Catherine of Siena, the Conscience of a Church-in-crisis

by Theresia Saers

1347 born on March 25 1378 she wrote Dialogue of Divine Providence 1380 died on April 29 1461 canonization 1492 Dialogue printed for the first time 1970 proclaimed Doctor of the Church 1999 proclaimed Patroness of Europe In this icon Catherine is shown with a mighty ship on her shoulder, a symbol of how St. Peter’s ministry had been changed by the medieval papacy. As she carries that ship, so did her example carry the hierarchy of her time.

She is a patron for all those who feel crushed by religious institutions, as well as a great model for those called to leadership.

When their 25^th child was born to wool-dyer Jacopo Benincasa and his wife Lapa, no one could have expected that the infant was going to play a prophetic role. Nor could anyone have thought that she would be honoured in later centuries as a Doctor of the Church and Patron Saint of Europe. Born in 1347 in the city of Siena Catherine did not even learn to write properly. However, this was never to be a problem, since her education lay elsewhere and was due to a life of constant and deep prayer. When the call came for her to write down what she was seeing and hearing in her extasies, there were often three official secretaries taking turns, because her high dictation speed was way beyond the capacities of any writer.

The age in which Catherine was living was marked by many catastrophies. Our own world is not exactly without life-threatening disasters for millions of people, nevertheless it is probably beyond our imagination how people in her days, especially the poor and disadvantaged, were a prey to terrible circumstances. The Black Death made tens of thousands of victims and the Benincasa family lost a number of sons and daughters. In a later epidemic the bubonic plague led to the death of seven of Catherine’s nephews and nieces, whom she buried with her own hands. For decades Europe also experienced warfare with the inevitable results of pillaging and arson, with rape, treason and blackmail, famine and bitter poverty that went hand in hand with the sickening pomp and splendour of local authorities and Princes of the Church, a Church-in-crisis. The Popes had long had their residence in Avignon and had lost all authority over cardinals and over many bishops. Nepotism was rife. The poor of many cities and villages, in fact of large regions, were at the mercy of arbitrary authorities and mercenary armies. They needed champions to take up their case. They needed prophets.

Saint Catherine could be characterised in her early youth as a girl of exceptional devoutness. From a very young age she was moved by the love of God and, strong-willed and disciplined, she led a life of mortification in her small room as if in a hermit’s cell. In later years she would advise others not to indulge overmuch in those practices. At 23 she felt a call to give up this hermit’s life and from that day she lived in what she liked to describe as ‘the cell of selfknowledge’, the realisation of being a grain of dust facing its Creator. By that time she already had an exceptional source of strength deep down in herself, and her education from then on was completed when she moved among people and came close to their sufferings. Her dedication to the poor and the sick, in a word to all that found themselves in whatever need, provided her with a very clear view of the world in which she lived. It made her realise how cruel were the political forces and how the behaviour of the Church that had been instructed differently by Christ, was one of the determining factors of the ills of her society.

Catherine took up arms, not so much against the political order as against the politicians, essentially Christians who terribly misbehaved. She addressed kings and emperors, popes, cardinals, bishops, city authorities and all the rulers of the world, whom she judged responsible for the sorry state of the world. There is no way of calling Catherine progressive, for instance she appeared not to sense that the papacy was in need of drastic reform. She did, however, point out to the popes that they needed great changes in the way they behaved. She visited very unlikely places, among them what we would nowadays call Death Row. We know from at least one individual the great comfort she radiated, when she accompanied a young man who had been condemned to death, all the way to the gallows. The young man let go of all fear as Catherine knelt beside the block to receive his head in her hands.

Over 360 of her letters have come down to us, proof of how greatly they had been appreciated by the addressees, even when they contained serious reprimands concerning their actions. Catherine’s letters were always very clear in their remonstrations, but at the same time so full of love and humility were the actual words that her correspondents hardly ever turned into enemies.

Our contemporaries must find it hard to imagine how Catherine managed the travels of her ‘public life’ that took her to Avignon and the court of the Pope. The journey from Florence to Avignon with the Mantellates, a kind of Dominican Third Order to which she belonged and to whose members she became a spiritual leader, took two months. They would travel on foot, on donkeys, in carriages. They had to take up qaurters and would use the occasion to give religious instruction and nurse the sick. The women took turns in the household duties. The scene is reminiscent of the group of women around Jesus of Nazareth. In this case, the central figure of the group was Catherine of Siena.

Although many people think that it was Caterina who made the popes move their courts from Avignon to Rome, N.G.M. van Doornik, to whom I am indebted for most of what is in this article, provides evidence that this is not so. The popes had themselves felt for some time that it would be the best thing to do. Catherine gave the plan a final push. [Cf. Een vrouw die niet zweeg in de kerk, Caterina van Siena by N.G.M. van Doornik, Nijmegen 1980]

Catherine’s love encompassed all the world, all humans, friend and foe, Christian and non-Christian. And when she feels called upon to preach a crusade, she encourages kings and noblemen not to kill the enemy but to be prepared to lay down their own lives for the salvation of the opponent. She herself was not at all afraid to die. Soldiers out to get her were met by Catherine the way Jesus approached those that came to lead him away in the Garden of Gethsemane: “If you are looking to take me prisoner, here I am, but let my people go unharmed.”

Beside her letters, we owe to Catherine the mystical work of Dialogue of Divine Povidence, a classic, whic was a must in many a library, even of those that were not very religious. Her own mother, who survived her to die only in het ninetieth year, came only rather late to understand what great mystic she had brought into the world.

What can our contemporaries learn from Catherine? She gives encouragement to all those women married or single, in or outside convents, who are forever feeding the hungry, give drink to those that thirst, clothe the poor, nurse the sick, welcome and help asylum seekers, bury the dead and never leave off denouncing social or Church evils. She encourages us, too, to delve into our own hearts for the strength to grow in love and persevere in service.

Theresia Saers