In front of the Quirinal Palace stands a pearl of Roman Baroque, one of Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s masterpieces: the church of Sant’Andrea al Quirinale. Not everyone knows that this temple, dedicated to the Apostle Andrew, is also the place of worship of a young Polish saint, Saint Stanislaus Kostka. Here are located his tomb, the chapel of Saint Stanislaus Kostka, and, in a room of the adjacent former Jesuit novitiate, a very beautiful statue of the Saint by Pierre Legros.

On September 15th, at the tomb of Saint Stanislaus in the church of Sant’Andrea al Quirinale, pilgrims from Poland who made a walking pilgrimage in the footsteps of Saint Stanislaus Kostka participated in a Mass of thanksgiving for the pilgrimage. The celebration was presided over by Cardinal Gianfranco Ghirlanda; concelebrants included Monsignor Szymon Stułkowski, bishop of Płock (the diocese from which the young Polish saint came), Monsignor Adam Bab, auxiliary bishop of Lublin, and numerous Polish priests. The Mass was also attended by the ambassadors of Poland and Lithuania to the Holy See and the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, Adam Kwiatkowski and Sigita Maslauskaitė-Mažylienė, along with a large group of pilgrims.

Stanislaus was born in 1550 on the family estate in Rostków (north of Warsaw) into a Polish noble family. At the age of fourteen, Stanislaus was sent, along with his older brother Paweł and a tutor, to Vienna to study at the Jesuit college. From 1564 to 1567, he stayed in the Austrian capital, dedicating himself to study, deepening his spiritual life, and cultivating an increasingly strong desire to enter the Society of Jesus. Since his father was completely opposed to this latter plan, Stanislaus secretly left Vienna and, in the summer of 1567, arrived in Dillingen, Bavaria. In the Bavarian city, he was received by Saint Peter Canisius, then provincial of the German Jesuits, who at the end of September of the same year sent him to Rome with a letter of recommendation addressed to the Father General, Saint Francis Borgia. Stanislaus was one of the first residents of the house of the new Jesuit novitiate at Sant’Andrea al Quirinale. Unfortunately, in the summer of 1568, he was probably struck by malaria and, after a brief illness, died during the night between August 14th and 15th at only 18 years of age in the novitiate house at Sant’Andrea, where he was also buried. In the chapel of Saint Stanislaus Kostka, beneath the altar, is the urn made of gilded bronze and lapis lazuli containing the saint’s remains, while the altarpiece above, “The Communion of Saint Stanislaus,” is by Ludovico Mazzanti. Stanislaus Kostka was canonized on December 31, 1726, by Pope Benedict XIII: he is the patron saint of novices and youth.

The occasion for the celebrations and the pilgrimage initiative was precisely the 300th anniversary of the canonization of Saint Stanislaus Kostka. The pilgrimage took place in the form of a relay. In total, 160 people participated. The first leg, from Vienna to Linz, started on July 4th. “We wanted to remind the world and Europe of Saint Stanislaus,” explained Monsignor Stułkowski, the creator of this journey that crossed Austria, Germany, and Italy.

In his homily, Cardinal Ghirlanda emphasized that Saint Stanislaus, coming from a wealthy and influential family, “fully understood the vanity of the things of the world, in the sense that they vanish like mist, while what remains forever is the will of God.” From this stems the relevance of this Polish saint. “The pagan society in which we currently live,” the cardinal further emphasized, “is a continuous temptation for all of us, because in many ways it entices us with its vanity and the evil one, deceiving us, presents it to us as something substantial, as that which gives us happiness. Saint Stanislaus teaches us that we must resist it and remain faithful to God, even if this may entail the incomprehension of those around us.”

During Holy Mass, the relics of Saint Stanislaus Kostka and Carlo Acutis—which the pilgrims carried with them in a small suitcase during the pilgrimage—were displayed in front of the altar.