Peter Claver

Saint Peter Claver is the patron of slaves, of African missions, and of all who work for racial justice for one searing reason: for over forty years in Cartagena he met every slave ship that crossed the Atlantic, going down into the foul holds with food, water, and medicine to tend the chained Africans no one else would touch, and he signed himself “slave of the slaves forever” (Petrus Claver, aethiopum semper servus). Having baptized an estimated three hundred thousand of them and defended their dignity against the slavers, he became, centuries before abolition, the Church’s great patron of the enslaved and of racial reconciliation. He is honored as patron of Colombia, where he spent his whole apostolate.