Patron Saints of South America Quiz

Answer: Francis Solano

Saint Francis Solano was born in Spain in 1549. Educated by the Jesuits, he nevertheless chose to join the Franciscan order in 1569. He studied theology and philosophy, and liked to play the fiddle or the lute. In 1589 he sailed to Panama and travelled further to Peru and more southwards, where he preached the gospel to the local population. He could rapidly master several of the languages of the local tribes, but according to legend he would also address people of various tribes in one single language, which they all understood - even if they never learned any other tongue than their own tribal language. Saint Francis preached for twenty years in the southern part of South America.
Saint Francis Solano is venerated on July 13, as also the red herrings are.
Saint Silas (died probably 50 AD) was a companion of Saint Paul during the first Century AD.
Saint Henry II (973-1024) was Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire from 1014 until his death in 1024.
Saint Teresa de los Andes (1900-1920) was a Carmelite sister.

Answer: James

Chile was first colonized by the Spaniards from 1540 onwards. Pedro de Valdivia founded in 1541 the city Santiago, and named it after Saint James the Greater. The full name of the Chilean capital is Santiago de la Nueva Extremadura, because Valdivia was born in the Spanish province Extremadura.
Saint James the Greater and his brother Saint John the Apostle were sons of Zebedee and Salome, maybe even distant cousins to Jesus Christ. After Andrew and Simon Peter, James and John were the first to follow Jesus Christ. When later James the son of Alphaeus joined the apostles, it became custom to name James son of Zebedee "the Greater" and James the son of Alphaeus "the Lesser", not necessarily because a difference in stature but because the son of Zebedee followed Jesus earlier.
Saint James the Greater is reported to be the first apostle to be martyred: he would be beheaded at the bequest of King Herod in 44 AD. After his death, legend has it that angels took away his body and shipped it on a boat without crew, that landed in Spain. That's why Saint James the Greater's relics are supposed to be buried in the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela.

Answer: Peter Claver

Colombia has several patron saints, among which Saint Peter Claver and Saint Louis Bertran. But my loose remark about his keys should have pointed you to the only Peter listed here, for the apostle Peter is frequently associated with "holding the keys" to heaven.
Saint Peter Claver (1580-1654) was born in Spain. At the age of 20 he joined the Jesuit order. In 1610 he sailed to the New World, and started preaching among the slaves of African descent in and around Cartagena, Colombia. During his forty years of missionary work, he would have baptized at least 300,000 people - an average of 7,500 per year.
Saint Louis Bertran (1526-1581) was a Dominican missionary to Panama and Colombia. His feast is on October 9, not September 9.
Saint Ferdinand III of Aragon (1217-1252) was king of Castilia. He was chosen the patron saint of the Colombian city Amaga.
Saint Nicholas of Myra (270-343) was bishop in Myra, today Turkey. Apart from his patronage of children, he is also the patron saint of the Colombian city Baranquilla.

Answer: Ecuador

El Quinche is a small town just outside the capital city Quito, to the east of Quito's international airport. It used to have a native shrine of a local tribe, before the Incas conquered the territory and replaced it with an Incan shrine. And when the Spanish arrived, they in their turn broke down the Incan shrine and built a Roman Catholic church on the same spot.
The legend associated with this local saint is as follows. When a local made a wooden statue of the Virgin Mary, he placed it in a niche where birds were witnessed to chirp all day. Meanwhile a young couple worked as masons to build the church in El Quinche, and they left their baby unattended under a tree. A bear abducted and mauled the baby, and the masons brought the little corpse back to the statue of the Virgin. After hours of intense prayer, the child was miraculously revived.
Paraguay, Uruguay and Bolivia are all sited just north of Argentina, one of the most southern countries in South America.

Answer: Venezuela

Coromoto is a tiny hamlet in the south of Venezuela, in the state of Amazonas. A chieftain of the local tribe saw a Marian apparition in 1651, and at her instigation he went to a settlement of the Spanish colonists to be baptized. The Spaniard Juan Sanchez undertook to teach the entire Coromoto tribe the gospel and the principles of Roman Catholicism. Meanwhile the children of the tribe witnessed several more apparitions.

