Patrick Fleming (Franciscan)
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Patrick Fleming O.F.M. (Lagan, County Louth, 17 April 1599 – Bohemia, 7 November 1631) was an Irish Franciscan scholar, who was murdered near Prague in the course of the Thirty Years' War.
Born Christopher Fleming, his father Gerald Fleming was the great-grandson of Christopher Fleming, 8th Baron Slane; his mother Elizabeth Cusack was a daughter of Robert Cusack, a Baron of the Exchequer and a close relative of Christopher Nugent, Lord Delvin. One of his uncles was Christopher Cusack who founded Irish Colleges in Douai, Antwerp and Lille.[1] In 1612 Fleming went to Flanders, and became a student, first at St Patricks College of Douai, and then at the College of St. Anthony of Padua at Leuven.[2]
In 1617 Fleming entered the Order of Friars Minor, and assumed the religious name of "Patrick". A year later he made his solemn profession of religious vows. Five years after his, he went to Rome with Hugh MacCaghwell, the Definitor General of the Order, and when he had completed his studies at the College of St. Isidore,[3] was ordained a priest.
From Rome, Fleming was sent by his superiors to Leuven and for some years lectured there on philosophy. During that time he established a reputation for scholarship and administrative capacity, and when the Franciscans of the Strict Observance, the branch to which he belonged, opened a college the College of the Immaculate Conception in Prague, Fleming was appointed its first Guardian. He was also named a lecturer in theology.[4]
