Answering the need

John was a pharmacy technician, but he felt called to help people as a priest. Once he was ordained, he was particularly interested in ministering to the sick and to prisoners.

John realized in time that more needed to be done to educate people in the faith. He formed an organization (which he called a confraternity) to develop and compile teaching materials and methods to instruct people in Christian doctrine.

Never afraid to minister to the sickest of the sick, even in his sixties, John Leonardi died of plague on this very day in 1609. The very name Confraternity of Christian Doctrine (CCD) would become synonymous with teaching within the Church, even to the present time. St. John Leonardi was canonized in 1938.