After a few months had passed, the chieftain lost his drive to get baptized, and he tried to grab the next apparition.

But all that he got his hands on, was a small icon of Our Lady.

Answer: Saint Sebastian

Saint Sebastian was a Roman soldier who converted secretly to Christianity, and convinced several of his colleagues to do likewise. Emperor Diocletian convicted him of treason and ordered that Sebastian be tied to a tree and used as target practice for the Roman archers. After his body was pierced many times, the archers left him for dead. But an angel came down and cured Sebastian miraculously. When Sebastian then went back to Diocletian to firmly rebuke the Emperor, Diocletian had Sebastian clubbed to death.
Neither of the red herrings were martyrs.
Saint Anthony of Padua is the patron saint of Ipanema (the Brazilian beach town) and patron saint of lost items.
Saint Rita of Cascia is the patron saint of desperate cases, but also of the Brazilian city Fortaleza.
Our Lady of Mount Carmel is the patron saint of the Brazilian city of Uberlandia.

Answer: La Paz

La Paz is the city that contains the Bolivian presidential palace, the parliament building and many of the government departments. But the Bolivian constitution points to Sucre as the national capital, and the supreme court of justice is established in Sucre. Patron saint of La Paz is Our Lady of Candelaria, one of many appearances of the Virgin Mary.

This incarnation of Our Lady has its origin on the Canary islands, where two (pagan) goatherds would have found a mysterious statue of a young woman (with darker skin as the usual portrayals of Virgin Mary) bearing a child on one arm and a candle in the other hand.

When the goatherds tried to damage the statue, they found they couldn't for a reason that went above their minds. When the Spanish took control of the Canary islands, they identified the statue as a portrait of Virgin Mary, and they gave it the name of Our Lady of Candelaria (Our Lady with the Candle).

Answer: Isidore the Farmer

Isidore the Farmer (1070-1130), also known as Isidore of Madrid, is the one we were looking for. He was a simple peasant, but he would have performed many miracles even during his lifetime. To name but a few: once he was attending mass, while an angel with his traits was in the same time ploughing the field. On another occasion, he fed some needy people with a pot of stew that seemed to hold infinite food sources. His namesake Isidore of Seville (560-636) has been declared the patron saint of the internet, because he was the first named Christian undertaking to write an encyclopaedia of all knowledge.

Answer: Victoria

It is indeed Victoria, Venezuela that has Our Lady of Guadalupe as patron saint. Our Lady of Guadalupe first appeared in December 1531 to a Mexican peasant named Juan Diego. Diego saw a radiant young woman appear near Tepeyac hill (close to present-day Mexico City), and this apparition spoke to Juan Diego in his native language (Nahuatl).

She identified herself as the mother of the true God, and demanded that Juan Diego commence building a church on the hill. She appeared three times more to Juan Diego, and at their final meeting the woman instructed Diego to pick some blooming flowers on the hill, which she arranged in his cloak.

When Juan Diego informed the Archbishop of Mexico of these apparitions, the flowers fell out of his cloak and a portrait of the woman was miraculously seen in the cloak. Since then the cloak is considered a relic and reminder of the apparitions, and not only the Mexican suburb of Guadalupe (near Tepeyac Hill) but several other cities in North, Central and South America have chosen Our Lady of Guadalupe as their patron saint.

Answer: San Vicente

All these Argentinian cities are named after a well-known saint, and if they have a patron saint it will be most probably the saint whose name they bear. Alas, a brief look on the internet did not reveal the patron saints of San Nicolas, San Rafael or San Fernando. Vincent de Paul (1581-1660) was a French priest who cared for the poor. One group that earned his specific attention, was the criminals convicted to serve as galley slaves, for Vincent may have been a galley slave for a brief period himself. (Recent historic research contradicts the classic hagiography which mentions Vincent as a galley slave). Vincent was a superior of the Congregation of the Mission (a Catholic order he founded himself), and helped Louise de Marillac to found the Daughters of Charity.