St. Columbanus, Irish Monk, model for "new evangelization"
Pope Benedict XVI spoke of St. Columbanus, the 6th-century Irish monk, at his regular weekly public audience on June 11. After his education and spiritual formation in an Irish monastery, Columbanus and a group of 12 companions became missionaries on the European continent, the Pope recalled. They spread the faith "where the migration of peoples from the north and the east had caused entire Christian regions to lapse back into paganism." This first "re-evangelization" of Europe succeeded, the Pope said, because of the powerful witness of sanctity in the missionaries' own lives. Soon Columbanus and his monks had to found a new monastery to accommodate the young men seeking to enter their community. Then a third monastery was started and the movement began to take root. St. Columbanus wrote Regula Monachorum, which, Pope Benedict remarked, is "the only ancient Irish monastic rule we possess today." He also introduced the practice of private confession to...