We are continuing our series on the Doctors of the Church. We are now well into the Medieval Era with Saint Peter Damian (1007-1072). I first encountered this saint when I was in the seventh grade at St. Paul School, Butler. We had a new principal that year: Sr. M. Damian Geisler, RSM. Many years before she had taught my father in the fifth grade. My father received quite a shock on the first day of school in 1961. Dad always brought us to school on the opening day to see where our classrooms were and to meet our teachers. Sr. Damian greeted him, “Why if it isn’t John Dillon! And these must be your children.” That was our introduction to Sr. M. Damian. Not long afterward our pastor, Msgr. Spiegel came to school and addressed the student body. Pointing to Sr. M. Damian, he said, “Now boys and girls some of you may think that Sr. Damian is named for Fr. Damien who worked in Hawaii with those who had contracted leprosy.” He went on to tell us that the saint for whom she was named was not Fr. Damien of Molokai but instead it was St. Peter Damian. That began my interest in trying to find out who St. Peter Damian was. For whom was Sr. M. Damian named? Here is what I found out over time.

The Canticle of Creation - St. Francis of Assisi

Happy New Year! I pray that 2023 will be a year of blessings for all of us. Next week I will resume the series on the Doctors of the Church. Today I want to draw your attention to an interview that Wilton Cardinal Gregory gave to Michael J. O’Loughlin, national correspondent at America magazine. The interview was conducted on December 8, 2022—the day after Cardinal Gregory’s seventy-fifth birthday. It was posted online on December 12, 2022.

In my column today I want to print what is probably the most reprinted editorial in any newspaper in the English language. This has become a Christmas custom for me. I am happy to do it again this year. Enjoy!

I am going to interrupt my series of columns on the Doctors of the Church to speak about a topic that is very timely. Several years ago, I published in my column before Christmas some thoughts on hospitality as we were expecting large crowds of people to come to our Christmas Masses. We are seeing more people returning to Mass and will likely see some people we have not seen in a while. What I wrote then seems very relevant. So here are some thoughts as we prepare for our Christmas Masses next week.

I am writing this column on Sunday, December 4, which is usually the liturgical commemoration of St. John Damascene. Pope Benedict spoke about St. John Damascene (John of Damascus) in his General Audience on May 6, 2009. Let’s read what the Holy Father said about St. John Damascene on that occasion:

Today we continue our series on the Doctors of the Church. Today we are looking at St. Bede the Venerable (672? -735), who was named a Doctor of the Church by Pope Leo XIII in 1899.

One of the memories that my Great Aunt Celestine Dougherty and her older brothers James and John Dougherty had during their years in elementary school was one year when they all had the same brand-new teacher who was assigned by the principal to teach several grades in one classroom in the local public school. Their teacher, a recent graduate of East Stroudsburg Middle School, was their oldest sister Anna. Anna had told them that they could address her by her first name at home-- where they all lived with their widowed grandmother. But at school they had to address her as Miss Dougherty since she was their teacher. Of course, it didn’t take long for them to test this. The reaction was swift. Anna Dougherty wasn’t going to take any nonsense. I am particularly interested in their older sister Anna, because in time she became my paternal grandmother. Even though she had retired from the classroom when she married my paternal grandfather John Coady Dillon, Grandma Dillon kept a close eye on the academic progress of her children and grandchildren. And I can assure you that she could be stern when she thought the occasion called for that. Once a teacher, always a teacher.

Last week we looked at the life and accomplishments of Pope Saint Leo the Great. Ninety years after Leo died in 461, Gregory the First, the second Pope (and Doctor of the Church) to receive the title of Great, was born. Gregory was from an important senatorial family. Most of his adult life was lived in the midst of the Lombard invasions, the last and the worst of the barbarian onslaughts that devastated Italy at the end of the Western Empire. As a young man he served as prefect of Rome. After five years at this post, he resigned from his position to enter monastic life. Gregory used his family resources to establish seven monasteries and entered the house he established in Rome (St. Andrew on the Caelian Hill). His intention was to spend the rest of his life as a simple monk in the monastery. But Pope Pelagius II convinced him to serve as his diplomatic representative at the imperial court at Constantinople. After serving at that post for six years, Gregory was elected the abbot of the monastery of St. Andrew on the Caelian Hill. Gregory was to spend the next twenty-six years in public roles in the church. In time his experiences made him one of the most effective bishops of Rome.

As we continue our series on the Doctors of the Church, we encounter today one of two Popes who have merited the accolade “the Great.” Born around the year 390, Leo grew up in a tumultuous time in Italy. After Alaric sacked Rome in 410, the emperor Honorius retreated to Ravenna, a city that was thought to be safer than Rome. Increasingly the city of Rome and much of Italy looked to the Bishop of Rome for leadership. When he was elected Pope in 440, Leo proved to be a leader who combined seriousness of purpose and measured judgment along with the humility people expected to find in a bishop. The twenty-one years of his pontificate were taken up with a series of crises both political and ecclesiastical.

