Saint John of God

John of God, O.H. (Portuguese: João de Deus; Spanish: Juan de Dios; born João Duarte Cidade [ˈʒwɐ̃w̃ duˈwaɾ.t siˈða.ðɨ]; March 8, 1495 – March 8, 1550) was a Portuguese soldier turned healthcare worker in Spain, whose followers later formed the Brothers Hospitallers of Saint John of God, a Catholic religious institute dedicated to the care of the poor, sick and those with mental disorders. Cidade was canonized by Pope Alexander VIII and is considered one of the leading religious figures in the history of the Iberian Peninsula. The first biography of John of God was written by Francisco de Castro, the chaplain at St. John of God's hospital in Granada, Spain. He drew from his personal knowledge of John as a young man and also used material gathered from eyewitnesses and contemporaries of his subject. It was published at the express wish of the Archbishop of Granada who gave financial backing to its publication. Castro began writing in 1579, 29 years after John of God's death, but he did not live to see it published, for he died soon after completing the work. His mother, Catalina de Castro, had the book published in 1585. Shortly after the publication of Castro's Historia, an Italian translation was published at Rome by an Oratorian priest, Giovanni Bordini, in 1587. Despite several mistranslations and his own extraneous comments, this work became the source of most translations into other languages. John of God was born João Duarte Cidade in Montemor-o-Novo, now in the District of Évora, Kingdom of Portugal, the son of André Cidade and Teresa Duarte, a once-prominent family that was impoverished but had great religious faith. One day, when John was eight years of age, he disappeared. Whether he had been deliberately kidnapped, or whether he had been seduced from his home by a cleric who had been given hospitality in the home, is not clear. According to his original biography, his mother died from grief soon after this, and his father joined the Franciscan Order.