Peter González

Who was Peter González?

The Blessed Peter González, O.P., sometimes referred to as Pedro González Telmo, Saint Telmo, or Saint Elmo, was a Spanish Dominican friar and priest, born in 1190 in Astorga, León, Spain.

González was educated by his uncle, the Bishop of Astorga, who gave him a canonry when he was very young. Later he resigned this position and entered the Dominican Order, where he became a renowned preacher; crowds gathered to hear him and numberless conversions were the result of his efforts. He accompanied the King, Saint Ferdinand III of Castile and Leon on his expeditions against the Moors, but his real ambition was to preach to the poor.

He devoted the remainder of his life to the instruction and conversion of the ignorant and of the mariners in Galicia and along the coast of Spain. He died on April 15, 1246, at Tui and is buried in the local cathedral. He was beatified in 1254 by Pope Innocent IV.

Although his cult was confirmed in 1741 by Pope Benedict XIV and despite his common epithet of "saint," Blessed Peter was never formally canonized. The diminutive "Elmo" belongs properly to the martyr-bishop Saint Erasmus, one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers, of whose name "Elmo" is a contraction.