SAINT COLOMBANO AND THE “CHRISTIAN ROOTS” OF EUROPE

A monk at 20, around the age of 50 Colombano leaves Ireland "to venture, with twelve mates, on a missionary work on the European continent, where the migration of peoples from the north and east had made Christianised regions fall back into paganism". On the coast of Brittany, Colombano and his followers carried out a work "of re-evangelisation, through the testimony of life". In the Rule written by Saint Colombano in Luxeuil - "the only Irish ancient monastic rule we have nowadays, commented the Holy Father, he "draws the ideal image of the monk" and also develops "a sort of criminal code for the monks' breaches" and brings "private and reiterated confession and penance" into the continent. "As uncompromising as he was in every moral issue", as well as with the bishops Colombano "came into conflict with the royal house too". That's why he was sentenced to exile and was engaged in the "new work of re-evangelisation", first on the Rhine and near Lake Constance (where the abbey of Saint Gall grew from the hermitage founded by one of his monks, Gallus), then in Italy, where, despite the "benevolent reception" of the Lombard court, he had to face the Arian heresy and the schism that were threatening the Church. In Bobbio, where he died, he founded a new monastery, "which would then become a cultural centre, comparable to the famous one of Montecassino".

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