Pope St. Damasus I

Pope St. Damasus I (c. 305 – 11 December 384) was of Spanish descent, born at Rome, where he served in the clergy before being elected pope in 366. His election was marred by a violent contested rivalry, but he went on to a long and distinguished pontificate. A firm defender of orthodoxy, he condemned Arianism, Apollinarianism, and other errors, and worked to strengthen the authority and primacy of the Roman See, holding synods that affirmed the true faith.

A man of learning and taste, Damasus was a great patron of the veneration of the Roman martyrs: he sought out, restored, and adorned their tombs in the catacombs and composed elegant Latin verse epitaphs for them, engraved in a beautiful script devised by his calligrapher. Above all, he commissioned his brilliant secretary St. Jerome to revise and translate the Scriptures into Latin, the work that became the Vulgate, the Bible of the Western Church for a thousand years. He promoted the use of Latin in the liturgy and died in 384, venerated as a saint.