Catherine of Genoa

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Saint Catherine of Genoa
Born	1447, Italy
Died	15 September 1510, Genoa
Venerated in	Roman Catholic Church
Beatified	1675 by Clement X
Canonized	1737 by Clement XII
Feast	22 July
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Saint Catherine of Genoa, a member of the noble family of Fieschi, was born in 1447 and spent her life and her means in succouring and attending the sick, especially during the plague which ravaged Genoa in 1497 and 1501. Saint Catherine died in that city on 15 September 1510.

St. Catherine's parents were Jacopo Fieschi and Francesca di Negro, both of illustrious Italian birth. Jacopo became Viceroy of Naples. Catherine is described as an extraordinarily holy child, highly gifted in the way of prayer, and with a wonderful love of Christ's Passion and of penitential practices; but, also, as having been a most quiet, simple, and exceedingly obedient girl.

She wished to enter the convent when about thirteen, but the nuns to whom her confessor applied refused her on account of her youth. She then appears to have put the idea aside without any further attempt. At sixteen, she was married by her parents' wish to a young Genoese nobleman, Giuliano Adorno. The marriage turned out wretchedly; Giuliano proved faithless, violent-tempered, and a spendthrift, who made the life of his wife a misery. Details are scanty, but it seems at least clear that Catherine spent the first five years of her marriage in silent, melancholy submission to her husband; and that she then, for another five, turned a little to the world for consolation in her troubles.

Then, ten years after her marriage, came the event of her life. When about twenty-six years old, she received revelations, of which she spoke at times to those around her, but which are mainly embodied in her two works: the "Dialogues of the Soul and Body", and the "Treatise on Purgatory". Her biographies, chiefly translations or adaptations of an old Italian one which is itself founded on "Memoirs" drawn up by the saint's own confessor and a friend, mingle what facts they give of her outward life with accounts of her supernatural state and "doctrine". In her writings, she says

"[The souls in Purgatory] see all things, not in themselves, nor by themselves, but as they are in God, on whom they are more intent than on their own sufferings. . . . For the least vision they have of God overbalances all woes and all joys that can be conceived. Yet their joy in God does by no means abate their pain. . . . This process of purification to which I see the souls in Purgatory subjected, I feel within myself." (Treatise on Purgatory, xvi, xvii.)

For about twenty-five years, Catherine, though frequently making confessions, was unable to open her mind for direction to anyone; but towards the end of her life a Father Marabotti was appointed to be her spiritual guide. To him she explained her states, past and present, and he compiled the "Memoirs". Of the saint's outward life, after this great change, her biographies practically tell us but two facts: that she at last converted her husband who died penitent in 1497; and that both before and after his death -- though more entirely after it -- she gave herself to the care of the sick in the great Hospital of Genoa, where she eventually became manager and treasurer.

She died worn out with labours of body and soul. She was beatified in 1675 by Clement X, and canonized in 1737, by Clement XII. Meantime, her writings had been examined by the Holy Office and pronounced to contain doctrine that would be enough, in itself, to prove her sanctity. Her name was placed in the calendar of Saints on the 22 July by Benedict XIV.