The Trouble with Catherine of Sienna
How the Catholic Church Mischaracterized Mental Illness as Mysticism
CONTENT WARNING: This post includes graphic triggers for ED and SA. One episode related is deeply disturbing and may cause significant mental distress for some readers.
Catherine’s Complexities
Catherine of Siena, a woman revered in Roman Catholicism for her piety and ecclesial activism during the Western Schism, is a complicated figure to say the least. For a long time in popular devotional circles, she has been the subject of historical revisionism and hagiography that has airbrushed away all the problematic aspects of her life. Some contemporary Catholic writers have thankfully begun working toward a synthesis between the facts of her life and the official church narrative [1], but nothing that I find compelling in bridging the contradictions.
In my opinion, Catherine of Sienna simply happened to be a highly intelligent and charismatic yet remarkably troubled individual who was in the right place at the right time to prove useful in the service of medieval power-brokers. As a result of her psychological problems and the stresses placed upon her, she succumbed to an untimely death at age 33 – a tragic end shaped by her own extreme actions.
“Holy” Anorexia
For most of her life, Catherine suffered from anorexia mirabilis [2], a late medieval era eating disorder that predominantly afflicted women and involved compulsive fasting. These women hoped to imitate Jesus' suffering by inducing constant hunger pangs. But Catherine's fasting was particularly intense: by the end of her life, she was trying to subsist on nothing but the sacred Host from daily Mass. Defying her religious superiors’ orders to eat, her health rapidly declined, ultimately leading to the loss of the use of her legs and ability to swallow during her final month [3].
Over the centuries, the Roman Catholic Church has attempted to rewrite Catherine’s history by recasting her anorexia mirabilis as a form of mystical fasting, even going so far as to describe the horrible and tragic eating disorder as a Eucharistic miracle [4]. Nevertheless, in stark contrast to the narrative offered by the Roman Catholic Church, surviving primary and secondary sources preserve the truth of the debilitating effects of Catherine’s disease, including documentation from her confessor [5]. Catherine's disturbing behaviors didn't stop at fasting. She would forcibly induce vomiting using sticks, a practice similar in symptomology to modern bulimia nervosa [6]. This self-inflicted torment points to a harrowing blend of deep yet misguided religious conviction and severe mental distress — distress which was recognized by her contemporaries but largely dismissed.
Incidents of Psychosis
Likely due in part to physical trauma from chronic eating disorders, Catherine also experienced periods of what can be described as acute psychosis, which the Roman Catholic Church would later perpetuate as mystical visions for its political benefit in resolving the Western Schism. For example, Catherine had an alleged vision wherein she married Christ, who gave her a wedding ring crafted from his circumcised flesh. She would later write:
“Bathe in the blood of Christ crucified. See that you don't look for or want anything but the crucified, as a true bride ransomed by the blood of Christ crucified – for that is my wish. You see very well that you are a bride and that he has espoused you – you and everyone else – and not with a ring of silver but with a ring of his own flesh. Look at the tender little child who on the eighth day, when he was circumcised, gave up just so much flesh as to make a tiny circlet of a ring!” [7]
It’s important to note that this was shocking to Catherine’s contemporaries. Her own biographer censored the vision, substituting a gold ring in his recounting which is the most common, sanitized version of her vision known today [8].
The Takeaway
Catherine's early death, a direct fallout of her struggle with mental illness, paints a picture that starkly contrasts with the Roman Catholic Church’s official story. Her life was consumed by a fervent, yet destructive, spiritual and psychological battle. There is nothing worthy of imitation in this except endurance of the hardship of mental illness, and her writings should be properly viewed as manifestations of psychosis rather than spiritual wisdom that warrants the title, Doctor of the Church. Catherine's story is a poignant reminder of the fine line between devotion and self-destruction, as well as how the Roman Catholic Church has, throughout history, instrumentalized personal trauma for institutional benefit.
SOURCES
[1] Mahon, Katherine. The Complex Catherine of Sienna and the Sin of Simplifying Saints.
[2] Galassi FM, Bender N, Habicht ME, Armocida E, Toscano F, Menassa DA, Cerri M. St. Catherine of Siena (1347-1380 AD): one of the earliest historic cases of altered gustatory perception in anorexia mirabilis. Neurol Sci. 2018 May;39(5):939-940. doi: 10.1007/s10072-018-3285-6. Epub 2018 Feb 22. PMID: 29470675.
[3] Catherine of Siena (1980). The Dialogue. Translated by Noffke, Suzanne. New York: Paulist Press. ISBN 978-0-8091-2233-2.
[4] Capps, Emily. The Eucharistic Miracles of St. Catherine of Siena.
[5] Arun Oswin Kostka. The Fast of St. Catherine of Siena. Saint Miracles.
[6] Espi Forcen, Fernando (April 2013). Anorexia Mirabilis: The Practice of Fasting by Saint Catherine of Siena in the Late Middle Ages. American Journal of Psychiatry. 170 (4): 370–371.
[7] The Letters of Saint Catherine of Siena, Volume II, Suzanne Noffke OP, Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies Tempe Arizona 2001, p. 184
[8] Bynum, Caroline Walker (1987). Holy Feast and Holy Fast. The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women. University of California Press. p. 246. ISBN 978-0-520-06329-7.