Saint Galdino della Sala, Archevêque deMilan 1166–1176.
Autel de Marie, transept gauche de la Cathedral of Milan.
Saint Gaudin
Archevêque de Milan (✝ 1176)
ou Galdin.
Dès qu'il fut ordonné prêtre, il reçut la charge de chancelier de l'évêque. Il
connut, en 1162, le sac de Milan par l'empereur Frédéric Barberousse qui en
voulait à la liberté que prenaient les magistrats de la ville. Il aida les
habitants de telle manière que ceux-ci le demandèrent comme évêque en 1166. Il
fut un pasteur efficace, humble et tout donné à son peuple qui remarquait qu'au
sortir de la prière, il était comme un homme divin, rempli de force et de
douceur.
À Milan, en 1176, saint Galdin, évêque, qui s’employa à restaurer la cité
détruite à cause des guerres de l’empire et rendit son âme à Dieu en achevant
de prêcher un sermon contre les hérétiques.
Martyrologe
romain
Saint Galdin
Archevêque
de Milan
Fête
le 18 avril
† 1176
Autre
graphie : Galdin ou Gaudin
Archidiacre
puis chancelier de l’église de Milan, il seconda activement l’archevêque de
Milan Hubert, dans sa lutte contre le schisme de l’antipape Victor IV
(1159-1164) soutenu par l’empereur romain germanique Frédéric Ier Barberousse
(1152-1190). Lorsque celui-ci, après six mois de siège, se fut emparé de Milan
et de la Lombardie, en 1158, Galdin rejoignit Alexandre III, le pape légitime,
puis l’accompagna en France. Lorsque la Ligue lombarde eut chassé les
lieutenants de l’empereur Barberousse, Galdin fut sacré archevêque de Milan, le
18 avril 1166, et il s’occupa activement jusqu’à sa mort de relever les ruines
de sa ville et de son diocèse et d’assister les pauvres.
St. Galdinus
April 18
Galdinus was born in Milan, Italy about the year
1100, and belonged to the famous noble family of Valvarsi della Sala. He was
well educated and was ordained to the priesthood. He served under two
archbishops of Milan, Italy, as a chancellor and archdeacon and in 1165 was
appointed cardinal priest of Santa Sabina in Rome.
Galdinus lived at a time of great turmoil and
secular upheaval. In 1159 Alexander III had been elected pope. Some dissident
cardinals decided to elect their own rival pope who was favorable to the
emperor, Frederick Barbarossa, thus causing a schism in the Church. The emperor
became furious with the people of Milan when they supported the duly elected
Pope Alexander III. Archbishop Hubert and Galdinus were forced to flee into
exile for a time and the city of Milan lay under siege by the army of
Barbarossa until, finally overcome by starvation, illness and the devastation
of their lands, they surrendered.
After the death of Hubert in 1166, Galdinus was
appointed archbishop of Milan. He would spend the remainder of his life trying
to bring peace and encouragement to his people. The clergy of Milan had become
very lax during all the turmoil and Galdinus labored strenuously to bring order
and discipline to the diocese.
He worked tirelessly in helping the Lombard states
to rebuild Milan. He would seek out the poor in their homes to provide whatever
assistance they needed. A very wise and eloquent teacher and preacher, Galdinus
not only used his abilities to heal the Victorine schism among his people, but
also refuted the heretical doctrines of Cathari.
While
delivering a passionate sermon against false doctrine, Galdinus became ill and
died before the Mass had ended. He truly gave his whole life to serving God. He
was a man who sought truth and refused to accept anything less regardless of
the consequences. He was also a man of great charity and love
St. Galdin, Archbishop of Milan, Confessor
HE was born at Milan, of the most illustrious house of the Vavassors of
La Scala, famous in the history of Italy. Innocence and virtue were the
ornaments of his youth, and prepared him for the ministry of the altar. Being
promoted to holy orders, he was, by the archbishop, made his chancellor and
archdeacon, and from that time began to bear the chief weight of the episcopal
charge, which was at no time more heavy or difficult. Pope Adrian IV. an
Englishman, died in 1159, and Alexander III. a person eminent for his skill in
theology and in the canon law, was chosen to succeed him; but five cardinals
presumed to form a schism in favour of Octavian, under the name of Victor. The
Emperor Frederick I. surnamed, from the colour of his beard and hair,
Ænobarbus, and by the Italians, Barbarossa, a prince who sullied the reputation
which several victories and great natural parts had acquired him by many acts
of tyranny, carried on an unjust quarrel with several popes successively;
seizing the revenues of vacant ecclesiastical benefices, usurping the
investiture and nomination of bishops, and openly making a simoniacal traffic
of all that was sacred. It is not, therefore strange, that such a prince should
declare himself the patron and protector of a schism which had been raised only
by his faction and interest in Rome. The city of Milan offended him in 1159, by
claiming an exclusive right of choosing its own magistrates; and still more the
year following, by openly acknowledging Alexander III. for true pope. The
emperor, highly incensed, sat down before it with a great army, in 1161; and,
after a siege of ten months, in 1162, compelled it to surrender at discretion.
