Catherine of Siena

Catherine of Siena (1347–1380) was a Dominican tertiary, mystic, and theologian whose influence on the late medieval Church was extraordinary. Born Caterina Benincasa in Siena, she experienced intense visions from childhood and eventually became a counselor to popes and princes, dictating a voluminous correspondence in defense of Church reform and the crusading ideal. Her most celebrated achievement was her successful campaign of letters and personal appeals that persuaded Pope Gregory XI to end the Avignon papacy and return the Roman see to Rome in 1377. Her major spiritual work, the Dialogue, presents a sustained mystical conversation between the soul and God and became a foundational text of Western Christian mysticism. She was canonized in 1461, declared a Doctor of the Church by Paul VI in 1970 — one of the first two women to receive that title, alongside Teresa of Ávila — and named a co-patron of Europe in 1999.