Catherine of Siena, justly doctor of the church?

Theology Today, Apr 2003 by Noffke, Suzanne

Theology Today 60 (2003): 49-62

On October 4, 1970, Pope Paul VI solemnly bestowed on Catherine of Siena (1347-80) the title doctor of the church, making her, at the time, the youngest of the then thirty-two doctors. She and Teresa of Avila, honored the same day, became the only women ever so honored. (More recently, of course, Therese of Lisieux has become the third and youngest woman so honored.) The ecclesiastical doctorates of these women mystics-Catherine, Teresa, Therese-are often looked upon as something of a courteous nicety, a concession to feminist sensitivities. Surely they cannot be taken seriously as theologians! Do they-does Catherine in particular-deserve the title on theological grounds? As a long-time student of Catherine's life and thought, I am convinced that she does indeed merit being called doctor, teacher of the universal church. But I have sometimes wondered whether my own reasons for that conviction have anything in common with the reasons formally proposed for the canonical granting of the title, the documentation of which has been given little consideration in English. I propose in this essay first to examine that ecclesiastical process and then to present my own position on the question.

PRELUDES AND PROCESS

Already in Catherine's lifetime, questions were being raised about her orthodoxy and the legitimacy of her voice within the church. In 1374, the Dominican friars took steps to safeguard their endorsement of her public ministry by appointing Raimondo da Capua, "safely" respected in hierarchical circles, as sole authority over her within the order. In 1376, a trio of cardinals, fearing that Pope Gregory XI was taking Catherine too seriously and hoping to discredit her, interrogated her-with Gregory's permission.

After her death, artists portrayed her holding a book, the iconic attribute of doctors of the church, and no amount of protest from the "experts" succeeded in stopping the practice. Dominicans in Venice in fact displayed her book, The Dialogue, as a relic when they preached on the anniversary of her death each year-even before any steps had been taken to have her canonized-thus prompting their bishop's demand that an investigation into her holiness be commenced. She was canonized in 1461.

It was just over five hundred years later that Pope Paul VI, on the feast of Teresa of Avila in 1967, told the World Congress on the Apostolate of the Laity of his dream that Teresa and Catherine should be the first women to be proclaimed doctors of the church. By December of that same year, the process was in full swing. The Congregation of Rites asked whether that title could in fact be given to a woman, especially in view of Saint Paul's strictures. They unanimously answered their own question in the affirmative the following March; the pope concurred.

There are actually three formal requirements for granting the doctorate in the church. The first, outstanding holiness, already had been attested to in Catherine's case in her canonization. The second, the testimony of popes or general councils, was easily garnered. The third, distinguished teaching, was yet to be judged and would be the chief topic of investigation. Letters of postulation (petition), the affirmation of the Dominican general chapter, and a formal petition from the master of the Dominican Order, Aniceto Fernandez, carried the process forward. Supportive monographs and articles were gathered as resources for the official advocates, censors, and others whose work would lead to the final positive decision. What were the reasons put forward for that decision?

The Letters of Postulation

Thirty-eight persons and groups-hierarchy, heads of orders and religious organizations, university officials, laity-wrote to ask that Catherine of Siena be declared doctor of the church. The reason they cite with the greatest frequency is Catherine's defense of the primacy and authority of the Roman pontiff. "Bringing her back into the light by this declaration," argues the Carmelite superior general, "can be of particular benefit in this era of conflict and strife, this era in which the sense of God and of spiritual realities, and so of the church, is languishing."1 Some of these petitioners also note Catherine's reforming role in the church, but usually in contrast to what they see as a misguided spirit of reform in the post-Vatican II church. Catherine, they point out, was a loyal promoter of peace and unity, not a sower of dissent.

Their interpretations of Catherine's view of the laity's role in the church covered a broad range. For the hierarchy of Tuscany, it is "very clear" that Catherine believed that "the duty of the laity is first of all to pray, to do penance, and to obey for the spiritual reform of the church."2 Igino Giordano, on the other hand, writes of

the immediacy and lucidity with which she knew how to show the value and capacity of what we today call the people of God-formulating, we might say, an early theology of the laity. For her, women and men, rich and poor, were all called to holiness . . . . She eliminated the walls, erected under the pressures of feudalism, between lay and cleric, between religious and people, between convents and family homes. She shared the holiness of the cloisters with the people in the streets.3