St. Catherine of Siena
She couldn't read until she was grown. Then she wrote to the Pope.
Catherine was the twenty-fourth of twenty-five children, which is a lot of people to be lost inside of. She never went to school. She did not learn to read or write until she was an adult.
Once she could, she never stopped. She wrote to prisoners and priests and kings. She wrote to the Pope, who was living in France while Rome fell apart, and she told him to go home. He went. She was twenty-nine.
She is one of only four women the Church has ever named a Doctor of the Church. Not bad for someone nobody taught to read.
St. Catherine of Siena facts for kids
- One of only four women ever named a Doctor of the Church
- Patron saint of Italy and of all of Europe
- She dictated a whole book, The Dialogue, while praying so deeply that others wrote it down for her
- Her most famous line: Be who God meant you to be, and you will set the world on fire.
Feast day: April 29 · Patron of Italy and Europe
St. Catherine, give me the nerve to say the true thing out loud.
The longer story
We wrote a whole post about St. Catherine, with more of the story than fits on one page.
St. Catherine of Siena: The Girl Who Told the Pope What to DoWe mailed this one
St. Catherine wrote a letter to the kids on our list, and it went out with a hand-drawn prayer card, a sticker, and an 8-page zine.
See St. Catherine's letter