St. John Nepomucene

Who they were

John of Nepomuk was vicar general of Prague under an erratic, violent king, and in 1393 the king had him tortured and thrown, bound, from the Charles Bridge into the Vltava by night.

The documented cause was a church and state collision over an abbey appointment John refused to rig. The tradition that rose almost immediately, and carried his cult across Europe, holds that the deeper offence was his refusal to reveal the queen's confession to her jealous husband. Both layers belong in the telling, and the Church honoured the martyr of the seal at his canonization in 1729. Every visitor to Prague learns the rest: the five stars over his statue mark where the river gave up his body, and his image, finger to lips or cradling a crucifix, stands on bridges from Bohemia to Brazil, the patron of the crossing and of the secret kept.

Why people turn to St. John Nepomucene

Priests, for the seal. And everyone bound by a professional confidence: therapists, attorneys, human resources, anyone who hears what families say at their worst hour. The slandered, with St. Joan of Arc. And people who cross water to get to work.

How to ask their intercession

Before keeping the confidence that costs something. That is his patronage exactly, and he paid the maximum for it.