Some Catholics today may be disillusioned with the state of the Church and the world. Ongoing scandals related to sexual abuse by clergy, the world’s celebration of what were once called sins crying to heaven for vengeance, what looks like accommodation to the world — all give us reasons for sorrow and penance. 

But, in the midst of great sin also emerges great sanctity. We may not always recognize it yet (though the price for being Christian in some nations of the world being death, there’s no dearth of martyrs). But, if we look at Church history, there have been other low points through which God has led his Church, and raised up great saints to sustain it. One of them is St. Romuald.

Romuald came into the world in Ravenna, an important city on what is today Italy’s eastern coast, south of Venice. He was probably born around A.D. 950, although some hagiographical texts claim he was 120 when he died, which would put his birth around 907, a date modern authors dispute. He died in 1027.

Many people have heard of the term “Dark Ages” without really knowing what they indicate or when they were. Once upon a time, historians with an anti-Church chip on their shoulders tried to blacken everything from the fall of the Western Roman Empire (476) to the Renaissance (around 1400-1500), but we know that’s not true. The Middle Ages, for example, was a time of great cultural flourishing. Phillip Campbell’s excellent book, The Church and the Dark Ages, covers the period 430-1027, though he notes that “Dark Ages” really originated to describe the 10th and 11th centuries, because those are the times for which the least documentation exists.

Those were Romuald’s times.

His biographers say he lived the life of an Italian nobleman of the 10th century, with its faults and failings, though he had also given thoughts to the life of a hermit. Struck with contrition after his father killed a man in a duel catalyzed his decision: he went off to an abbey, which had recently undergone the Cluniac reform. (As Campbell points out, Western religious life — which was predominantly Benedictine — had grown lax. The Abbey of Cluny in France had initiated a reform movement to restore primitive discipline to the communities, and this had spread across Europe.)

Romuald, however, found it not strict enough, and — what seems to be by mutual agreement — he went off to live under the hermit Marinus near Venice. About the same time, the Venetian Doge (the leader of the city), Pietro Orseolo, was also experiencing contrition about having obtained his office by being part of a conspiracy that resulted in his predecessor being killed. He gave up power and, on Romuald’s and Marinus’ advice, entered a Benedictine monastery. (Orseolo is today a canonized saint.) Both of them relocated to a place near that monastery, which gave Romuald access to a library, where he furthered his ideas about the hermetical life.

He was persuaded to attempt as abbot to reform the abbey to which he had initially repaired but, not having the support of the monks, he returned to the life of a hermit. In 1012, according to legend, he met a man named Maldolus who said he had a vision of monks in white habits ascending to heaven, and gave Romuald some land on the “Campus Maldoli.” Romuald, whose monks were attired in white, built five cells on the land and, there, the Camaldoli (or Camaldolese) Fathers were established. 

Romuald’s Camaldoli incorporate elements of the monastic community of the Benedictines with the more solitary life of an eremitical (hermit) community. (A subsequent division yielded a Camaldoli community that is purely eremitical.) Contemplation, withdrawing from active ministry to focus on God, is the Camaldoli hallmark.

Romuald established monasteries and hermitages throughout Europe. He wanted to bring the Camaldoli to Hungary but his health didn’t allow it. He died in Val di Castro, in central-east Italy, in 1027.

He lived in an era of moral challenges. We’ve discussed the sinners he personally encountered and/or was. His was a time of clergy corruption, of homosexual clergy abuse (Peter Damian, one of his key biographers, addressed that), of secular rulers seeking to control the Church for their own gain by claiming the authority to appoint bishops. It was an era when Christianity was sometimes a thin veneer covering a latent — or not so latent — paganism, as we saw with St. Boniface.

Romuald was not blind to evil — his own or his times — but systematically worked to reform, to call people to reform, and to follow the Lord on the path of perfection. His is a hard and demanding vocational path, but it has survived 10 centuries. 

Giovanni Barberi, known as Guercino (“squinter,” because he was cross-eyed), was an Italian Baroque painter who lived from 1591-1666. We met him in connection with St. Aloysius Gonzaga. In Guercino’s painting, “San Romualdo,” dating from about 1640, the saint is depicted in a cave, in the white Camaldoli habit, on his knees in prayer. Good Baroque artist that he is, all three figures are physically well-developed, an imposing Romuald imposing at the center of attention. Romuald’s eyes are turned heavenwards, his hands extended in a praying posture.

To his left is an angel beating a dark figure. The “Wikipedia” commentator writes the angel is using a “baton to chastise an errant figure.” I don’t think so. As has long been the case, stretching all the way back to St. Anthony in Egypt, the devil has long tempted hermits and monks. Where there is great holiness, there is also great temptation to destroy that holiness. But man is not alone in the struggle for God. Whether it be Romuald’s guardian angel or another divine messenger, he drives off a devil that seeks to divert Romuald from his path. Romuald’s devotion to God is indicated by his focus on God, even to the extent of averting from the spiritual warfare next to him. And that is why he is set in this cave against the sky, against heaven, with clouds that are often signs of the Divine Glory. 

The painting is in the Ravenna City Museum.

(For a more detailed life of St. Romuald, see here.)