What You Need to Know About St. Benedict and His Medal

Pope Benedict XIV solemnly approved and recommended the use of the medal to the faithful in 1742.

By Angelo Stagnaro, National Catholic Register, 7/11/19

Most people, Catholics included, don’t realize how indebted the Church, Europe and the world are to St. Benedict of Nursia. The very presence of his monks in their monasteries became a stabilizing, civilizing factor no matter where they planted themselves. It was from these centers of great learning and prayer that monks and nuns went about their zealous work of evangelizing. It should be pointed out that many of Europe’s greatest cities started out as little more than ramshackle Benedictine monasteries. “Munich” is the German word for “monk.” “Monaco” on the French Riviera, is the Italian word for “monk.”

As Christ is the vine, the Benedictines are the branches. Like kudzu, you simply drop monks off someplace and run. Hopefully you won’t get trampled in their evangelical wake.

It’s a pity so many Westerners, including Catholics, are ignorant of all that Benedict and his merry band of followers, many of whom labored in holy obscurity, have done for Christendom. One hardly finds any mention of them in high school history books so thoroughly have secularists and anti-religionists remove all mentions of these hardy, pious monks from world history.

Nearly all of these monasteries hosted monastery schools for youngsters. Many of these schools ultimately become universities―the world’s first universities. That’s right: the Catholic Church started the word’s first universities. ….

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