Saint Catherine of Siena, Virgin and Doctor of the Church

Catherine Benincasa was born in Siena in 1347, one of the youngest of some twenty-five children of a wool dyer. At sixteen she joined the Dominican laywomen called Mantellate, and after years of prayer in her room began caring for the sick and the condemned. A circle of disciples gathered around her. She dictated nearly four hundred letters, to popes, rulers and ordinary people, and a book, the Dialogue.

In 1376 she went to Avignon and urged Pope Gregory XI to return the papacy to Rome, which he soon did. When the Western Schism began, she supported Urban VI and went to Rome to work for unity. She died there on 29 April 1380, aged thirty-three. She was canonized in 1461 and named a Doctor of the Church in 1970, and is a patron of Italy and of Europe.