peter’s predecessor in his eventual lifelong mission, Father Alonso de Sandoval, SJ, was his mentor and inspiration.   Sandoval devoted himself to serving the slaves for 40 years before Claver arrived, to continue his work.   Sandoval attempted to learn about their customs and languages;  he was so successful that, when he returned to Seville, he wrote a book in 1627 about the nature, customs, rites and beliefs of the Africans.   Sandoval found Claver an apt pupil.   When he was solemnly professed in 1622, Claver signed his final profession document in Latin as:  Petrus Claver, aethiopum semper servus (Peter Claver, servant of the Ethiopians [i.e. Africans] forever).

The Church of St. Peter Claver in Cartagena, Colombia, where Claver lived and ministered.   Whereas Sandoval had visited the slaves where they worked, Claver preferred to head for the wharf as soon as a slave ship entered the port.   Boarding the ship, he entered the filthy and diseased holds to treat and minister to their badly treated, terrified human cargo, who had survived a voyage of several months under horrible conditions.   It was difficult to move around on the ships because the slave traffickers filled them to capacity.   The slaves were often told they were being taken to a land where they would be eaten.   Claver wore a cloak, which he would lend to anyone in need.   A legend arose that whoever wore the cloak received lifetime health and was cured of all disease.  After the slaves were herded from the ship and penned in nearby yards to be scrutinised by crowds of buyers, Claver joined them with medicine, food, bread, brandy, lemons and tobacco  With the help of interpreters and pictures which he carried with him, he gave basic instructions.

Claver saw the slaves as fellow Christians, encouraging others to do so as well.   During the season when slavers were not accustomed to arrive, he traversed the country, visiting plantation after plantation, to give spiritual consolation to the slaves.   During his 40 years of ministry it is estimated that he personally catechised and baptised 300,000 slaves.   He would then follow up on them to ensure that as Christians they received their Christian and civil rights.  His mission extended beyond caring for slaves, however.   He preached in the city square, to sailors and traders and conducted country missions, returning every spring to visit those he had baptised, ensuring that they were treated humanely.   During these missions, whenever possible he avoided the hospitality of planters and overseers; instead, he would lodge in the slave quarters.

Claver’s work on behalf of slaves did not prevent him from ministering to the souls of well-to-do members of society, traders and visitors to Cartagena (including Muslims and English Protestants) and condemned criminals, many of whom he spiritually prepared for death; he was also a frequent visitor at the city’s hospitals.   Through years of unremitting toil and the force of his own unique personality, the slaves’ situation slowly improved.   n time he became a moral force, the Apostle of Cartagena.

In the last years of his life Peter was too ill to leave his room.   He lingered for four years, largely forgotten and neglected, physically abused and starved by an ex-slave who had been hired by the Superior of the house to care for him.   He never complained about his treatment, accepting it as a just punishment for his sins.   He died on 8 September 1654.

When the people of the City heard of his death, many forced their way into his room to pay their last respects.  Such was his reputation for holiness that they stripped away anything to serve as a relic of the saint.  The city magistrates, who had previously considered him a nuisance for his persistent advocacy on behalf of the slaves, ordered a public funeral and he was buried with pomp and ceremony.   The extent of Claver’s ministry, which was prodigious even before considering the astronomical number of people he baptised, came to be realised only after his death.

He was Canonised in 1888 by Pope Leo XIII, along with the holy Jesuit porter, Alphonsus Rodriguez.   In 1896 Pope Leo also declared Claver the Patron of missionary work among all African peoples.   His body is preserved and venerated in the Church of the Jesuit residence, now renamed in his honour.

Legacy:  “No life, except the life of Christ, has moved me so deeply ,as that of Peter Claver”.   St Pope Leo XIII, on the occasion of his Canonisation.

Many Organisations, Missions, Parishes, Religious Congregations, Schools and Hospitals bear the name of St. Peter Claver and also claim to continue the Mission of Claver as the following:

The Knights of Peter Claver Inc is the largest African-American Catholic fraternal organisation in the United States.   In 2006, a unit was established in San Andres, Colombia.   The Order was founded in Mobile, Alabama and is presently headquartered in New Orleans.
Claver’s mission continues today in the work of the Apostleship of the Sea (AoS) and his inspiration remains among port chaplains and those who visit ships in the name of the Church, through the AoS.
The Missionary Sisters of St. Peter Claver are a religious congregation of women dedicated to serving the spiritual and social needs of the poor around the world, particularly in Africa.   They were founded in Austria by the Blessed Mary Theresa Ledóchowska in 1894.

Among the many schools dedicated to St. Peter Claver are those in Decatur, Georgia and Pimville, South Africa.   The oldest African American school in the Diocese of St. Petersburg and the oldest African American school still functioning in the State of Florida, is the St Peter Claver Catholic School.