18 November 1657: The death of the Luke Wadding on this day. He was a Franciscan Friar and an historian of the Order of Franciscans. He was also instrumental in establishing the Irish College in Rome to train priests to send back to Ireland to keep the Faith alive in the face of increasing attempts to suppress the Catholic Religion by the government of England.

He was born into a wealthy merchant family in the city of Waterford in 1588. After the death in 1602 of his mother from the Plague that was sweeping Ireland at the time he was sent to Portugal to begin his his religious studies at Coimbra in order to become a Franciscan friar & he was ordained a priest in 1613. He then moved to the University of Salamanca where he gained a reputation as a theologian with a particular interest in the historic and spiritual tradition of the Franciscan Order. He was chosen to be a member of the Spanish Embassy to the Papacy as  secretary & Theologian to the delegation. 

‘He worked with the commission on the immaculate conception, producing four volumes on the question. He edited concordances of the Hebrew and Latin Bibles. His fame as a scholar, however, mainly rests on his commentaries on the works of the Franciscan theologian Duns Scotus (d. 1308) and his masterly treatises on the history of the Franciscan Order, the Annales Minorum (the Order’s history from 1208 to 1540) and the Scriptores Ordinis Minorum (a collection of the primary sources of the Order). That he is regarded as the father of the history of the Franciscans to this day was recognised in January 2007, when the archive of the General Order in Rome was named after him.’ https://www.historyireland.com/volume-15/luke-wadding-1588-1657-the-only-irishman-to-receive-votes-in-a-papal-conclave/

With the assistance of Cardinal Ludovico Ludovis, the cardinal protector of Ireland and one of Wadding’s many influential friends in Rome, he founded St Isidore’s College in 1625. This was to train Priests to send back to Ireland to keep the Faith alive. He procured for the library 5000 select works, besides a precious collection of manuscripts bound in 800 volumes. During the first thirty years of its existence this college educated 200 students, 70 of which number filled chairs of philosophy and theology in various corners of Europe.  Each year Wadding kept the Feast of St. Patrick with great solemnity at St. Isidore's; and it is due to his influence, as member of the commission for the reform of the Breviary, that the festival of Ireland's Apostle was inserted on 17 March in the calendar of the Universal Church.

It had a precarious existence both financially & politically but somehow or other Luke Wadding kept the project going. He was an avid supporter of the Catholic Cause when the Rising of 1641 broke out and the Confederation of Kilkenny was established. He was instrumental in getting Archbishop  Rinuccini sent to Ireland with specie & weapons to fuel the Catholic Armies in the field here.

‘Wadding's fame as a writer and a critic rests chiefly on his monumental edition of Scotus, on the "Scriptores", and, above all, on the "Annales ord. minorum". In 1639 he published at Lyons a complete edition of the writings of the Subtle Doctor, in 16 volumes, having devoted four years to the proximate preparation. He corrected the text throughout according to the best manuscripts and earliest impressions, inserted everywhere critical notes and learned scholia, and enriched the edition with the commentaries of MacCaughwell, Hickey, Lychetus, Ponce, and others. It was a colossal undertaking, and would alone have immortalized his name. His life of John Duns Scotus, which is prefixed to the first volume, appeared separately in 1644.’https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15521d.htm

Historian and theologian he died at St. Isidore's College, Rome on18 November, 1657. He  was one of the greatest Catholic scholars’ of his day who upheld the Catholic Religion and Ireland’s cause to the end of his days.