“Your China will be Italy”: This was the answer given to the young Priest Fr. Leonard by Cardinal Colloredo at St. Mary in Trastevere in Rome after asking to be sent as a Missionary in China. Infact, the missionary land for the Friars Minor become Italy. St. Leonard before joining the Friars Minor was known as Paul Jerome Casanova.
He was born on 20th december 1676 at the seaport Maurice in the former imperial Italy. While studying in Rome ; he was attracted by the austere life which was lived by two friars at convent of St. Bonaventure Palatino in Rome. At the age of 21 he entered the Order of Friars Minor at the convent St.Mary in Porticelli.
His will to become a missionary in China was impeded first of all by his theological studies at St. Bonaventure in Rome ,the responsibility given to him of being a professor of philosophy and finally by his health. He had tuberculosis which made him to entrust himself to the intercessions of the Blessed Virgin Mary and was restored to health. From the response given to him by Cardinal Colloredo, Leonard understood that Italy of the 17th century was indeed a new missionary land: with zeal he preached to the people in the Kingdom of Naples, the Republic of Genoa in Tuscany up to Corsia Island.
St. Alphonse Maria Liguori wrote about him saying “ He is the gratest missionary of our century”; Pope Benedict the XIV was described him as “the great heaven hunter”; Fr. Augustine Gemelli, in his book franciscanism speaks of his missionary work and evangelization. St. Leonard was the founder and difender of the devotion to the way of the cross. The multitude of people would go to listen to him as he would make sure that his missions and periods of particular importance such as his evangelization to the people or liturgical seasons of the year do not coinside; he would go to the places of mission in order to know better the peculiality of the place and adopt his homilies to the life of the people.
He would prepare his homilies spiritually so as to transmit with that love which he had tasted from God. At the request of the Roman Pontif, he accepted the responsibility of prepared the faithful for the holy year in 1750. In that ocassion he erected the way of the cross at the colosseum in Rome by saving the monument that had been abandoned, degraded and been considered as cave of stones. Leonard died on the night of 25th november 1751 at Saint Bonaventura Palatino. He was beatified by Pope Pius VI on 19th march 1796 and was canonized on 29th June 1867 by Pope Pius IX.
Cfr. Friars Minor Saints and the Blessed, edited by Fr. Silvano Bracci, OFM and Sr. Antonietta Pozzebon, FMSC. Editrice Velar, 2009, pp. 329-333.