This week we look at St. Peter Chrysologus who was named a Doctor of the Church in 1729 by Pope Benedict XIII. We really know very little about him. He was born at Imola in northern Italy, probably around 380. He became the Archbishop of Ravenna around 430. At that point in time Ravenna was the capital of the Western Empire as well as the residence of Emperor Valentinian III and his mother Galla Placida. Several of his sermons were delivered in the imperial presence.

We continue our series on the Doctors of the Church. Today we meet St. Cyril of Alexandria (376?-444). Cyril succeeded his uncle Theophilus as the Patriarch (Archbishop) of Alexandria, Egypt in 414. His early years were marked by impulsive, often violent actions. He closed and often destroyed churches of the followers of the Novatian heresy. Cyril participated in the deposing of St. John Chrysostom. He confiscated Jewish property and expelled the Jews from Alexandria in retaliation for their attacks on Christians. Early in his time as archbishop the pagan woman-philosopher Hypatia was brutally murdered. Even though Cyril bore no personal responsibility for her death, her murder was certainly carried out by his supporters.

“Late have I loved you. Beauty at once so and so new; late have I loved you. Behold, you were within, and I outside where I was seeking you and was dashing against the beautiful things you made in my unsightly way. You were with me, and I was not with you” (Confessions 10.27). This famous quote is by St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430), who is considered by many to be the most famous and influential of the western Fathers of the Church and perhaps the most famous theologian in the history of the Church. He was one of the four original Doctors of the Church proclaimed by Pope Boniface VIII in 1295.

One day Pope Sixtus V (1521 -1590) was looking at a painting of Saint Jerome (ca. 347-419/20) striking his breast with a stone. After viewing it for a few moments, Sixtus remarked. “You do well to carry that stone, for without it the Church would never have canonized you.”

I continue this series on the Doctors of the Church. Today I am writing about Saint John Chrysostom (344/54-407), who was born in Antioch in Syria. Chrysostom was not his last name. The name really means “the man with a golden mouth”—a reference to his gifts as a preacher and a public speaker. John’s father died when he was a baby. His mother, Anthusa, raised him. John studied under Libanius, a famous rhetorician in fourth century Antioch.

I am continuing this series introducing to you the Doctors of the Church. Today I want to talk about Saint Ambrose (339-397). In 374 Auxentius, the bishop of Milan, had died. This left the local church bitterly divided between quarreling parties of Orthodox and Arian Christians. Each faction wanted their candidate to be chosen as the next bishop of Milan. Ambrose who was serving as the provincial governor went to the basilica to exhort those gathered there to come to a peaceful solution.

I am continuing the series on the Doctors of the Church. This week I am writing about Saint Gregory Nazianzus (ca. 330-ca.390), who was one of three children. His father was a bishop of the same name. Later it would become the practice that bishops in the Eastern Church would be chosen from men who were widowers or monks. I don’t know if Gregory Nazianzus the Elder was a widower at the time he became a bishop. At any rate Gregory Nazianzus the Younger (about whom I am writing today) studied in Caesaria in Cappadocia (modern day Kayseri, Turkey), Alexandria, and finally in Athens.

I want to devote the rest of this column to the next Doctor of the Church in chronological order, Saint Basil the Great (329-379). On Thursday, September 8, 2022, Queen Elizabeth II died at Balmoral Castle in Scotland. Shortly after the Queen’s death, Pope Francis sent a telegram to King Charles III to express his condolences for the death of Queen Elizabeth.

I am continuing this series on Doctors of the Church. Today I want to talk about Saint Cyril of Jerusalem. He was born at or near Jerusalem either in 313 or 315. He received an excellent literary education which helped him in his study of the Scriptures. He was ordained a priest by Bishop Maximus and ordained bishop of Jerusalem in 348. In the thirty-eight years he served as a bishop, he was deposed and exiled three times.

I am continuing my series on the Doctors of the Church. This week I am writing about Saint Hilary of Poitiers (312-67). Hilary was born into a distinguished pagan family in the Roman province of Gaul. After his conversion and baptism, he was elected Bishop of Poitiers around the year 350. He organized the bishops in Gaul to resist those who were sympathetic to the teachings of Arius. These individuals would have held that the Son of God is not co-eternal and consubstantial (homoouios) with the Father. Others, called Semi-Arians, would have admitted that the Son was “like” (homoios) the Father, but refused to speak of consubstantiality. Because he organized this resistance by the Bishops in Gaul, Hilary was exiled to the East by the emperor Constantius in 356.