February 21--St. Peter Damian, Monk, Bishop, and Doctor of the Church

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The Church is holy due to Jesus, not us. We are still sinners. We live in a time when some priests and bishops have committed grave public sins. In the eleventh century, there were also serious sins of sexual immorality and crimes of corruption committed by the clergy. One who championed the good and right against such deviations from chastity and holiness was our saint, St. Peter Damian.

Born about 1007 in Ravenna, Italy, Peter was the youngest of a noble, but poor family. Poorly treated by one brother, he was adopted by another brother who was archpriest of Ravenna, who provided him with an education. Peter Damian was gifted in academics and became a university teacher at the age of 25. He left teaching to become a monk. As a monk he was dedicated to austerity and penance, including the discipline of self-flagellation, which he later moderated due to the imprudent zeal of others. He then assisted the Church in opposing the sins of his time as bishop and cardinal.

He was also a great advocate of clerical reform, especially against the corruption of simony, or the buying and selling of Church offices, and clerical sexual license, including concubinage and sodomy. He wrote the book Liber Gomorrhianus, or the Book of Gomorrah, which railed against clerical sins against chastity. Pope Leo IX wrote in response to St. Peter’s work: “Therefore, lest the unrestrained license of filthy lust should spread abroad, it is necessary that it be repelled by a suitable reprimand of apostolic severity and that some attempt at more austere discipline should be made [with them].” St. Peter Damian is a model of how our priests, bishops, and laity should live the gift of chastity. He died about 1072 and was named a Doctor of the Church in 1828.

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