Portal:Catholicism/Patron Archive/February 21
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Saint Peter Damian, O.S.B. (Petrus Damiani, also Pietro Damiani or Pier Damiani -- c. 1007– February 21/22, 1072) was one of the most celebrated, universally loved and zealous reforming monks in the circle of Hildebrand of the 11th century, made a cardinal and (in 1823) declared a Doctor of the Church.
He was born at Ravenna, orphaned early, and after a youth spent in hardship and privation, showed such signs of remarkable intellectual gifts that a brother, Damian, who was archpriest at Ravenna, took him away to be educated. Adding his brother's name to his own, he made such rapid progress in his studies of theology and Canon law, that when about twenty-five years old he was already a famous teacher at Parma and Ravenna.
About 1035, however, he deserted his secular calling and entered the isolated hermitage of Fonte Avellana, near Gubbio. Both as novice and as monk, his fervor was remarkable but led him to such extremes of self-mortification in penance that his health was affected. In 1043, he became prior and he remained prior of Fonte Avellana till his death. He introduced a more severe discipline, including the practice of flagellation ("the disciplina"), into the house, which, under his rule, quickly attained celebrity, and became a model for other foundations.
About 1050, Peter published a scathing treatise on the vices of the clergy, Liber Gomorrhianus. In this book he made an attack on homosexual and other sexual practices as subversive disruptions against the moral. Damiani was also a determined foe of simony, but his fiercest wrath was directed against the married clergy.
In 1057, Pope Stephen IX determined to consecrated Damian Cardinal Bishop of Ostia. In addition he was appointed administrator of the Diocese of Gubbio.
In 1059 Peter was sent as legate to Milan by Pope Nicholas II. There benefices were openly bought and sold and the clergy publicly married the women they lived with.
In 1063 the pope held a synod at Rome, at which Damian was appointed legate to settle the dispute between the Abbey of Cluny and the Bishop of Mâcon.
In 1067 he was allowed to resign his bishopric. He died at Faenza, the year before Hildebrand became pope, as Gregory VII.
Attributes: represented as a cardinal bearing a knotted rope in his hand; also as a pilgrim holding a papal Bull; Cardinal's hat, Benedictine monk's habit
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