Doctor, tailor, dancer, monk? Meet José Gregorio Hernández, Venezuela’s first saint

The definitive history of an extraordinary man

The Vatican announced on Tuesday the canonization of Blessed José Gregorio Hernández. The man known as “the doctor of the poor” is now set to become the first Venezuelan saint.

There are three names nearly everyone reveres in Venezuela: Simón Bolivar, who led the country’s independence in the early 19th-century, baseball great Miguel Cabrera, and José Gregorio.

In fact, Venezuela may be the country with the most people named “José Gregorio” in the world — while José and Gregorio are common enough names in Spanish-speaking countries, it is an uncommon combination — but Venezuelans have a good reason for liking it.

Blessed José Gregorio Hernández, an early 20th-century physician known in the country as “the doctor of the poor,” may be the most beloved Venezuelan in history. Nearly every Venezuelan home has a prayer card or picture of the future saint.

And after the Dicastery for the Causes of the Saints announced Feb. 25 that the pope had approved the canonization of Blessed José Gregorio — the number of future José Gregorios in Venezuela looks set to rise.

Beatified in 2021, he was a physician known for his dedication to the poor and for being one of the most important scientists and medical researchers in Venezuela in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Venezuelan doctors and hospitals usually have images of the soon-to-be-saint in their practices.

Popular devotion to him is captured in a joke among Venezuelan physicians: “When a patient dies, the doctor is to blame, but if he is saved, it is thanks to José Gregorio.”

With the man soon set to be canonized, the joke is not likely to subside.

‘My place is not here’

José Gregorio Hernández was born in 1864 in Isnotú, a small town at the beginning of the Andean mountains in Venezuela.

His father was a businessman who made a small fortune in the aftermath of the Federal War, a civil war that killed a third of the Venezuelan population and ended a year before José Gregorio’s birth.

At the age of 13, José Gregorio told his father he wanted to study law, but his father convinced him to study medicine instead. A few months later, in 1878, he moved to Caracas, the capital, to continue his high school studies.

José Gregorio quickly distinguished himself for his intelligence during both his high school and medical studies: By the time he graduated as a doctor in 1888, he spoke English, French, Portuguese, German, and Italian. He also had knowledge of Latin and Hebrew, played the piano, had written philosophical and theological works, and was the best student in his class.

Since his youth, José Gregorio was known to be a devout Catholic.

In fact, his faith made him a subject of bullying when he began his medicine studies. Most students, influenced by French positivism, mocked religion believing it was a thing of the past.

José Gregorio credited his daily Mass attendance and prayer life with giving him strength to endure those early difficulties. But his fame as a good student, his kindness — and his famous dancing skills — quickly made him well-liked and respected among his peers.

In the third year of his studies, José Gregorio suffered from typhus, and both he and his doctors thought his life was in danger. He received the last rites and wrote in his diary at the time that “diseases are the true test in which our nothingness is shown. But now I surrender myself to God’s will.”

But after being bedridden for a month, José Gregorio recovered and resumed his studies.

At the time, he lived with two of his siblings, and money was scarce. He developed a frugal lifestyle, which stayed with him the rest of his life.

As a university student, he learned from a friend to tailor his own suits and shirts, which he continued to do afterward.

After his graduation, the rector of the Central University of Venezuela and personal friend, Dr. Santos Dominici, offered José Gregorio financial assistance to open a practice in Caracas, as he saw great potential in the young doctor.

But José Gregorio made a decision that went in line with his character: He decided to return to Isnotú, his small hometown, because they had no doctors.

In a letter to Dominici, José Gregorio said “How much do I appreciate your kindness, Dr. Dominici!”

“But I must say that my place is not here. I must go to my town. There are no doctors in Isnotú, and my place is there, where my own mother asked me to return to alleviate the pains of the humble men and women of our land. Now that I am a doctor, I realize that my place is there, among my own.”

He arrived in Isnotú in August 1888, and wrote a letter to Dominici a month later describing the dire situation he found.

“My patients have all become well, although it is so difficult to cure the people here, because you have to fight the worries... that they have ingrained: they believe in remedies that are made by saying mysterious words... The clinic is very poor: everyone suffers from dysentery and asthma, with one or two patients with tuberculosis or rheumatism... The pharmacy is very bad.”

During his time in the Andes mountains, Hernández was known for visiting far-flung communities on horseback, crossing rivers, trekking improvised roads, and heading over mountains to see his patients.

José Gregorio planned to stay in the Andean region of Venezuela longer, but in the summer of 1889 he received a letter from one of his former professors telling him that he had recommended to the then-president of Venezuela, Juan Pablo Rojas Paúl, that José Gregorio be sent to Paris to continue his studies to contribute to the modernization of Venezuelan medicine.

