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Home , Catherine of Racconigi, Catherine of Siena, Racconigi

CATHERINE OF RACCONIGI, BL. ry, the Spiritual Dialogue, ed. S. HUGHES (New York 1979). D. C. she was hardworking, maternally affectionate, but spiri- NUGENT, ‘‘ : Mystic of Pure Love,’’ in tually rather obtuse. Catherine grew up intelligent, cheer- Women Writers of the Renaissance and , ed. K. M. WIL- ful, and intensely religious. It is reported that at the age SON, (Athens, Georgia 1987) 67–80. K. JORGENSEN, ‘‘‘Love Con- quers All’: The Conversion, , and Altruism of St. of 7, following a vision of Christ in glory, she vowed her Caterina of Genoa,’’ in Renaissance Society and Culture, eds. J. virginity to him. Later on, her mother repeatedly urged MONFASANI and R. MUSTO (New York 1991) 87–106. C. BALDUZZI, her to care more for her appearance with a view to mar- Il Soprannaturale in Santa Caterina da Genova: patrona degli os- riage. Catherine at first yielded a little but then proved in- pendali (Udine 1992). F. DE MARTINOIR, Catherine de Genes, La tractable, and to show her resolution she cut off her hair. joie du Purgatoire: Caterina Fieschi Adorno, 1447–1510 (Paris 1995). This led to persecution from her family, which was ended when Jacopo ordered that Catherine be left in peace and [P. L. HUG] allowed her a room of her own for prayer and meditation. Catherine was already being guided in her spiritual life by the Dominicans, and she greatly desired to become a , BL. tertiary of the order. This was accomplished, after some difficulty, in 1364 or 1365. The next three years she spent Mystic; b. Racconigi, province of , , in seclusion from the world, devoting herself to prayer , June 24?, 1486; d. Caramagna, Piedmont, Sept. 4, and the practice of severe austerities. It proved to be a 1547. Catherine was the youngest of seven children of a preparation for the active apostolate that was to follow, blacksmith. She worked as a weaver and distributed her and it ended, probably in the spring of 1368, with a vision wages to the poor. She loved solitude and contemplation that convinced Catherine that Christ had accepted her as and was vowed to virginity; she is known to have been his ‘‘bride.’’ She received his command to carry her love favored with many mystical graces and prophecies as for him out into the world and so give full scope to the well as being privileged with the . From her Do- charity within her. minican confessor she received the habit of a tertiary on Dec. 22, 1513. Although she was esteemed and consulted Catherine’s life from that time until her death fell by illustrious personages, she was also persecuted by the into three somewhat clearly marked periods: from 1368 envious. When forced to take refuge in Caramagna, Cath- to the summer of 1374; from this date to November 1378; erine offered herself as a victim for sinners and for the and then the year and a half until her death in 1380. The maintenance of peace. Pius VII authorized her Mass and first period was spent entirely in and is marked by Office on April 9, 1808. She is commemorated in the four important developments. First, there gathered Order of Preachers and in the dioceses of and Mon- around her the nucleus of the group of friends and disci- dovì, and is particularly venerated in Racconigi, where ples with which her name is associated: men and women; her house was made into an oratory and chapel in the Do- priests both secular and religious, among whom Domini- minican church, in Caramagna, and in (Cuneo), cans naturally predominated; and the laity; most of them where there is a chapel in her honor. her seniors, but all in some measure her spiritual pupils, Feast: Sept. 4. and all accustomed to calling her ‘‘mother.’’ The forma- tion of this ‘‘family’’ led in turn to the beginning, not Bibliography: G. F. PICO DELLA MIRANDOLA and P. M. MOREL- later than 1370, of the great series of Catherine’s letters. LI, Compendio delle cose mirabili della beata Caterina da Rac- Probably she could already read, and later would learn to conigi (Chieri-Turin 1858). G. BONETTI, Vita.... (Turin 1876). A. FERRARIS, Beata Caterina Mattei da Racconigi (Alba 1947). A. write, but she dictated nearly all her letters to secretaries GUARIENTI, La Beata Caterina da Racconigi (Alba 1964). chosen from her ‘‘family.’’ At first simply vehicles for spiritual instruction and encouragement, the letters soon [I. VENCHI] began to touch on public affairs. The first public issue to receive her attention was a projected Crusade against the Turks. Meanwhile, in the little world of Siena, it was in- , ST. evitable that her personality and influence should arouse some opposition and even slander. She was a saint who Dominican tertiary and mystic, ; mixed fearlessly in the world and spoke with the candor b. Siena, probably in 1347; d. , , 1380. and authority of one completely committed to Christ. At Life. Catherine was the 23rd child (a twin) of Jacopo the same time she was a woman, young and with no so- Benincasa, a dyer, and his wife, Lapa Piagenti. Jacopo cial position. She was accused of hypocrisy and presump- was a good Christian and was to prove a true father to tion. At this critical point it was her Dominican affiliation Catherine in her struggle for freedom to follow her un- that saved her. Summoned to to give an account usual vocation. Lapa was an average Italian housewife; of herself to the general chapter of the order held there