In revenge, he razed the town, filled up the ditches, levelled the walls and
houses with the ground, and caused salt to be sown upon the place, as a mark
that this city was condemned never more to be rebuilt. The bodies of the three
kings, which he found there in the church of St. Eustorgius, he ordered to be
removed to Cologn on this occasion. The archbishop Hubert dying in 1166,
Galdin, though absent, was pitched upon for his successor; and the pope, who
consecrated him with his own hands, created him cardinal and legate of the holy
see. The new pastor made it his first care to comfort and encourage his distressed
flock; and, wherever he was able to exert his influence to abolish the schism,
in which he effectually succeeded throughout all Lombardy. The Lombard cities
had unanimously entered into a common league to rebuild Milan. When the walls
and moats were finished, the inhabitants, with great joy, returned into their
city on the 27th April, 1167. The emperor again marched against it. but was
defeated by the Milanese; and seeing Lombardy, Venice, the kingdom of Sicily,
and all Italy united in an obstinate league against him, he agreed to hold a
conference with the pope at Venice, in which he abjured the schism, and made
his peace with the church in 1177. 1 The distracted state of the
commonwealth did not hinder our saint from attending diligently to his pastoral
duties. He preached assiduously, assisted the poor, who had always the first
place in his heart, and made it his study to relieve all their wants, spiritual
and corporal. By humility, he always appeared as the last in his flock, and by
charity he looked upon the burdens and miseries of every one as his own. He
sought out the miserable amidst the most squalid scenes of wretchedness, and
afforded them all necessary relief. But the spiritual necessities of the
people, both general and particular, challenged his principal attention. He
restored discipline, extinguished all the factions of the schismatics, and
zealously confuted the heretics, called Cathari, a kind of Manichees, who had
been left in Lombardy from the dregs of the impious army of the Emperor
Frederic. Assiduous prayer was the chief means by which the saint drew down the
dew of the divine benediction, both upon his own soul and upon his labours. As
Moses descended from the mountain, on which he had conversed with God, with his
face shining, so that others were not able to fix their eyes upon it: so this
holy man appeared in his public functions, and announced the divine word,
inflamed by prayer, with an ardour and charity which seemed heavenly, and both
struck and attracted the most obstinate. On the last day of his life, though
too weak to say mass, he mounted the pulpit at the gospel, and preached with
great vigour a long and pathetic sermon: but towards the close fell into a swoon,
and about the end of the mass expired in the pulpit, on the 18th of April,
1176. All lamented in him the loss of a father, but found him still an advocate
in heaven, as many miracles attested. He is honoured in the ancient missals and
breviaries of Milan, and in the Roman Martyrology. See his two authentic lives,
with the notes of Henschenius, Apr. t. 2, p. 593.
Note 1. That Alexander III. set his foot on the neck of the Emperor Frederic, in
the porch of St. Mark’s church, in Venice, on this occasion, is a notorious
forgery, as Baronius, Natalis Alexander, (in Sæc. 12, art. 9, in Alex. III.)
and all other judicious historians demonstrate, from the silence of all
contemporary writers, as of Romuald, archbishop of Salerno, who wrote the
history of Alexander, and of this very transaction, at which he himself was
present, both in the council of Venice, and at the absolution of the emperor:
also of Matthew Paris, William of Tyre, and Roger Hoveden. Nor is the story
consistent with reason, or with the singular meekness of Alexander, who, when
the second anti-pope, John of Strume, called Calixtus III., had renounced the
schism, in 1178, always treated him with the greatest humanity and honour, and
entertained him at his own table. At Venice, indeed, among the great exploits
of the commonwealth, are exquisitely painted, in the senate-house, this
pretended humiliation of Frederic, and their great naval victory over his son
Otho, and the triumph of the Lombard cities over his land army. But painters
and poets are equally allowed the liberty of fictions or emblematical
representations. The pictures, moreover, are modern, and no more amount to a
proof of the fact than the bead-roll story of the beadle of Westminster Abbey
might do. [back]
Rev. Alban
Butler (1711–73). Volume IV: April. The Lives of the Saints. 1866.