José Gregorio duly went, and arrived in Paris in November 1889 to study physiology, microbiology, bacteriology and embryology, under Isidor Strauss, himself a disciple of Émile Roux, one of the founders of bacteriology and himself a disciple of Louis Pasteur.

From there, he continued his studies in Berlin, taking still more courses of bacteriology, histology and pathological anatomy.

It was at that time that President Rojas Paúl started building the Vargas Hospital, set to become the largest hospital in Venezuela, and so he further tasked José Gregorio with studying the organization of French hospitals and bringing home with him European medical equipment. José Gregorio is even credited with introducing the microscope to Venezuela after his studies in Europe.

The doctor of the poor

José Gregorio returned home in 1891 and started teaching normal and pathological histology, experimental physiology and bacteriology – the first courses of their kind in Latin America – in the medical school of the UCV, and founding the experimental physiology lab of Caracas with the equipment he brought from Europe.

As a lecturer, José Gregorio was known for his good humor, his dedication to his students, and above all, for being a very demanding professor.

One of his students later recalled an instance in which a student being questioned by José Gregorio missed several questions in a row.

The future saint asked his pupil “Sir, what is your profession?” to which the student replied “I’m a student.” José Gregorio reportedly said with a smile, “well, why don’t you practice your profession, then?”

As he taught, José Gregorio continued his medical practice, caring for both poor and rich.

He became famous for not charging a specific fee for medical appointments — instead, he had a bag outside of his office that he called “the bag of the poor,” into which patients could either leave some money if they could afford their treatment or could take the money if they needed it, so they did not have to go to the streets and beg.

In a letter to one of his aunts, José Gregorio told her “most of these people don’t have money; I won’t deny them an appointment and make them feel ashamed by telling me they have no money. God shall help.”

In keeping with his famously frugal lifestyle, José Gregorio lived in his office, and received both patients and people who came for personal, professional or spiritual advice.

Despite his frugality, he was perceived by his contemporaries to always dress in style. His presence at social events in Caracas was always in demand, as he was an excellent piano player and a skilled dancer.

Although his medical practice was successful, some biographies claim that José Gregorio’s charitable giving was "limitless," which meant he was never fully financially stable.

His landlady would bring his meals to his room on a tray. The tray always came back empty, so his landlady, assuming he had a good appetite, began to serve him larger meals.

However, she later noticed him leaving the property with a package and followed him. She saw José Gregorio go to a nearby street where many homeless people gathered and give them his food while apologizing for arriving late.

The landlady grabbed him by the arm and led him back home to feed him once again, but he declined, saying, “you already served me my meal, and you today served the Lord, because you fed my poor brothers.”

Through all of this, José Gregorio remained top of his academic field: He was the first doctor to publish a book on bacteriology in Venezuela, his research into angina pectoris discovered two new varieties, and he was one of the 35 founding members of the Venezuelan Academy of Medicine in 1904.

Altogether, José Gregorio wrote 11 published medical works — including two that were published posthumously — but his intellectual and spiritual interests also led him to write Elementos de Filosofía, an introduction to philosophy and a series of short articles, essays, and stories, such as Los Maitines, which described a day in his life in a Carthusian monastery or La verdadera enfermedad de Santa Teresa de Jesús, in which he defended 16th century saint, Teresa of Ávila against accusations of hysteria made by one of José Gregorio’s former teachers and friends.

Brother Marcelo

José Gregorio briefly interrupted his academic career in July 1908 when, at the age of 43, he tried a vocation as a Carthusian monk in Italy. After a brief postulancy, he was admitted as a carthusian novice taking “Marcelo” as a religious name.

However, José Gregorio’s experience of religious life lasted only a few months.

Carthusians spent 15 hours a day in prayer or study, two in physical work, and seven sleeping.

In José Gregorio’s monastery, monks were not allowed to light a fire, no matter how cold the weather. His health suffered as a result of the strict lifestyle, and he developed a number of problems, most notably a respiratory condition, leading him to leave the monastery in April 1909.

Hernández later described his time in the monastery in a letter to Dr. Dominici saying that “it goes beyond any description. There I saw holiness to a heroic degree and I can assure you that after seeing this spectacle, everything on earth is simply mud… But what was supposed to happen, happened: I was blinded by presumption and supported by vanity… I did not have the physical strength to resist the cold, the fasting, the physical labor… The superior general showed me great charity by bearing with me for nine months despite seeing my limitations!”

But the good doctor kept discerning his vocation.

In 1913, José Gregorio again tried to become a priest, moving to the Pious Latin American College in Rome. But his lungs failed him a few months later, prompting his return to Venezuela — where he met with the Archbishop of Caracas, Juan Bautista Castro, a personal friend.

