Bernard of Aosta, St.
BERNARD OF AOSTA, ST.
Known also as Bernard of Menthon, of Mont-Joux, restorer and patron of two famous Alpine hospices in the passes that bear his name; b. probably Italy (not Savoy);d. Novara, June 15, 1081(?). Archdeacon of Aosta for 40 years, his renown for holiness was consequent on the long years spent as a tireless, itinerant preacher through much of Piedmont, where his cult has always been popular. But his worldwide reputation today is chiefly linked with the hospices he reestablished and placed under the care of clerics and laymen who later became canons reg ular of st. augustine. The same order still conducts the hospices. According to a fifteenth-century document, Bernard was canonized by Richard, bishop of Novara (1115–21). In 1923, Pius XI proclaimed him patron of mountain climbers.
Feast: May 28, June 15.
Bibliography: Acta Sanctorum June 3:547–564. Acta Apostolicae Sedis 15 (1923) 437–442. a. donnet, Saint Bernard et les origines de l'Hospice du Mont-Joux (Saint-Maurice 1942), critical. a. lÜtolf, Theologische Quartalsschrift 61 (1879) 179–207. a. poncelet, Analecta Bollandiana 26 (1907) 135–136. b. de gaif fier, ibid. 63 (1945) 269–270. a. butler, The Lives of the Saints, ed. h. thurston and d. attwater (New York 1956) 2:411–413.
[n. m. riehle]