Galdinus of Milan B (RM)
(also known as Galdimus)
Born in Milan, Italy, 1100; died there in 1176. Following his ordination,
Galdinus, a member of the influential della Scala family became chancellor and
archdeacon to Archbishop Hubert. In 1161, he fled Milan when Frederick
Barbarossa approached the city. In his absence Galdinus was elected archbishop
of Milan and named a cardinal (in 1165). After his return to Milan, he was
instrumental in rebuilding the city, which had been razed by Barbarossa. He
died immediately after delivering a sermon against a heretical doctrine in his
cathedral. The Milanese always invoke Galdinus after SS. Ambrose and Charles
Borromeo because he is considered one of its finest bishops. He discharged his
office with determination, despite the hardships imposed by his times and his
health (Attwater2, Benedictines, Coulson, Encyclopedia).
Also
known as
- Galdinus della Sala
- Galdimus
- Galdin
- Galdino
Profile
Milanese
noble. Priest.
Chancellor.
Archdeacon.
Supported the Roman
Pope
during the schism
of 1159.
Fled Milan,
Italy
in 1161
when Frederick
Barbarossa besieged the city in support of the anti-pope,
yet was still elected bishop.
Cardinal
in 1165.
Archbishop
in 1166.
Papal
legate
to Lombardy.
Returned to Milan
after the war and helped rebuild it. Died
in the pulpit immediately following a sermon
against heresies.
Born
SOURCE : http://catholicsaints.info/saint-galdinus-of-milan/
Figlio di piccoli nobili, Galdino è nato a Milano, avviandosi poi alla vita ecclesiastica. Nel 1160 è arcidiacono della cattedrale, e lo troviamo con l’arcivescovo Oberto al campo dei milanesi. Nel 1162 assiste alla distruzione della città ordinata dall’imperatore. Lui e l’arcivescovo sono schierati con Alessandro III, eletto papa nel 1159 da una parte dei cardinali, mentre altri eleggevano il filo-tedesco Ottaviano de’ Monticelli col nome di Vittore VI. Scisma nella Chiesa, dunque: papa e antipapa. In Milano, Oberto proclama la scomunica di Federico come responsabile dello scisma. Nel 1165 Galdino viene nominato cardinale. Ora deve seguire il papa nei suoi spostamenti; e nel marzo 1166 si trova appunto con Oberto in Benevento, a fianco di Alessandro III.
Ma durante il soggiorno Oberto muore, e il papa nomina Galdino suo successore. Lui deve raggiungere la Lombardia clandestinamente, travestito da pellegrino, e in città lo accolgono le rovine. Nel 1167, infine, dopo cinque anni terribili, incomincia la ricostruzione, e uno dei protagonisti è lui. Riorganizza la Chiesa in Lombardia, confermandola nella fedeltà ad Alessandro III, e pianifica il soccorso ai poveri che si sono moltiplicati: quelli di prima, e quelli di miseria recente, i carcerati per debiti, quelli che non osano chiedere. Rimesse in piedi le strutture fondamentali per miserie vecchie e nuove, dice agli amministratori (anzi, fa incidere sulla pietra): "Voi siete qui solo per servire i poveri". "Strappa il patrimonio della Chiesa dalle fauci dei rapinatori", dice una sua biografia. Restaura la cattedrale, aiutato da donne milanesi che donano i pochi gioielli salvati dai saccheggi del Barbarossa. E ricomincia da capo a insegnare le preghiere, a pretendere il canto degno di Dio e del suo popolo. Predica instancabilmente. Anzi, muore sul pulpito della chiesa di Santa Tecla, dopo un sermone.
E in questo stesso anno la Lega Lombarda vince la battaglia di Legnano. (Per questo, ancora nel 1847, il nome di Galdino risulta sospetto al Governo austro-ungarico). Lo stesso Alessandro III lo proclama santo. E nel XIX secolo il Manzoni darà il suo nome al loquace frate cercante dei Promessi sposi. Fra Galdino: anche in memoria, pensiamo, del pane per i poveri, che per molto tempo in Milano si chiamò appunto “pane di san Galdino”.
Autore: Domenico Agasso
San Galdino Vescovo
Milano, 1096 - 18 aprile 1176
Figlio
di piccoli nobili, Galdino è nato a Milano, avviandosi poi alla vita
ecclesiastica. Nel 1160 è arcidiacono della cattedrale, e lo troviamo con
l'arcivescovo Oberto al campo dei milanesi. Nel 1162 assiste alla distruzione della città ordinata dall'imperatore,
Federico I Barbarossa. Lui e l'arcivescovo sono schierati con Alessandro
III, eletto papa nel 1159 da una parte dei cardinali, mentre altri eleggevano
il filo-tedesco, antipapa, Ottaviano de' Monticelli col nome di Vittore VI.
