I found that following these instructions helped with finding what the problem was. For me, that was the killer, not knowing what was broken.
http://mythinkpond.wordpress.com/2011/07/01/tomcat-6-infamous-severe-error-listenerstart-message-how-to-debug-this-error/
Quoting from the link
In Tomcat 6 or above, the default logger is the”java.util.logging” logger and not Log4J. So if you are trying to add a “log4j.properties” file – this will NOT work. The Java utils logger looks for a file called “logging.properties” as stated here:
http://tomcat.apache.org/tomcat-6.0-doc/logging.htmlSo to get to the debugging details create a “logging.properties” file under your”/WEB-INF/classes” folder of your WAR and you’re all set.
And now when you restart your Tomcat, you will see all of your debugging in it’s full glory!!!
Sample logging.properties file:
org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.[Catalina].level = INFO
org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.[Catalina].handlers = java.util.logging.ConsoleHandler