Patron saint of engineers

Engineers spend their days on things that have to hold: bridges, dams, circuits, roads, the frames of buildings people will sleep in. It is serious work, and it makes sense to bring it to God. The Church has never named a single patron saint of engineering, but two saints are claimed most often, one by the Spanish-speaking world and one by American engineering schools, and several more stand behind the builders of every age.

St. Ferdinand III, the patron saint of engineers

St. Ferdinand III (1198–1252) was king of Castile from 1217 and of León from 1230, uniting the two crowns for good. The Catholic Encyclopedia describes a ruler who chose the wisest counselors he could find, kept taxes light because he feared "the curse of one poor woman more than a whole army of Saracens," fasted, wore a hair shirt, and often spent the night before a battle in prayer. He was a Franciscan tertiary and was buried in the Franciscan habit at his own request.

He was a builder as much as a soldier. His campaigns took Córdoba in 1236 and Seville in 1248, after a long siege that depended on the engineering of the day, ending when his ships broke the bridge of boats that linked Seville to Triana across the river. He began or supported the great Gothic cathedrals of Burgos and Toledo, founded bishoprics, churches and hospitals, and the Catholic Encyclopedia credits him with founding the University of Salamanca. Clement X canonized him in 1671, and his body rests in a silver urn in Seville Cathedral. His feast is May 30.

Why Spain's engineers chose him

The patronage is formal, though it comes from the Spanish Crown rather than from Rome. According to documents in the Archivo Militar de Segovia, King Charles IV named St. Ferdinand patron of the Royal Regiment of Sappers and Miners on January 16, 1804. The following year the patronage was extended to the whole Royal Corps of Engineers in Spain and the Indies, approved in May 1805. Spain's military engineers have kept May 30 as their feast ever since, and when the saint's urn is opened for veneration in Seville, an engineers' regiment in historic uniform stands guard. From the army the patronage spread to engineers in general across Spain and Latin America.

St. Patrick, the patron of American engineers

Ask an engineer in the United States and you may hear a different answer. St. Patrick's patronage of engineers is an American campus tradition. Engineering students at the University of Missouri say that in 1903 they "discovered" that St. Patrick was an engineer and took March 17 as their holiday; it grew into a week of Engineers Week festivities, knighting ceremonies and the shamrock as an engineering emblem. Missouri S&T in Rolla has held its own St. Pat's celebration since 1908, and its students still chant, "Cheers! Cheers! For the saint of engineers!"

The usual reason given is a tradition, repeated by Engineers Ireland, that Patrick built the first clay churches in Ireland and taught the Irish to build arches of lime mortar instead of dry stone. That is traditional at best. Patrick's own Confession says nothing of building, and Irish stone churches with mortared arches come centuries later. But the patronage has stuck, and it is a happy one. Patrick spent his life building the Church in Ireland, and engineers could do worse than the prayer Irish tradition gives him, St. Patrick's Breastplate, for a hard day's work: "Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me" (Kuno Meyer's translation).

Saints of builders and bridges

• St. Joseph: the Gospels call him a tekton, a craftsman or builder in wood and stone. He is the patron of workers and carpenters, and our page on the patron saint of jobs tells of the feast of St. Joseph the Worker.
• St. Thomas the Apostle: in the ancient Acts of Thomas he tells the king of India that his trade is carpenter and house builder, and he is given money to build a palace. He gives it to the poor and tells the king his palace is built in heaven. Architects, builders, stonemasons and surveyors claim him, and painters give him a carpenter's square.
• St. Barbara: her legend says her father shut her in a tower, and she ordered a third window cut in it to honor the Trinity. She is the patroness of architects and builders, and of artillerymen and miners, whose work with explosives made them look to her.

• St. Bénézet: a shepherd boy who, by tradition, came to Avignon in 1177 saying God had told him to build a bridge over the Rhône, lifted a stone no team of men could move to prove it, and began the work. He died in 1184 before it was finished. The story is traditional; the bridge is real, and bridge builders take him as their patron. His feast is April 14.
• St. Vincent Ferrer: the Dominican preacher is listed as patron of builders and construction workers, though no one knows how the patronage started.

A prayer for engineers

There is no traditional prayer to a patron of engineers. Scripture gives two lines every engineer can pray before signing off on a design. From Psalm 126:1 in the Douay-Rheims:

Unless the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it. Unless the Lord keep the city, he watcheth in vain that keepeth it.

And from the Book of Wisdom (11:21), a verse about the Creator that any engineer will recognize: "thou hast ordered all things in measure, and number, and weight."

Let us ask St. Ferdinand and St. Patrick to pray for every engineer whose calculations keep a bridge standing and a family safe, and for the workers who build what they design. St. Ferdinand, St. Patrick, St. Joseph, pray for us.

See also the full list of patron saints.