Seeing that his vocational anxiety had not subsided, the archbishop told José Gregorio to “put your vocation on one side of the scale and the needs of Venezuela on the other.”

“Which today, more than ever, requires exemplary men like you?” the archbishop asked him. “See the will of God, and follow it wherever it leads.”

After that, José Gregorio entirely dedicated himself to his patients, and his work as a lecturer and researcher.

When the Spanish flu pandemic hit Venezuela in October 1918, more than 80,000 people died. As the best-known doctor in the country, José Gregorio spearheaded efforts to fight the pandemic, with the government forming the National Aid Board and appointing him as a member.

Hernández during the Spanish flu pandemic in 1918. Credit: Courtesy photo

His death

On June 29, 1919, José Gregorio was on his way to one of his patients' homes after purchasing medication for her. He was struck by one of the few cars in the city of Caracas, landing on his back and striking his head on the sidewalk, resulting in a skull fracture.

The driver rushed him to Vargas Hospital, where he received last rites before dying an hour later.

Dr. Luis Razetti, a close friend but an avowed non-believer, signed the death certificate. Razetti said in a later testimony that “Dr. José Gregorio Hernández believed that medicine was a priesthood of human suffering.”

José Gregorio’s funeral was originally scheduled to take place at his siblings' house but his body was moved to a large hall at the UCV as thousands of people came to pay their respects.

As authorities tried to load his coffin into a funeral carriage to leave for the funeral Mass at the cathedral, the crowd of thousand started crying “Doctor Hernández is ours” and “Doctor Hernández will not go to the cathedral in a carriage” — instead, they took the coffin in their arms to carry his body to the cathedral and later the cemetery.

The beatification cause

The cause for José Gregorio’s beatification was opened in 1949, and Pope Saint John Paul II declared him a venerable in 1986, shortly after the pope visited Venezuela.

But between 1949 and 1986, it was not all smooth sailing for his cause.

Because of his popularity among the people, after his death he became a figure invoked in local folk beliefs, such as santeria, with healers and mediums claiming to use his spirit to heal illnesses. This led many local Catholics to believe that José Gregorio cause was not advancing, and was even halted at some point, due to these connections.

But a priest close to the cause told The Pillar that “That was never an issue, as it was never something that José Gregorio promoted in any way whatsoever — it’s something that just came from syncretic beliefs in Venezuela, which are very common.”

“The problem always was that people didn’t have complete files on the miracles [attributed to his intercession], which were many. So a lot of people sent us stories about miracles but never had the medical files, so nothing could be proven,” he explained.

Hernández was beatified on April 30, 2021 after a miracle attributed to his intercession was formally approved:

On March 10, 2017, Yaxury Solórzano, a 10-year-old girl was shot in the head during a robbery in a small town in the central region of Venezuela. She had to be taken by boat to San Fernando de Apure, the closest town with an actual hospital, arriving seven hours later.

The hospital staff noticed she had lost a significant amount of blood and lost brain mass. The hospital did not have a neurosurgeon on staff so they had to wait 48 hours until a doctor from Caracas arrived to operate her.

The doctor, however, cautioned that even if the child survived the surgery, she would most likely develop severe motor and cognitive deficits.

Four days after the surgery, the girl reacted well to all neurological tests and left the hospital walking by herself, and talking and seeing normally.

“The wound was mortal from the beginning. In these cases you have what we call ‘golden hour,’ which is that you need to start medical care in the first 60 minutes after the injury to avoid secondary reactions. She received care seven hours later,” her doctor, Alexander Krinitzky, said in an interview.

“Not having a neurological deficit and fully recovering in 10 days is absolutely unexplainable. As a scientist, I say it: it’s a miracle,” he added.

However, the family did not immediately contact the postulator of the cause.

“I lost contact with them,” the doctor said. “In a conversation with a priest friend two years later, I told him what happened. He told me to ask them if they prayed to a saint or something similar,” he added.

Yaxury and her mother unexpectedly visited his office ten days after this conversation for a routine check-up.

“I asked her mother and she told me that she asked José Gregorio Hernández for the miracle and that when we entered the surgery room, she felt his presence, and he told her that he was going to operate through our hands.”

On occasion of his beatification, Pope Francis sent a video in which he said “I must confess that I never found a Venezuelan in the Vatican, whether in [Saint Peter’s] Square or in a private audience, that in the middle of the conversation didn’t ask me ‘and when will José Gregorio’s canonization be?’”

While the official date hasn’t been set yet, supporters of José Gregorio’s cause are hoping they won’t have long to wait.