Scisma nella Chiesa, dunque. Nel 1165 Galdino viene nominato cardinale e
succede a Oberto sulla cattedra di Ambrogio. La città però è in rovina. Nel
1167 incomincia la ricostruzione, e uno dei protagonisti è lui. Riorganizza la
Chiesa in Lombardia e pianifica il soccorso ai molti poveri. Rimesse in piedi
le strutture fondamentali per miserie vecchie e nuove, dice agli amministratori
e fa incidere sulla pietra: «Voi siete qui solo per servire i poveri». Restaura
la cattedrale, aiutato da donne milanesi che donano i pochi gioielli salvati
dai saccheggi del Barbarossa. Morirà nel 1176 sul pulpito della chiesa di Santa
Tecla, dopo un sermone.
Emblema: Bastone
pastorale
Martirologio
Romano: A Milano, san Galdino, vescovo, che si adoperò per la
ricostruzione della città distrutta dalle guerre per il potere e, al termine di
un discorso contro gli eretici, rese lo spirito a Dio.
Settembre 1847. In
Milano, ancora sotto il dominio degli Asburgo, entra il nuovo arcivescovo,
festeggiatissimo perché è italiano (Bartolomeo Romilli) mentre il predecessore
era austriaco. Si fanno in suo onore tre archi di trionfo, dedicati a sant’Ambrogio, a
san Carlo e a san Galdino: ma la scritta in onore di quest’ultimo è fatta
sparire dal Governo, perché allude troppo. Galdino, infatti, è strettamente legato
alle lotte di Milano, e di altre città lombarde, contro Federico I Barbarossa.
Figlio di piccoli nobili, Galdino è nato a Milano, avviandosi poi alla vita ecclesiastica. Nel 1160 è arcidiacono della cattedrale, e lo troviamo con l’arcivescovo Oberto al campo dei milanesi. Nel 1162 assiste alla distruzione della città ordinata dall’imperatore. Lui e l’arcivescovo sono schierati con Alessandro III, eletto papa nel 1159 da una parte dei cardinali, mentre altri eleggevano il filo-tedesco Ottaviano de’ Monticelli col nome di Vittore VI. Scisma nella Chiesa, dunque: papa e antipapa. In Milano, Oberto proclama la scomunica di Federico come responsabile dello scisma. Nel 1165 Galdino viene nominato cardinale. Ora deve seguire il papa nei suoi spostamenti; e nel marzo 1166 si trova appunto con Oberto in Benevento, a fianco di Alessandro III.
Ma durante il soggiorno Oberto muore, e il papa nomina Galdino suo successore. Lui deve raggiungere la Lombardia clandestinamente, travestito da pellegrino, e in città lo accolgono le rovine. Nel 1167, infine, dopo cinque anni terribili, incomincia la ricostruzione, e uno dei protagonisti è lui. Riorganizza la Chiesa in Lombardia, confermandola nella fedeltà ad Alessandro III, e pianifica il soccorso ai poveri che si sono moltiplicati: quelli di prima, e quelli di miseria recente, i carcerati per debiti, quelli che non osano chiedere. Rimesse in piedi le strutture fondamentali per miserie vecchie e nuove, dice agli amministratori (anzi, fa incidere sulla pietra): "Voi siete qui solo per servire i poveri". "Strappa il patrimonio della Chiesa dalle fauci dei rapinatori", dice una sua biografia. Restaura la cattedrale, aiutato da donne milanesi che donano i pochi gioielli salvati dai saccheggi del Barbarossa. E ricomincia da capo a insegnare le preghiere, a pretendere il canto degno di Dio e del suo popolo. Predica instancabilmente. Anzi, muore sul pulpito della chiesa di Santa Tecla, dopo un sermone.
E in questo stesso anno la Lega Lombarda vince la battaglia di Legnano. (Per questo, ancora nel 1847, il nome di Galdino risulta sospetto al Governo austro-ungarico). Lo stesso Alessandro III lo proclama santo. E nel XIX secolo il Manzoni darà il suo nome al loquace frate cercante dei Promessi sposi. Fra Galdino: anche in memoria, pensiamo, del pane per i poveri, che per molto tempo in Milano si chiamò appunto “pane di san Galdino”.
Autore: Domenico Agasso
Voir aussi : http://www.smp.org/resourcecenter/resource/7548/
