Catherine of Siena by Sigrid Undset, 2nd Read, Post #5

This is the fifth post on the second read of Sigrid Unset’s Catherine of Siena. 

You can find Post #1 here.  

Post #2 here. 

Post #3 here. 

Post #4 here.   

Summaries for chapters 19 through 23 were written by Gerri Bauer for our Goodreads, Catholic Thought book club.  (I didn’t have the time to keep up and Gerri did me a favor.  Thank you Gerri.)

Chapter 19

Catherine is called mediate a feud between two branches of the Salimbeni family. While at their fortress, a possessed women is brought to Catherine for healing - causing Catherine to cry out because she suffers so much from attacks by demons. But she is the victor in the struggle for the woman. Also, while at the fortress, Catherine discovers she can write. She says this occurred while she was in ecstasy. She also survives an attack by a monk who was in despair and tries to kill her.

Chapter 20

Catherine heads to Florence as the Pope's ambassador, without any priests accompanying her because the town is under an interdict. Catherine's friends and enemies agree that she is well versed in everything concerning the Church, is very learned, and has a brilliant intuitive understanding of things. A peace conference starts at the beginning of 1378 but Pope Gregory XI dies on March 27 before peace is secured. A fierce civil war breaks out in Florence. Catherine faces down a mob that comes to murder her in Soderini's garden. She offers her life but begs them to spare her companions. The mob leaves but the war continues. At one point, Catherine flees to nearby woods but soon returns to town. While in Florence, she writes her first letter to Pope Urban VI, urging mercy as well as reform of the Church. She also again calls for a crusade after peace is established in Florence. Peace finally comes in July and Catherine returns to Siena.

Chapter 21

When Pope Gregory XI died, Rome was in chaos. Romans formed mobs and stormed the Vatican, screaming that a Roman must be elected or the cardinals would be murdered. Terrified cardinals rushed through the election and chose the Archbishop of Bari, Bartolommeo Prignano, who became Urban VI. As soon as the crowds were told there was a new Pope, the mob broke down the doors and forced their way in, again repeating the threat. (A Roman noble, Cardinal Tebaldeschi, was presented to the mob as the new Pope.) The cardinals in Avignon, supported by Provencal colleagues, refused to accept any declarations sent out in Urban's name. On Sept. 20, a schismatic Pope was elected. Catherine, meanwhile, is back in Siena and dictates so many letters she keeps three secretaries busy. She writes numerous letters supporting Urban as the lawful Pope. Undset says she had foreseen the schism.

Chapter 22

Catherine removes herself to a solitary dwelling outside the gates of Siena and dictates the book that becomes known as the "Dialogue." She asks her secretaries to listen when she is in ecstasy and write down all she says. Catherine calls the manuscript "the book" or "my book." Undset says a belief in God's mercy is the undercurrent of the conversations between the Eternal Father and His dear daughter, a much loved child. In the Dialogue, the Lord repeats for Catherine all he has taught her. The contents are revealed to Catherine during a series of visions that take place over four or five days. This Chapter goes into depth about the Dialogue.

Channel 23

Catherine starts on a journey to Rome and arrives Nov. 28 to find the town under arms. The Pope can't move into the Vatican and is staying at Santa Maria in Trastevere. He asks Catherine to make a speech to the cardinals about the schism. She urges them to show courage. Pope Urban also asks Catherine and another virgin named Katherine to go as his ambassadors to Queen Joanna of Naples, who supports the schismatics. Katherine refuses for personal reasons, so neither woman goes. But Catherine had already written to Joanna from Siena, with a plea for the lawful Pope. She writes again, but Joanna ignores the pleas. Catherine and her companions settle in a house near Santa Maria sopra Minerva. Christmas is approaching, and it will be the first Catherine celebrates in Rome. 

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My Comment to Gerri:

Gerri! Thank you so much for summarizing these chapters. I am behind. Besides what seems a busier than usual week, the election and the results has had me distracted.

 

"Distracted from distraction by distraction," one of my favorite quotes from TS Eliot.

 

Now let me get to reading these chapters and I will comment. Bless you.

My Comment:

Gerri, I just finished chapter 22 which was on the Dialogue. Undset only gives us a smattering from the book. I too want to read it, but I'm told is a little chaotic. Remember it was dictated while Catherine was in ecstasy and so I'm told it can be hard to absorb. I've read that Catherine intended to edit it but she couldn't bring herself to do it because she felt it came from the mouth of God. The Dialogue is a conversation between her and God.

There is a condensed version that cuts the repetitions and makes things flow logically. Little Talks With God. Perhaps that's a better choice for the book club to start if we can get it voted in as a read. 

My Comment:

On page 285 I was struck with Undset saying that Catherine "was such a good cook." I've never seen that anywhere else. She made the candied oranges for the pope. If she cooked then she had to to taste, no? And if she tasted, she had to have had some nutrition.

