Venerable Francis Mary of Camporosso

Francesco Maria da Camporosso (27 December 1804 - 17 September 1866) - born Giovanni Croese - was an Italian Roman Catholic professed religious from the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin. Croese became a beggar in Genoa where he sought alms from people and was at first heckled and assaulted before his reputation for personal holiness spread which prompted people to come and see him. The cause for his sainthood commenced on 9 August 1896 under Pope Leo XIII while Pope Pius XI titled him as Venerable on 18 December 1922 and later beatified him on 30 June 1929. Pope John XXIII canonized him as a saint on 9 December 1962 inside Saint Peter's Basilica. Giovanni Croese was born on 27 December 1804 in Camporosso to Anselmo Croese and Maria Antonia Garza and he received his baptism on 29 December in his local parish church. In his childhood he helped his father with the farm work. He received his First Communion in 1816 on the feast of Corpus Christi. On 14 October 1822 he approached the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin as a postulant and in the fall of 1824 at Voltri assumed a new name for himself. In 1825 he entered the novitiate with the order at their convent of Saint Barnabas in the hills of Genoa. He entered it and said: "I came to the convent to be its beast of burden"; he commenced his novitiate period on 7 December 1825. Croese was vested in the habit on 17 December 1825. In 1826 - after the novitiate - he was sent to the convent of the Immaculate Conception close to the center of Genoa and to the port area. It was there in 1834 that he was appointed as the "quaestor" or alms collector for that area and he dedicated his life to collecting donations for the support of the friars and their charitable works; in 1840 he was made the friars' chief beggar who would also help look after the other friars that went out begging.