Saint Conrad of Piacenza

Conrad Confalonieri was born in 1290 to a noble family of Piacenza in northern Italy and married a noblewoman named Euphrosyne. One day while hunting, he ordered brush to be set on fire to drive out game; the wind spread the flames and destroyed fields and forests. A poor peasant was arrested, tortured and condemned to death for the fire. Stricken in conscience, Conrad publicly confessed his guilt, saved the man and paid for the damage, losing nearly all his fortune.

Seeing God's hand in this, he and his wife agreed to enter religious life: she joined the Poor Clares, and he became a Franciscan tertiary hermit. Seeking solitude, he went to Sicily and lived for about thirty years in a cave near Noto, devoted to prayer and penance, while people came to him for counsel and healing. He died there on February 19, 1351.

Noto in Sicily honors him as its patron with great festivals in February and on the last Sunday of August, when his silver urn is carried through the baroque streets.

He is invoked against hernias and by those who need the courage to admit their faults.