Vincent Ferrer, born in Valencia, was the…
1412 CE
Vincent Ferrer, born in Valencia, was the fourth child of the nobleman Guillem Ferrer, who had come from Palamós, and his Spanish wife, Constança Miquel.
He had begun his classical studies at the age of eight, his study of theology and philosophy at fourteen.
Ferrer four years later, at the age of eighteen, had entered the Order of Preachers, commonly called the Dominican Order.
As soon as he had entered the novitiate of the Order, though, he had experienced temptations urging him to leave.
Even his parents had pleaded with him to do so and become a secular priest.
He prayed and practiced penance to overcome these trials.
Thus he succeeded in completing the year of probation and advancing to his profession.
He read solely Sacred Scripture for a period of three years, and eventually committed it to memory.
He published a treatise on Dialectic Suppositions after his solemn profession, and in 1379 had been ordained a Catholic priest at Barcelona.
Eventually becoming a Master of Sacred Theology, he had been commissioned by the Order to deliver lectures on philosophy.
He was then sent to Barcelona and eventually to the University of Lleida, where he earned his doctorate in theology.
He will later claim that the Great Schism had such a depressing effect on his mind that it caused him to be seriously ill at the age of forty.
The Western Schism had divided Christianity first between two popes: Clement VII, who lived at Avignon in France, and Urban VI, in Rome.
Vincent Ferrer had become convinced that the election of Urban was invalid though Catherine of Siena had been just as devoted a supporter of the Roman pope.
In the service of Cardinal de Luna, Vincent had worked to persuade Spaniards to follow Clement.
When Clement died in 1394, Cardinal de Luna had been elected at Avignon and became Benedict XIII.
Vincent was loyal to Benedict XIII, better known as "Papa Luna" in Castile and Aragon, and had worked for him as apostolic penitentiary and Master of the Sacred Palace.
Vincent had returned in 1409 to Avignon from his decade long preaching tour through France, Spain, Switzerland, Italy, and the Low Countries, having converted great numbers of heretics, Jews, and Muslim, sand gained a reputation as a worker of wonders.
Having already attempted unsuccessfully to persuade Benedict to resign, Ferrer begins to denounce him publicly from about 1412 and draws support away from the Avignon papacy.
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