 

But I'm startled to see she was a good cook. That is surprising to me.

My Comment:

On page 282 she chastises two hermits for not getting personally involved in healing the schism, one of the two being William Fleete. She says about him, "I sigh from the bottom of my heart over his stupidity, for he does not seek the glory of God and the good of his neighbor with noticeable zeal." Apparently she didn't think his being a hermit was an excuse. She being a Dominican I can see why she would have a hard time with it. She tells him later, "The glow of your faith cannot be very ardent if you risk losing it by changing your dwelling. It seems as though God cares about places, and is only to be found in solitude and no other place in the day of need."

 

Now think back when she was in her cell of self-knowledge and did not want to come out. She only came out on Christ's insistence. I think she was eighteen at the time. Now, here, she is around thirty or thirty-one. She has grown much over that time.

Gerri Replied:

She called things as she saw them. It's one reason why, after reading this book, I consider her fearless. She was disappointed when she perceived Raimondo to be shying away from potential martyrdom, and she told him so. I marvel at her boldness in expressing strong opinions and in getting away with doing so.

 

I agree with you about the Dialogue. Your suggested book is a good one to put up for a future read vote.

My Reply to Gerri:

Oh she was so courageous. And just think about her travels. A woman just didn't do that back then. 

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I was taken a little by surprised in chapter 23 by how much Catherine was involved in solving the great schism.  We frequently hear of Catherine’s having convinced Pope Gregory XI to return the papacy back to Rome, and perhaps rightly so since that was a great achievement, but her efforts to heal the schism is also a great effort, even though she was not successful.  I didn’t realize (actually I must have forgotten since I have read this before) how much Pope Urban VI relied on her to help support the legitimacy of his papacy.  I thought she just came to Rome and prayed to end the schism, but we see a lot more than that in chapter 23, but it hardly gets mentioned in the Catholic world of today.  I guess an achievement is always more historically lasting in people’s memory than a failed effort, but this effort should be documented.  Allow me to pull some short excerpts from the chapter to highlight and in my small little way hopefully disseminate knowledge of Catherine’s great participation to end the schism.

Let me start with Catherine being received by Pope Urban VI in Rome.

 

Catherine was immediately received by the Pope, who was overwhelmed with joy at meeting her again.  He asked her to make a speech to the assembled cardinals, first and foremost about the schism, which had now become a fact.  She did so in such a way that everyone was greatly moved.  She encouraged them to show courage and determination, and brought forward many reasons for this.  She explained how God’s providence watched over each individual in such a way in these times which brought great suffering on Holy Church.  Therefore, she said finally, they should not let themselves be frightened by the schism, but persevere and work for God without fear of me.  When she finished her talk the Pope seemed extremely happy.  He summed up what she had said and added to the cardinals: “See, brothers, how guilty we must appear to God because we are without courage.  This little woman puts us to shame.  And when I call her a little woman [piccola donzella] I do not do so out of scorn, but because her sex is by nature fearful; but see how we tremble while she is strong and calm, and see how consoles us with her words.  (p. 274)

There is that courage of hers highlighted again; everyone sees it.  Can you imagine in the 14^th century a woman being asked to speak in front of an assembly of cardinals, and then delivering a motivating speech, probably off the cuff?  She is amazing.

Pope Urban had plans to use her across Italy.

 

A day or two later Urban suggested that Catherine and another virgin, also called Katherine, should go as his ambassadors to Queen Joanna of Naples, who now openly supported the schismatics.  This other Katherine was the daughter of St. Birgitta and had come to Rome to arrange several matters connected with the convent in Vadstena which her mother had founded.  But St. Karin of Vadstena, as the Swedes called her, blankly refused to visit Queen Joanna…Karin Ulfsdotter was now a woman of about forty, but she was obviously convinced that there was no misdeed so terrible that Queen Joanna would not commit it.  If she and Catherine of Siena went to Naples they risked being taken in ambushed on the way and killed.  Raimondo agreed with Karin; he considered Queen Joanna an utterly depraved woman, and was stubbornly set against his “mamma” meeting her.  Only Catherine scorned her friends’ lack of courage….But Urban thought over what Karin said and let the idea drop.  (275-6)

Still to be considered for such a diplomatic mission is extraordinary and speaks of her reputation.  It also shows how dangerous it was for Catherine to do all the travels across Italy and France that she did.  Catherine had already implored Queen Joanna concerning the schism prior to this and would do so again.

