You're listening to a podcast on Catholic Saints.

This podcast is produced by the Augustine Institute,

an Apostolate helping Catholics understand, live, and share their faith.

My name is Dr. Ben Acres, and I'm the Executive Director of Formed.

And joining me today is Dr. Christopher Bloom, the academic dean at the graduate school

of theology at the Augustine Institute. The 13th century is sometimes called the greatest

of Christian centuries. It's known for its great saints that we're familiar with, St. Dominic,

St. Francis, King St. Louis. It's also known for its boom in education and the formation of the clergy.

Think of St. Thomas Aquinas, writing as Summa Theologica, teaching at the University

of Paris.

Another great achievement during the 13th century is in architecture.

We have the building of Saint-Chapelle by King St. Louis. We have

the shark cathedral being built as well and the cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris. It's known

for so many great things and today we like to focus in on one of the great

figures of this century which is King St. Louis.

And so what we like to do is talk about, have a conversation about his history, his story,

and then what we can draw from it today because we might be familiar.

Some of you might be watching from a little town in Missouri named after him, King St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri. And why do we have cities that are named after

him, chapels that are named after him? What made him so great not just only as a king, but also

as a saint that's canonized by the church. Can you imagine having a president that's

canonized? That just is out of our mind and to have a king, a ruler of a secular

country, a secular ruler that's canonized by the church. There's some lessons for us to

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