Pope Bl. Eugene III

Eugene III was born Bernardo, probably of the Pignatelli family, and was educated in Pisa. After his ordination he became a canon of Pisa cathedral and managed the diocese's property. In 1130 he came under the influence of St Bernard of Clairvaux, and a few years later he followed Bernard to become a Cistercian monk. A Cistercian is a monk of a strict reform of the Benedictine order.

He was abbot of the monastery of Tre Fontane in Rome, at the place where St Paul was martyred, when the cardinals chose him as pope in 1145. Bernard worried in a letter that his shy former pupil was more used to quiet than to public business. Rome itself was in revolt, so Eugene was consecrated at the abbey of Farfa and spent much of his reign away from the city.

As pope he tried to reform the Church and the Roman curia, the papal administration, and he kept living the plain life of a monk. He died at Tivoli in 1153.

Pope Eugene III was beatified in 1872 by Pius IX.

Beatification allows public veneration, usually in a particular region or religious family. Canonization extends it to the whole Church.