The Rev. Robert Palladino, who died Feb. 26 at age 83, touched the lives of hundreds of thousands of Oregonians -- many of whom he never met.
To a few he was a monastic brother, to some a calligraphy professor at Reed College, and to others a uniquely empathetic pastor.
To the rest, he was the inspiration behind the elegant design of their Apple devices.
Steve Jobs was among Palladino's students at Reed. The late Apple co-founder went on to credit the calligraphy course as an influence on his work.
"It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating," Jobs said of calligraphy during a 2005 speech at Stanford University. "Ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac."
That wasn't exactly beneficial for calligraphers. Speaking to The Oregonian/OregonLive in 2011, Palladino gently blamed Jobs for making hand-formed calligraphy largely an art of the past: "He got inspired by calligraphy and put beautiful typefaces into computers. Now, everyone has become a designer."
Palladino honed his art during an 18-year stint as a Trappist monk. He joined the Trappists, a cloistered Catholic religious order that follows the Rule of St. Benedict, at a New Mexico monastery when he was just 17 years old. The monks moved to Oregon's Yamhill County in 1955, after they gave up on farming in the Southwest.
He left the monastery in 1968, after changes swept through monastic life following the Second Vatican Council. Gregorian chants and Latin Masses were replaced with modern languages, and monastic silence became less rigorous. The Rev. Charles Lienert, former vicar to priests in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Portland, said there was a small exodus of monks at that time due to the changes.
"You cannot like that way of life unless you are completely enamored of it," Palladino wrote in an unpublished memoir, according to The New York Times. "When it changed, I could no longer dedicate myself to it. It no longer satisfied my longing for union with God."
Pope Paul VI released Palladino from his vow of celibacy, and the former monk married Catherine Halverson, a clarinetist for the symphony in Portland. He took a calligraphy-teaching job at Reed and the couple had a son, Eric. The family established life on a farm with sheep in Sandy.
Reed ended the calligraphy program in 1984. Catherine died just three years later, leaving Palladino in limbo. In response to a shortage of Catholic priests in the area, he went through a three-year process to become an active priest again. With papal approval, he served from 1995 to 2007, much of that time at The Church of St. John in the Woods in Welches.
"He was a most unusual priest," said Caryn Tilton, a longtime friend and parishioner of Palladino. "He was like the rest of us -- a working man, a married man.
"He had empathy for real life, everyday situations. It made him human and forgiving and accepting of human shortcomings."
Palladino continued to work part time as a professional calligrapher and live on the farm with his son throughout his time as a priest -- an uncommon situation, but not unheard of for priests in unique circumstances.
"He was both a shepherd of sheep and a shepherd of souls," said Lienert, who befriended Palladino long before the former monk became a parish priest, thanks to their shared interest in calligraphy.
Palladino's calligraphy and spiritual life were closely intertwined, he said. The art was a spiritual practice that reflected the beauty of the divine.
"Though Steve Jobs is mentioned so often, he influenced all kinds of people," Lienert said. "He helped people see how beauty and the precision of beauty was a spiritual thing."
A Funeral Mass will be held at 11 a.m. March 11 at St. Mary's Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Portland, located at 1716 NW Davis Street. A private burial will be held at Mt. Calvary Cemetery.
-- Melissa Binder
mbinder@oregonian.com
503-294-7656
@binderpdx