Born in Munster, Ireland, 7th century. Saint Cataldus was a pupil, then
the headmaster of the monastic school of Lismore in Waterford after the
death of its founder, Saint Carthage. Upon his return from a pilgrimage
to the Holy Land, he was shipwrecked at Taranto in southern Italy and
chosen by the people as their bishop. He is the titular of Taranto's
cathedral and the principal patron of the diocese. This epitaph is given
under an image of Saint Catald in Rome:
Me tulit Hiberne, Solyme traxere,
Tarentum Nunc tenet: huic ritus,
dogmata, jura dedi.
This has been loosely translated as:
Hibernia gave me birth: thence wafted over, I sought the sacred Solymean
shore. To thee Tarentum, holy rites I gave, Precepts divine; and thou to
me a grave.
It is odd that an Irishman, should be so honoured throughout Italy,
Malta, and France, but have almost no recognition in his homeland. His
Irish origins were discovered only two or three centuries after his
death, when his relics were recovered during the renovation of the
cathedral of Taranto. A small golden cross, of 7th- or 8th- century
Irish workmanship, was with the relics. Further investigations
identified him with Cathal, the teacher of Lismore.
Veneration to Catald spread, especially in southern Italy, after the May
10, 1017, translation of his relics when the cathedral was being rebuilt
following its destruction at the hands of Saracens in 927. Four
remarkable cures occurred as the relics were moved to the new cathedral.
When his coffin was open at that time, a pastoral staff of Irish
workmanship was found with the inscription Cathaldus Rachau. There is a
town of San Cataldo in Sicily and another on the southeast coast of
Italy
(
Benedictines,
D'Arcy,
Farmer,
Husenbeth,
Kenney,
Montague,
Neeson,
Tommasini).
Saint Catald is depicted in art as an early Christian bishop with a
mitre and pallium in a 12th century mosaic at Palermo
(
Roeder).
He is
the subject of a painting on the 8th pillar of the nave on the left in
the Basilica of the Nativity in Bethlehem
(
D'Arcy,
Montague).
There are
also 12th-century mosaics in Palermo and Monreale depicting the saint
(
Farmer).
Catald is invoked against plagues, drought, and storms
(
Farmer).