1506 – 1546
FEAST August 1
A Savoyard shepherd who longed for education, Peter began studies in 1525 at Sainte-Barbe in Paris, where his roommates were Sts. Francis Xavier and Ignatius of Loyola. Peter was ordained in 1534, and celebrated the Mass at which the first seven Jesuits, including himself, took vows. After missions in Germany, Spain and Portugal, he died of exhaustion in Rome, after being summoned there to become the pope’s theologian for the Council of Trent. Ecumenical in outlook, Peter wrote, “The things that unite us ought to be the very basis of our approach, not the things that keep us apart.” He was beatified in 1872 and canonized in 2013.