272 NEW CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA CATHERINE OF SIENA, ST. in May and June of 1374, she satisfied the rigorous judg- es, and her work was given official Dominican protec- tion. The chapter appointed Bl. (1330–99) as director of Catherine and her followers; from then on he was very closely associated with her ac- tivities. The next four years saw Catherine’s influence on public affairs at its greatest. Two issues in particular led her into church politics: the Crusade already mentioned and the war between Florence and her Italian allies against the papacy (1376–78). Catherine’s political achievements should not, however, be overestimated. She had no interest in secular politics as such and often showed herself naïve and ingenuous when involved in them. Such influence as she had was due to her manifest holiness, to her Dominican connection, and to the impres- sion she made on Gregory XI and, to a lesser degree, on his successor, Urban VI. She first saw Gregory at Avi- gnon in June 1376. She had gone there at the request of the Florentines, hoping to make peace between them and the . This effort was in vain, but she did have much to do with Gregory’s decision to bring the Curia back to Rome in that same year. She had persisted also in her ef- forts for the Crusade, the project that so often recurs in her letters and that had brought her to Pisa in 1375. This visit is worth recording because it was during an ecstasy in a church in that city that Catherine received the stigma- ta, though the wounds were visible only to herself. By January 1377 Catherine was back in Siena. During the next two years she continued her tireless apostolate in Christ presenting St. Catherine of Siena with crown, that city and in the Tuscan countryside and, with less suc- painting by Pier Francesco Bissolo. (©Hulton Getty/Liaison cess, her efforts for peace in Florence. Gregory had died Agency) in March of 1378, and his successor was the well- meaning but often harsh and tactless Urban VI. In the au- ing is ’s creative and recreative (redemptive) love, tumn the Great Schism began. expressed and symbolized in the Precious Blood. Her This disaster overshadowed and saddened the last stress on the importance in Christian living of clear, exact phase of Catherine’s life. From November 1378 until her knowledge shows her Dominican training, but her teach- death she was in Rome, occupied chiefly with her prayers ing derives at least as much from SS. Augustine and Ber- and pleading on behalf of Urban VI and the unity of the nard as (indirectly in any case) from St. Thomas. Church, and with the composition of her book, the Dia- Venerated in her lifetime as a saint, she was canonized logue, written in four treatises, which she intended as her by Pius II in 1461. In 1939 Pius XII declared her and St. spiritual testament to the world. Early in 1380 her agony Francis of the chief patron of Italy, and, on over the of the Church, for which she had offered Oct. 1, 1999, she was declared patron of Europe by John herself as a victim to God, brought on a seizure, the pre- Paul II. In 1970, she was declared Doctor of the Church. lude to her death. She died, surrounded by her ‘‘chil- Feast: April 29 (formerly April 30). dren,’’ and was buried in the church of the Minerva at Rome. Her head is at S. Domenico in Siena. Bibliography: Works. The standard complete edition of Catharine’s letters is Le lettere di s. Caterina da Siena, ed. N. TOM- Spirituality. Spiritually, Catherine ranks high MASÈO, 4 v. (Florence 1860), rev. ed. P. MISCIATTELLI, 6 v. (Siena among Catholic mystics and spiritual writers. Her spiritu- 1913–21; repr. Florence 1939–40). E. DUPRÉ-THESEIDER, Episto- lario da Santa Caterina da Siena (Rome 1940). Saint Catherine of ality is markedly Christocentric: gifted by nature with a Siena as Seen in Her Letters, tr. V. D. SCUDDER (New York 1905), fine intelligence and intense vitality, she surrendered her- a selection. Dialogue or Libro della divina dottrina, ed. M. FIORILLI self to the Incarnate Word. The basic theme of her teach- (2d ed. Bari 1912), rev. S. CARAMELLA (1928), Eng. tr. A. L.

NEW CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA 273 CATHERINE OF SWEDEN, ST.

