Catherine of Siena, justly doctor of the church?

Theology Today, Apr 2003 by Noffke, Suzanne

Few of the thirty-eight petitions dwell on Catherine's broader theology, except to place it firmly within the tradition of the church. "Her teaching has the simplicity of the gospel as well as its focus," according to Igino Giordano. For Luigia Tincani and Antonio Piolanti, her teachings presage those of Pope Paul VI in Gaudium et spes (1965).4 Her originality, they point out, lies not in what she says but in how she says it.

A few of the letters address the question of the supernatural nature of Catherine's knowledge. Jean Rupp, bishop of Monaco, articulates the more common interpretation: "The way Catherine acquired her knowledge is miraculous, and seems to give her teaching a seal of divine approval."5 Nicola Petruzzellis's is a minority voice: "In Saint Catherine mysticism was not irrational fideism, nor did it rest in an improbable experience of an anonymous 'Sacred Being,' of an impersonal 'Numinosity.' No, it was the exaltation of a perfect rationality into an encounter with supreme Truth who is inseparably Love and Truth."6

A number of the petitioners point out that Catherine's life of prayer joined with action is in itself the pinnacle of her teaching, "contemplation which burst forth into action" (Charles Cardinal Journet), a "wonderful balance" (Giovanni Cardinal Urbani, Patriarch of Venice; Soeur Clurois, superior general of the Daughters of Charity).7

While a few petitioners stress the timeliness of granting the doctoral title to a woman, it is instructive to note the range of their observations. The Dominican master general asks of Catherine's Dialogue: "How could one imagine or believe that this was written by a woman?"8 The bishop of Monaco states that naming Catherine as doctor "would demonstrate that the equality of the sexes, so acclaimed by our contemporaries, is also of interest to the church . . . . Only certain 'givens' of the psychological order or in the sphere of revelation, of a deeply traditional or biblical character, keep this equality from becoming a total assimilation."9 And how ironic that the editors of these letters of postulation have arranged them first in categories from hierarchy to laity, and within each category placed the letters of men before the letters of women!

The Censors

The two censors, both anonymous, take quite different approaches. The first censor's analysis is very careful and perceptive. He is one of few contributors to this process who does not define Catherine's teaching as coming from divine inspiration only, but unambiguously recognizes its human aspect:

The human spirit, even the grandest human spirit, even enlightened by the Holy Spirit, is still so limited that all one can ask of eminent Christian teaching is that it remain in touch with what has been revealed, adverting consistently to the most central truths while putting certain points into bolder relief. In a teaching in which spiritual experience plays as much a part as intellectual reflection, when we are dealing with a holy woman of prophetic temperament whose intelligence is completely steeped in affectivity, a mystic whose mission is the interior reform of every Christian so that the church may come to know unity and peace, there is no way to demand of her teaching the logically ordered rigor of the theological Summas. What is important is that her assertions be consistent, coherent, and well-founded, no matter what modes of expression she might use; and that they do not fall into the haze of a devotion perhaps impassioned but not solid.10