While she was still in Siena Catherine had written to Queen Joanna—a passionate plea for the lawful Pope, Urban, to whom all Christian princes owed their loyalty.  From Rome she sent the Queen a letter which was even more outspoken.  She addresses the letter to her “dear mother in Christ.”  (Joanna was by then a woman of fifty-one and married for the fourth time.)  Catherine now writes to this woman on her favorite theme, self-love opposed to the love for God as He has revealed Himself in Christ Crucified.  “Oh, dear mother, you must love the Truth, you must submit yourself to the Holy Church—for otherwise I will never again call you mother or turn towards you with respect.  From being a queen you have been made a servant and the slave of something which is nothing…”  (277)

I would have loved to have been privy to Queen Joanna’s thoughts as she read from some commoner woman asking to consider herself a servant and slave.  I have not read much other writing from the time but I can’t imagine anyone else writing such as this.  Undset continues on Catherine’s letter.

 

Catherine begs Joanna at least to remain neutral until she has discovered the truth.  “Oh, I say to you in the deepest sorrow, for I wish with my whole soul that you may be saved, that if you do not change, and turn from this error and all others, the Highest Judge will punish you in such a way that it will fill all who think of rebelling against the Church with terror, do not wait for Him to strike, for it is hard to withstand God’s justice.  You must die, and you do not know when.”…Joanna paid no attention to Catherine’s warnings, not to those of the Pope.  (277-8) 

Joanna would ultimately be killed about four years later by the relations of her first husband, who it was said she had killed.  One could read about her in the Wikipedia entry.  She probably deserves a little more sympathy than suggested here when one takes the totality of her life in perspective.  She was living in a world of dangerous Italian politics and she was a woman, perhaps vulnerable to some degree.    

I can’t say I have fully grasped the subtleties of the schism.  Supporting Pope Urban we have the Dominican St. Catherine of Siena, and yet across Europe we have another Dominican who would become a saint, St. Vincent Ferrer  who supported the antipope (that is actually the title) Clement VII.  It shows you that elections are very dangerous if people don’t trust the process.  That should be a lesson to us today and the need to show the public that irregularities are addressed. 

Catherine also wrote a letter to three cardinals who apparently betrayed Urban and join the antipope.

 

It is possible that a letter from Catherine to the three Italian [cardinals] caused them to hesitate.  She begins by telling them that if they come out of the darkness in which they live she will call them her fathers, but not if they do not change their opinions.  The Sister of Penitence speaks sharply and to the point to the cardinals, as one who has authority.  Even her favorite theme of two kinds of love, the one life-giving, the other bringing death, is turned into a violent attack against these men who have been invested with the greatest responsibility and the highest dignities in the Church, but have become traitors through love of temporal things.  (280)

One should be respectful of our bishops and even our Pope, but one should also take Catherine’s example and speak truth to power.  She is amazing.  She even offers the pontiff advice.

 

Catherine had advised Pope Urban most urgently to collect around himself a lifeguard of the most worthy, righteous and pure of God’s servants—the same advice she had given his predecessor.  The Pope listened to her advice, or perhaps he had himself the same idea.  Now he wrote to the prior of the Carthusians at Gorgona and asked him to arrange for Masses to be said and prayers offered in all the monasteries in Tuscany for the Pope’s cause.  He commanded the prior moreover to appear in Rome before the end of the month, for the Pope wished to consult with him and other holy and pious monks regarding the problems of the times.  Catherine sent her own letters with the Pope’s bull’s: she wrote to most of her old friends in the various monasteries, and also to the prior of Gorgona.  (282)

This is not mere tangential praying for the Pope’s cause.  It seems like she is working hand in hand with the Holy Father.  Undset in this narrative clearly delineates the relationship in this way.  She continues.

Urban was always loyal to Catherine.  He always thought seriously over what she suggested and advised, and he did not turn against her or become sulky, as Gregory XI had dine at times when it seemed as though he had got himself into a difficult position through following her advice.  The obstinate and headstrong old man never seems to have been offended at anything she wrote to him; he obviously felt real fatherly love for “this little woman” whom he allowed to lead him, and honored her as the chosen spokesman of his Lord and Master…Catherine and Urban looked exactly the same way at the most important questions of their time—the cleansing of the Church and the re-awakening of faith among all Christian peoples.  (283)

This is beyond any imagining of Catherine’s involvement in solving the schism.  She wasn’t exactly the Pope’s “chief of staff” but perhaps we can think of her as even more elevated than that.  She was almost an equal political figure, Urban at the head of the earthly faction, Catherine at the head of the spiritual faction.  Unfortunately Catherine died in 1380, and one wonders that had she lived a normal life span, she may have helped resolve this crises.  Urban the VI would live another ten years after Catherine’s death, and the schism still fully entrenched.  The schism would last until 1417 and include three more legitimate popes and four antipopes, and at one time three men claiming to be pope at the same time.  In all it was thirty-nine years of turmoil.  Clearly Catherine’s two or three years involvement were not superficial, and history really should reflect more of her efforts.