Chapter XX: Florence and the New Pope

Friday, December 21, 2012

Catherine of Siena by Sigrid Undset
Chapter XX

Pope Gregory XI was the one who sent Catherine to Florence, where her faithful confessor Fra Raimondo was so fearful to have her set foot he begged to be sent in her place.  Indeed, the people of Florence seem to have largely resented Catherine's presence - although they were exiling and killing their own leading citizens at such a fantastic rate one could not take too much offense.

Here Undset really spoke about the central problem of Catherine during her own time: she was a woman.  She was a woman of holy but ordinary people of no political importance who dared to speak on behalf of the Pope of Rome (even with his express instruction to do so).  When she wrote to urge the Pope to create a college of cardinals regardless of rank or birth who would purge the Church of vices, how different that must have looked to a man of noble birth raising the same point.  Or any man raising the same point.

I think one of Undset's most insightful descriptions is the "tamer" of Catherine's detractors - those who do not condemn her as a witch or a hypocrite but merely believe that a pious virgin consecrated to God should pray quietly in her home cell and not bother anybody.  It seems like so many of the "moderates" these days, yes?  It's not that I think the other side/X cause/victims crying out for justice are EVIL, I just wish they would quietly go about their business away from the spotlight.

I also like how Undset sets up the conflict.  Everyone agrees that Catherine is learned and deeply spiritual and a powerful presence.  What they disagree on is merely her motivation in the world and the seemliness of her being such.  No one doubts that Catherine has become a figure of power in Italy and beyond, recalled the Pope from Avignon and made peace in other towns.  She is a woman with real temporal influence.  Thus, in 1378, a hideous, fearful thing.

Of course, God protects Catherine from harm in the multiple civil wars that race through Florence during her time there.  Of course, eventually peace is made with Pope Urban VI - for this is where Catherine is when a new pope takes over.

It is perhaps all the more remarkable that the first letter of Catherine's to the new pope, unusually full of the message of love as Undset describes, should come from Florence.  Catherine must have felt the need for it all the more keenly then in relatively peaceful Siena.  How the poor saintly woman faired in a town under Interdict without the benefit of Holy Communion or other solemn rituals of the Church also moves me.

There is also an odd turn in her letters to Fra Raimondo in which she seems to hope that the riots of Florence will offer her the opportunity to be a martyr.  I wonder at this desire.  I know multiple saints have had it - I have heard it referred to as a childish wish of many who eventually became contemplative saints to live far less adventurous lives than they eventually did.  However, Catherine was an aspiring contemplative who went on to lead a more adventurous and political life than she would have asked for.

Undset has written before of Catherine's desire to cut the strings of this life and return to God - to be with Him not in stolen moments in her ecstasies but constantly.  It was hard, how God asked her to return constantly to Earth and its roiling problems and its harsh people.  I suppose I can imagine why the appeal of God asking for her death had such a hold on her.

There is something deeply troubling about it - or at least deeply foreign to human thought.  One of the things that set saints so very apart from the rest of us.