St Catherine of Siena: The young woman who brought the pope home

by Admin · April 29, 2024

Few mystics were also influential diplomats. St Catherine of Siena, a Doctor of the Church, was both before her death at only 33.

St Catherine at a glance
Name at birth: Caterina di Jacopo di Benincasa
Born: March 25, 1347, in Siena (Italy)
Died: April 29, 1380, in Rome
Beatified: 1460
Canonised: 1461
Feast: April 29
Patronages: Fire; bodily ills; people ridiculed for their piety; nurses; sick people; miscarriages; Europe; Italy.

It is extraordinary when a woman in her twenties who grew up illiterate becomes an international diplomatic envoy and changes the course of the papacy and the Catholic Church. And that is only part of the package that was St Catherine of Siena.

Born as Caterina di Benincasa on March 25, 1347, in Siena (then a republic and now a city in Italy’s Tuscany region) to the cloth-dyer Jacopo and his wife Lapa, she was the 23rd of 25 children, 12 of whom, including her twin sister, died in infancy or childhood.

Catherine was an independent and prayerful child. At the age of around six she experienced her first of many mystical visions, seeing Jesus in papal garb, surrounded by the Apostles Peter, Paul and John. At seven, she vowed to consecrate her virginity to Christ.

Her parents, however, had other plans. When Catherine was 16, they sought to marry her off to the widower of her late sister, Bonaventura. Apart from the man having been a bad husband to Bonaventura, Catherine resisted marriage in general, even cutting off her hair in order to make herself unattractive. Eventually, her parents submitted to Catherine’s life choice.

Catherine rejected marriage and motherhood, but she also did not seek the veil. Instead, she wanted to join the Dominican Mantellate, a group of lay women, mainly widows, who took vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, and dedicated themselves to prayer and charitable works. The lay order was reluctant to admit this 16-year-old but gave in when even her mother petitioned the prioress.

For three years Catherine, now supported by her loving parents, lived as a lay Dominican, praying fervently, administering charity, receiving instruction from Dominicans, and learning to read and write. She experienced mystical ecstasies, but also periods of dejection when she felt abandoned by God.

Her reclusion culminated in 1367 with a vision in which the Blessed Virgin presented Catherine to Jesus, who gave her a wedding ring — a mystical marriage.

Gaining a following

With that, Catherine began her apostolic life. She tended to the poor, sick and marginalised, especially lepers. She also offered spiritual guidance. Soon the young woman had a reputation for holiness throughout Siena, attracting a group of followers. They would dispense charity during the bleak times of famine in 1370 and the Black Death in 1374.

Not everybody was sure about this independent woman. In 1374 she was summoned to Florence to account for herself to the Dominican General Chapter. There is no record of any censure, but the chapter appointed a Dominican friar to act as her confessor and spiritual guide, Fr Raymond of Capua (1303-99), who would later become the head of the order. They quickly became close friends. After Catherine’s death, Fr Raymond would write her biography.

After her meeting with the Dominicans in Florence, Catherine and her followers travelled throughout northern and central Italy to call for reform and repentance. Meanwhile, the young woman, who had become literate only a few years earlier, started corresponding with influential figures, offering unsolicited advice and rebukes, and calling these powerful men to holiness. Among the recipients of letters from Siena was the pope himself, then based in Avignon in southern France.

Her main points in the letters and personal encounters were to advocate radical renewal in the Church and within all the faithful; the need for the pope to return to Rome; and to agitate for a new crusade to regain the sacred shrines in the Holy Land.

She also became involved in diplomacy, persuading the city-states of Pisa and Lucca to abandon the growing anti-papal league.

In 1376 Pope Gregory XI placed Florence under interdict, which meant that no sacraments, including the Eucharist, were allowed to be administered in the city. Catherine was appointed ambassador of the Republic of Florence and sent to Avignon to negotiate peace with the Papal States. She was unsuccessful and other envoys continued the negotiations.

Bringing the pope home

But while in Avignon, Catherine had an opportunity to petition Pope Gregory XI to end the papacy’s 70-year exile in France and to return to Rome. In January 1377, the French-born pope did just that. Catherine, still only 29 at the time, has since been credited with bringing the papacy home.

The same year Catherine returned to Siena, where she founded a women’s monastery of strict observance outside the city. It was around that time that she dictated her Dialogue, a record of her mystical visions which has been described as an encounter between a soul and God.

All seemed well, but by 1378 all kinds of chaos broke loose. First, Pope Gregory sent Catherine to Florence to mediate a new peace treaty. On March 27 Gregory died and a divided conclave elected Urban VI. The French cardinals rejected Urban and returned to Avignon where they would elect a new pope, the anti-pope Clement VII, in September. Meanwhile, Catherine was almost assassinated during riots in Florence. But in July, she concluded the peace between Florence and the papacy.

Catherine returned briefly to Siena, but once the French cardinals had caused the schism, Pope Urban called her into diplomatic action again. With a group of followers, she settled in Rome, near the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, where Fr Raymond of Capua had become prior (though he was soon sent on mission to Avignon and Catherine would never see her friend again).

With her health deteriorating, Catherine wrote letters to and met with political and Church leaders, begging them to heal the schism by reconciling with Pope Urban. And she prayed fervently. However, the schism would not be healed for almost four decades, until 1417.

By early 1380, Catherine’s health was failing. In January, she could neither eat nor swallow. In February she lost the use of her legs. In April she suffered a massive stroke which paralysed her from the waist down. Eight days later, on April 29, Catherine died. She was only 33.

Catherine was buried in the cemetery of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, near the Pantheon, but after miracles were reported at her grave, Fr Raymond moved her body into the basilica of that name, which still holds her tomb today. Catherine’s head, however, was allocated to Siena. Placed in a bronze cast, it was taken in a procession, which included Catherine’s mother, to the basilica of San Domenico. The incorrupt face and her thumb can still be seen there.

St Catherine of Siena was canonised in 1461 by Pope Pius II, himself from Siena. Her feast day is April 29. In 1939 Pope Pius XII named her a joint patron saint of Italy along with St Francis of Assisi. In 1999, Pope John Paul II made her one of Europe’s patron saints, along with St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross and St Bridget of Sweden.

Her Dialogue especially is considered landmarks of spiritual literature, so much so that Pope Paul VI named St Catherine of Siena a Doctor of the Church in 1970.

Published in the April 2023 issue of The Southern Cross magazine