CrucisSt. Peter Damian
St. Peter Damian was born around 1007 at Ravenna, Italy, and died in 1072 or 1073 at Faenza. Orphaned and poor in childhood, he rose through his own gifts to become a respected teacher before renouncing the world to join the austere Camaldolese hermits at Fonte Avellana, where he embraced a rigorous life of solitude, fasting, and prayer and eventually became prior.
Drawn out of the hermitage to serve the wider Church, he was made a cardinal-bishop of Ostia and became one of the foremost reformers of the eleventh century, tirelessly denouncing simony (the buying of Church offices) and moral corruption among the clergy, notably in his forceful writings. A prolific author of letters, treatises, and sermons, he labored for the renewal of the Church that would culminate under Pope St. Gregory VII. He was declared a Doctor of the Church in 1828.
Selected quotes
“Silence in the face of wickedness is not prudence but cowardice; the shepherd who will not bark leaves the flock entirely to the wolves.”
“Fraternal correction is an act of love — the man who tells you your fault to your face loves you far more than the man who speaks of it behind your back.”
“The bishop who does not rebuke is not a father but a flatterer, and the flatterer serves not the people he pretends to love but only himself.”