Enlightenment Italy (18th century)
Feast: November 26
He preached 340 parish missions, erected Stations of the Cross in the Colosseum, and single-handedly revived the faith of entire Italian villages.
Leonard Casanova — he took the name 'of Port Maurice' after his hometown — was so sick as a young Franciscan that his superiors sent him to a friary in the countryside, expecting him to die. He recovered, and for the next forty-four years he preached with a stamina that seemed to make up for lost time. He conducted at least 340 parish missions across Italy, arriving in a village, preaching for days, hearing confessions for hours, and moving on. His specialty was the Stations of the Cross — he erected over 570 sets of stations during his lifetime, including the famous ones in the Roman Colosseum, which are still used today. His missions could be dramatic: he preached outdoors to crowds of thousands, used vivid imagery, and was known to weep publicly during sermons on the Passion. But he was also a practical reformer who pushed for Eucharistic adoration and fought against Jansenist severity. Pope Benedict XIV called him 'the greatest missionary of the century' and consulted him on pastoral questions. Leonard died in Rome in 1751, exhausted at seventy-five, having spent virtually his entire adult life on the road.