St. Peter Damian

February 21 is the feast of St. Peter Damian (1007-1072), the Camaldolese monk, cardinal bishop of Ostia, and Doctor of the Church. Born at Ravenna to a poor family, he was orphaned young and raised by an elder brother who treated him as a servant; he was rescued by another brother, the archpriest of Ravenna, who sent him to school at Faenza and Parma. He became a noted teacher, then entered the Camaldolese hermitage at Fonte Avellana, near Gubbio, around 1035.

Peter Damian became the great polemicist of the 11th-century reform — the Liber Gomorrhianus (1051) against clerical immorality, the letters to the Popes against simony and nicolaitism, the treatises on the contemplative life. He was created cardinal bishop of Ostia in 1057 by Pope Stephen IX, and served as papal legate to Milan, Cluny, and the German court. He died at Faenza in 1072, returning from a legation to Ravenna.

Peter Damian was never formally canonized; his cult was approved in 1828 and he was proclaimed Doctor of the Church in 1828, the first Camaldolese doctor. From Ravenna, where he was born, to Fonte Avellana, where he was a monk, to Rome, where he served as cardinal, the February 21 feast is the feast of the monk who became the reformer of the 11th-century Church.