Saint Giuseppe Maria Tomasi was an Italian Theatine Catholic priest, scholar, reformer and cardinal. His scholarship was a significant source of the reforms in the liturgy of the Roman Catholic Church during the 20th century. He was beatified by Pope Pius VII in 1803, and was canonized by Pope John Paul II in 1986.
His life was oriented toward God from his first years. Formed and educated in the family home, where they did not lack riches or moral training, he gave proofs of a spirit very open to study and to piety. His parents cared greatly for this and for his own Christian formation and his instruction in the classical and modern languages, above all in the Spanish language, because he was destined by the family for the royal court of Madrid, as he was bound to inherit from his own father, as his title of nobility, that of Grandee of Spain.
But Tomasi’s own spirit aspired, even from youth, to be small in the Kingdom of God, and to serve not the kings of the earth but the King of heaven. He cultivated his pious desire in his heart until he obtained the consent of his father to follow his vocation to the religious life.
Saint Giuseppe Maria Tomasi taught catechism to the children of the poor in his titular church, also introducing its congregants to the use of Gregorian chant. He died in 1713, mourned by all, especially by Pope Clement, who so admired his sanctity that he had consulted him before accepting the papacy. He was buried in his titular church. The relics of his body, transferred in 1971 from the Basilica of his title of Ss. Silvestro e Martini ai Monti, are presently exposed for the veneration of the faithful in the Basilica of San Andrea della Valle of the Theatine Fathers, in Rome.
Sources:
Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Bl. Giuseppe Maria Tommasi". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
Biography at The Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church
