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A young nobleman becomes a Cardinal, exemplifies holiness, and reforms the Church

Today’s saint was born in a castle to an aristocratic family. His father was a count, his mother a Medici, and his uncle a pope. This last fact was to determine the trajectory of Charles Borromeo’s entire life. Pope Pius IV (1559–1565) was the brother of Charles’ mother. At the tender age of twelve, Charles received the external sign of permanent religious commitment, the shaving of the scalp known as tonsure. He was industrious and extremely bright and received advanced degrees in theology and law in his native Northern Italy. In 1560 his uncle ordered him to Rome and made him a Cardinal at the age of just twenty-one, even though Charles was not yet ordained a priest or bishop. This was brazen nepotism. But in this instance it was also genius. The Cardinal-nephew was a man of rare gifts, and his high office afforded him a wide forum to give those gifts their fullest expression.

At the Holy See, Charles was loaded down with immense responsibilities. He oversaw large religious orders. He was the papal legate to important cities in the papal states. He was the Cardinal Protector of Portugal, the Low Countries, and Switzerland. And, on top of all this, he was named administrator of the enormous Archdiocese of....

Attributions
https://wellcomeimages.org/indexplus/obf_images/6d/c8/358225b84ff4ab930b4669c836e0.jpgGallery: https://wellcomeimages.org/indexplus/image/V0031782.htmlWellcome Collection gallery (2018-04-02): https://wellcomecollection.org/works/rj54whsn CC-BY-4.0, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=36599603; By https://wellcomeimages.org/indexplus/obf_images/6d/c8/358225b84ff4ab930b4669c836e0.jpgGallery: https://wellcomeimages.org/indexplus/image/V0031782.htmlWellcome Collection gallery (2018-04-02): https://wellcomecollection.org/works/rj54whsn CC-BY-4.0, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=36599603; By https://wellcomeimages.org/indexplus/obf_images/6d/c8/358225b84ff4ab930b4669c836e0.jpgGallery: https://wellcomeimages.org/indexplus/image/V0031782.htmlWellcome Collection gallery (2018-04-02): https://wellcomecollection.org/works/rj54whsn CC-BY-4.0, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=36599603; By Francesco Bini - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=142040977; By Orazio Borgianni - Own work, Ealdgyth, 2010-07-04, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10965321; By Jacob van Oost the Younger - Own work Pierre André, 2018-03-24 12:09:01, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=67716523; By GFreihalter - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=31843842; By Giuseppe Guida - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=146717213; By https://wellcomeimages.org/indexplus/obf_images/fd/e5/2f48c8707e50ba664d7195169e07.jpgGallery: https://wellcomeimages.org/indexplus/image/L0004059.htmlWellcome Collection gallery (2018-04-02): https://wellcomecollection.org/works/trzpwuku CC-BY-4.0, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=35866779; Daniel Case, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons; See page for author, CC BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons; Pasquale Cati, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons;