Saint Benildus Romançon

He was born Pierre Romançon on June 14, 1805, in the village of Thuret, in south-central France. ¹² Paul VI called him "a humble son of Auvergne", which he described as the geographic and ethnic heart of the country, in words translated here from the French. ⁴ The Brothers say he was so far ahead of his classmates in elementary school that at fourteen the Brothers engaged him as a substitute teacher. ¹

He wanted to join them. His parents objected because they wanted to keep him at home, and the superiors hesitated because they thought him too short. ¹ He was finally admitted to the novitiate on February 10, 1820, by the Brothers' dates, and took the name Benildus. ¹ From 1821 to 1841 he taught in the elementary schools the Brothers ran from their administrative center at Clermont-Ferrand. ¹

In 1841 he was made director of a school that was opening at Saugues, an isolated village on a barren plateau. ¹ For the next twenty years he taught there and ran it, educating the boys of the village and some from the farms around it, many of them teenagers who had never been to school. ¹ Paul VI summed it up: "He was a humble teacher, poor and not in good health, working in a mountain area." ²⁴

He was small, and known as a strict but fair disciplinarian. ¹ In time, the Brothers say, the little school became the center of the social and intellectual life of the village, with evening classes for adults and tutoring for the slower pupils. ¹ He went to Mass with the boys in the parish church, taught the catechism, prepared them for First Communion and visited and prayed with the sick. ¹ By the time he died, more than two hundred Brothers and a good number of priests had been his pupils at Saugues. ¹

Pius XII, drawing on the testimony given at the beatification process, filled in what that looked like. ³ He noticed families in need, especially his pupils' families, and helped them so discreetly that, in Pius XII's words translated here, what he gave "lost all appearance of alms": books and other school supplies, care for the sick, above all those whom others found repugnant, and private lessons. ³

Pius XII's address to the pilgrims who came for the beatification is largely about the rule of Saint John Baptist de La Salle, and about a man who kept it. ³ The witnesses, he said, described a program of life that looks narrow, the same yesterday, today and tomorrow, with no great event to give it a date. ³ One former pupil told the process that heroic virtue lies not only in extraordinary acts but in doing one's duty without ever falling short, and that it was in this sense that he could call Benildus heroic. ³

Pius XII quoted Benildus himself, translated here: "To be a saint, there is not much to do among us: there is only the rule to keep." ³ He kept it when he was ill, dragging himself to the oratory for the community's exercises, and missed them only in his last illness. ³ At the end he wanted to renew his vows, so as to be "regular to the end", and he wept over his book of rules for not having kept it well enough. ³ Paul VI quoted another of his sayings: "I will think myself happy if I can die in the act of fulfilling some point of the Rule." ²⁴

Not everyone found this easy. Pius XII said that some young Brothers were afraid to be sent to Saugues, because they knew his reputation, and that he used to say, translated here, "I am not worthy to be director, but as long as my superiors leave me in this post I shall require that the rule be scrupulously observed." ³ Those who lived under him, the pope added, praised his great charity; he tried to make the yoke lighter, and would not have loosened it for anything. ³

Pius XII did not make his life sound peaceful. He listed the trials: a father enraged when one of the Brothers disciplined his son, a neighbor's quarrels over a shared wall, and a longer struggle to keep the school out of the rivalries between the church and civil authorities of the place. ³ In the end, he said, Benildus's goodness won over his opponents, and one of the most bitter of them died peacefully in his arms. ³

He also admitted what the work cost. Pius XII quoted him, translated here: "If we did not have faith, our profession would be very hard; the children are difficult, but with faith everything changes." ³ He went on teaching the catechism, the pope said, short of breath, almost to the end of his life. ³

Through all of it he prayed. Paul VI cited a witness, Brother Niomède, in the Institute's English: "He prayed all the time, the rosary beads never left his hand, and he was called 'the man with the rosary'." ²⁴ Pius XII, too, said he was usually seen with his rosary in his hand. ³ The Brothers add that there were rumors of near-miraculous cures. ¹

He died at Saugues on August 13, 1862. ¹² Pius XII beatified him on April 4, 1948, and the next day told the pilgrims that two of the graces attributed to him, the ones that had served for the beatification, had been received by two Spanish Brothers. ¹³ The Brothers' biography says that at the beatification Pius XII spoke of his sanctification through "the terrible daily grind" and of "doing common things in an uncommon way". ¹ Neither phrase is in the address to the pilgrims that the Holy See publishes. ³

Paul VI canonized him on October 29, 1967, the solemnity of Christ the King. ⁴ The Brothers, he said, could at last add the name of one of their own to that of Saint John Baptist de La Salle. ²⁴ He asked whether being a humble rural schoolmaster was enough to make a man a saint, and answered that it was: "The very profession of a schoolmaster hides in itself the need to be holy, and it has in itself the power to generate holiness." ²⁴

Pius XII called him a powerful protector of the Brothers and, translated here, "of all those, religious and lay, who with a self-denial worthy of all praise have devoted their life to the education of youth", and placed the Catholic schools under his patronage. ³ Paul VI called him a new protector in heaven for the Brothers and their schools. ²⁴ That is the basis for counting him a patron of teachers on this page.

Saint Benildus's feast is August 13, the day of his death. ¹⁵ The Roman Martyrology, as the Italian bishops print it, enters him that day at Saugues, near Le Puy-en-Velay, as a Brother of the Christian Schools who spent his life forming the young. ⁵ The Brothers keep the day as a memorial, and in France it is a feast. ²

There is no conversion story here, no martyrdom and no foundation. ¹³ There is a short man who was nearly turned away, a village school, a rule kept to the letter for more than forty years, and a rosary. ¹³⁴

He did not pretend the work was pleasant. The children were difficult, he said, and only faith made the job bearable. ³ Some of his own Brothers were afraid of him. ³ The pope who beatified him put both things on the record.

Two popes said, in different words, that a life spent teaching children to read and to pray is enough to make a saint. ²³⁴ That is the claim his life makes, and it was made about a classroom on a plateau that few people outside Auvergne had heard of. ¹⁴