Saint Thomas of Cori

Tommaso da Cori (4 June 1655 - 11 January 1729) - born Francesco Antonio Placidi - was an Italian Roman Catholic priest and a professed member of the Order of Friars Minor who lived as a hermit for much of his religious life. He gained fame as a noted preacher throughout the region where his hermitage was located and for this became known as the "Apostle of the Sublacense". His beatification was celebrated under Pope Pius VI on 3 September 1786 and was beatified two centuries later in Saint Peter's Square on 21 November 1999 under Pope John Paul II. Francesco Antonio Placidi was born to poor parents on 4 June 1655 in Cori near Rome. In his childhood he was dubbed "the little saint" due to the recognition of his personal holiness. He earned a living as a shepherd as he grew up. Placidi was pious and soon became aware of the Order of Friars Minor that had come to the town. Both his parents had died at the time he turned fourteen and was therefore his task to take care of his two sisters and to find them husbands. Placidi had a strong devotion to God and so after seeing his sisters married off chose almost at once to enter consecrated life as a simple friar and entered the Order of Friars Minor at the convent of Santissima Trinitá in 1665 while commencing his novitiate on 7 February 1667. He underwent his theological and philosophical studies in Viterbo. In 1683 - following the successful completion of his studies - he was ordained to the priesthood (he celebrated his first Mass in Velletri) and was at once appointed as the assistant master of novices in Orvieto. He soon became aware of the hermit life which was re-emerging in the order during that period and so joined a hermitage in Civitella (present Bellegra) where he lived until his death except for a brief period of time in which he was the guardian of a hermitage he founded in Palombara modeled after the one in Civitella.