THOROLD (London 1896). I, Catherine: Selected Writings, ed. and CATHERINE THOMAS, ST. tr. K. FOSTER and M. J. RONAYNE (London 1980). The Letters of Catherine of Siena, tr. S. NOFFKE (2d ed. Tempe, Ariz. 1999). Liter- Canoness Regular of Saint Augustine; b. Valdemuz- ature. Fontes vitae s. Catharinae Senensis historici, ed. M. H. LAU- za, Majorca, , 1533; d. Palma, Majorca, 1574. Cath- RENT et al. (Siena 1936– ). The most authoritative early life is erine, orphaned at the age of seven, already showed signs RAYMUND OF CAPUA’S Leggenda Major, Eng. tr. G. LAMB, The Life of great piety and gifts of prayer. She went to work as of St. Catherine of Siena (New York 1960). A. LEVASTI, My Servant shepherdess for an uncle, who beat and starved her. In Catherine, tr. D. M. WHITE (Westminster, Md. 1954). A. GRION, spite of this treatment she made great strides in the spiri- Santa Caterina da Siena: Dottrina e fonti (Brescia 1953). G. CAV- ALLINI, Catherine of Siena (London 1998); Things Visible and In- tual life. At the age of 16 she was accepted at the convent visible: Images in the Spirituality of St. Catherine of Siena, tr. of St. Mary Magdalen in Palma, at her confessor’s insis- (New York 1996), SR. M. The Secret of the Heart: A tence, for she had no dowry. Here she tried to hide her Theological Study of Catherine of Siena’s Teaching on the Heart spiritual gifts under a cloak of stupidity. Strange phenom- of Jesus (Front Royal, Va. 1995). A. CURTAYNE, Saint Catherine of ena soon made her the center of controversy. She appar- Siena (New York 1935). S. UNDSET, Catherine of Siena, tr. K. AUS- ently had the gift of prophecy and also conversed with TIN- LUND (New York 1954). S. NOFFKE, Catherine of Siena: Vision angels. She was said to have been attacked by devils who Through a Distant Eye (Collegeville, Minn. 1996). R. FAWTIER, Sainte Catherine de Sienne et la critique des sources, 2 v. (Paris filled the with fearful shrieks and who once 1921–30), v. 1 Sources hagiographiques, v. 2 Les Oeuvres de s. C. tossed her into a cistern full of muddy water. Distin- de S. R. FAWTIER and L. CANET, La Double expérience de Catherine guished visitors came continually to see her. She foretold Benincasa (Paris 1948). Fawtier’s radical criticism of the sources the day of her own death at the age of 41. She was beati- was examined by E. JORDAN in Analecta Bollandiana 40 (1922) fied in 1792 and canonized in 1930. 365–411. E. DUPRÉ-THESEIDER, ‘‘La Duplice esperienza di S. C. da S.,’’ in Rivista storica italiana 62 (1950) 533–574. Feast: April 1.

[K. FOSTER] Bibliography: A. BUTLER, The Lives of the Saints, ed. H. THURSTON and D. ATTWATER (New York 1956) 2:6–7. J. L. BAUDOT and L. CHAUSSIN, Vies des saints et des bienhereux selon l’ordre du calendrier avec l’historique des fêtes (Paris 1935–56) 4:135–136.

CATHERINE OF SWEDEN, ST. [M. J. DORCY] Bridgettine; b. 1331 or 1332; d. Vadstena, March 24, 1381. She was the daughter of St. . In early youth she married the nobleman Eggard von CATHOLIC Kürnen, with whom she lived in continency. In 1350 she The word catholic means general or universal (from joined her mother in Rome, sharing as daughter and com- the Greek kaqolik’j). Originally applied to the universal panion Bridget’s life of prayer, pilgrimage, and charitable care and providence of God (by ), to the general works. After her husband’s death (1351), Catherine re- resurrection (by ), it is still used of fused many offers of marriage. Having accompanied her those Epistles addressed to the Church at large and not mother’s remains to Sweden (1375), she devoted herself to particular communities. to the interests of the community founded by Bridget at But today the term is more often applied to the Vadstena, becoming its first superior. From 1375 to 1380 Church founded by Christ, which is of its nature intended she was in Rome to further her mother’s and for all races and all times. The Prophets of the Old Law the approbation of the Bridgettine rule. At this time she announced the universal reign of the Messiah, and this became the friend of CATHERINE OF SIENA. Though not was established by Christ, who spoke of the kingdom as formally canonized, she is listed in the Roman martyrolo- being destined for all men and who sent out His disciples gy. A chapel in the Piazza Farnese is dedicated to her. to teach all nations. The reception of Cornelius marked Her devotional writings, including The Consolation of an important step in the realization of this ideal; St. Paul the Soul, have not survived. in his day could already speak of the faith as being known throughout the whole world (Rom 1.8). Early Church See Also: BRIGITTINE SISTERS. documents (, St. ) speak of universality Feast: March 24. as one of the characteristics of Christianity, and St. Igna- tius of Antioch (Smyrn. 8.2) was the first to use the ex- Bibliography: A. BUTLER, The Lives of the Saints, ed. H. pression the . The growth of the Church THURSTON and D. ATTWATER (New York 1956) 1: 669–671. A. L. in the first two centuries is often taken as a sign of its di- SIBILIA, Bibliotheca Sanctorum 3:994–996. vine origin, since up to the time of Constantine there were [M. J. FINNEGAN] very few material advantages to be obtained by a profes-

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