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St. Catherine of Siena

She nursed people with diseases nobody else would touch, then talked a pope into leaving Avignon and coming back to Rome — a woman who could barely read, telling the head of the Church what to do.

Feast April 29Died at 33Siena, Italy

Born 1347 · Died 1380 · Canonized 1461

A lifelong Catholic

Catherine Benincasa was born in Siena on 25 March 1347, the second youngest of a very large family. Her father was a dyer. At seven she consecrated her virginity to Christ, and at sixteen, after a vision of St. Dominic, she joined the Dominican Third Order — the Mantellate, laywomen who wore the habit but lived at home. That is where she stayed. She learned to read with difficulty and did not learn to write until adulthood.

She began by nursing the sick, going deliberately to the ones with the most repulsive diseases, and serving the poor of Siena. Then it widened. She travelled to press for reform in the Church and to make peace between Italian states, and people from every class — nobles, politicians, artists, ordinary people, priests and religious — came to her for direction and called her mother. In 1376 the Florentines sent her to Avignon as their ambassador; that mission failed, but while she was there she pressed Pope Gregory XI to end the papacy's long exile in France and return to Rome. He returned on 17 January 1377. Her last work, done nearly from her deathbed, was reconciling Pope Urban VI with the Roman Republic.

She dictated the Dialogue of Divine Providence, nearly four hundred letters, and a collection of prayers. She wrote to the pope himself and called him "sweet Christ on earth." She was in constant physical pain and for long stretches ate almost nothing but the Eucharist. After three months of agony she died in Rome on 29 April 1380, thirty-three years old. Pius II canonized her in 1461. Pius XII made her patroness of Italy, Paul VI declared her a Doctor of the Church in 1970, and John Paul II named her a co-patroness of Europe — a woman who could barely write, and one of only four women the Church calls Doctor.

What they carried

Her own order distrusted her enough to summon her to Florence in 1374 and interrogate her, and the Catholic Encyclopedia records continual persecution from the friars of her order and her own sisters in religion. Her 1376 embassy to Avignon failed. She survived an assassination attempt in 1378 and was bitterly disappointed to have escaped martyrdom.

Patron of

  • Italyformal
  • Europeformal
  • the City of Romeformal
  • nursestraditional
  • protection against firetraditional

State of life

laywoman · Dominican tertiary · mystic · Doctor of the Church

Themes

prayer · reform · courage under pressure · writing · questions and study · care of the sick · speaking truth to power

Benedict XVI on Catherine of Siena (2010 General Audience)

Sources

  • Catholic Encyclopedia (Herbermann, 1907-1913), 'St. Catherine of Siena' — birth 25 March 1347 at Siena, death 29 April 1380 at Rome, canonized 1461 by Pius II, the 1375 stigmata at Pisa, the 1376 Avignon embassy and its failure, the 22 June 1378 attempt on her life, and the persecution she suffered from the friars of her own order and her sisters in religion. NOTE: gives the feast as 30 April, which is the PRE-1969 date. This article is not a source for the current calendar. https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03447a.htm
  • Benedict XVI, General Audience of 24 November 2010 — catechesis on Catherine in the series on medieval women. Source for the Mantellate at sixteen, her difficulty reading and learning to write in adulthood, the 1374 interrogation by the General Chapter of the Dominicans, and 'sweet Christ on earth'. Independently corroborates three of the refs below whose own documents are not held here: the Paul VI Doctor declaration of 1970, the Pius XII patronage of Italy, and the John Paul II co-patronage of Europe. https://www.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/audiences/2010/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20101124.html
  • General Roman Calendar (1969 reform) — feast restored to 29 April, her death date, after St Peter of Verona was moved to local calendars. NOT HELD: no document on disk states this. The Catholic Encyclopedia predates the reform and the 2010 audience does not mention her feast. This is the one claim in the record with no fetched source behind it.
  • Pius XII, declaration of Catherine of Siena and Francis of Assisi as patrons of Italy, 18 June 1939. Document not held; corroborated by the 2010 audience above.
  • John Paul II, apostolic letter Spes Aedificandi, 1 October 1999 (vatican.va) — proclaims her co-patroness of Europe. Document not held; corroborated by the 2010 audience above.
  • Paul VI, declaration as Doctor of the Church, 1970. Document not held; corroborated by the 2010 audience above.
  • 'one of only four women the Church calls Doctor' — Teresa of Ávila and Catherine of Siena (Paul VI, 1970), Thérèse of Lisieux (John Paul II, 1997), Hildegard of Bingen (Benedict XVI, 2012). Verified August 2026: no fifth woman has been declared. The overall count of Doctors is 38 as of Leo XIV's proclamation of John Henry Newman on 1 November 2025, so any future prose giving a total rather than the women's count will need rechecking.