Catholic Women Who Changed the World

Perpetua (AD ca 183 - 203)
A noblewoman by birth, Perpetua was a young wife and a new mother when she was arrested for being a Christian. In prison, she spoke up for fair treatment for her fellow prisoners, comforted those around her, and had visions of her impending death in the arena at Carthage in Africa. Well educated, she wrote about her imprisonment before she was martyred along with three of the family's slaves, who were fellow catechumens. They included her servant Felicity, who was pregnant when arrested and gave birth in prison. (Medieval Women's Visionary Literature, Elizabeth Alvilda Petroff , Oxford University Press, 1986)

Macrina (AD 327-379)
The eldest of nine children in a devout Christian family, she was the sister of St. Gregory and is credited for converting her younger brother, St. Basil, to the faith. Choosing not to marry, she turned the family estate into a woman's monastic community in which family members and servants held property in common. She was well-educated in Christian writings and Scripture. Her bishop brother held her in the highest esteem for her deep faith, her talents in philosophical argument and her great organizational skill. (Medieval Women's Visionary Literature)

Theodora Episcopa
She appears on a mosaic with three woman saints on an arch in a Roman basilica dedicated to Sts. Prudentiana and Praxedis. The inscription identifies her as Theodora Episcopa, episcopa being the feminine of the Latin word for bishop. She held her office at a time when popular acceptance of strong woman leaders in the early church was at odds with traditional Greco-Roman thinking about women's natural roles. (When Women were Priests, by Karen Jo Torjesen.)

Lucilla
A Spanish noble woman in fourth-century Carthage, she used her sub-stantial economic and political power to challenge bishops who opposed devotion to the popular spirituality of martyrdom, which she favored. She provided patronage for exiled African church leaders, whose Christian communities were persecuted by the Emperor Diocletian. Through her influence, she helped found a new branch of the African church. (When Women were Priests, by Karen Jo Torjesen. (HarperCollins, 1993)

Leta Presbitera A fifth century woman priest in Brettium, Leta's tomb inscription provides evidence that early church leadership included married, woman priests. Presbytera is the feminine ending for presbyter (priest). The inscription on Letažs tomb in a catacomb in Tropea reads "Sacred to her good memory. Leta the priest lived 40 years, 8 months and 9 days, for whom her husband set up this tomb...ū (from Notes on the Female Priesthood in Antiquity by Giorgio Otranto, as translated in "Priesthood, Precedent and Prejudice," by Mary Ann Rossi. Journal of Feminists Studies in Religion.)

Hild of Whitby (AD 614-680)
An abbess of a double monastery at Whitby, five of her pupils became bishops. She is credited for encouraging the poet Caedmon in 664 to write the first Christian religious poetry in Old English. Hild was a friend of the historian Bede who wrote "So great was her prudence that not only ordinary folk, but kings and princes used to come and ask her advice in their difficulties, and take it." (Medieval Women's Visionary Literature)

Leoba (AD 700-780)
As a child she studied the sacred sciences under Mother Tetta, who in secular life had been queen of Northumbria. Leoba was among the women that St. Boniface invited to help Christianize Germany. At a time when monastic life provided women with opportunities for learning, leadership and a certain amount of safety, Leoba flourished as a scholar, counselor to the powerful, and a spiritual leader. Her biographers attribute to her an almost miraculous power, relating how her prayers calmed a storm that was terrifying nearby villagers. (op cit Medieval Women's Visionary Literature)

Dhuoda (803-843)
An educated lay woman, mother and wife, Dhuoda left a record as a lay writer at a time when literature was dominated by clerical writing. She lived most of her life alone, semi-abandoned by her husband, Bernhard of Septimania. She was the mother of two sons, both of whom were taken from her--one before he was baptized. Dhuoda wrote a moral handbook, full of motherly advice, for her eldest son, William, whom her husband sent as a sort of political hostage to serve Charles the Bald. (In Her Words: Women's Writings in the History of Christian Thought, ed. Amy Oden. Abingdon Press:1994)

Hrostvit of Gandersheim (932-1000)
From childhood this daughter of a noble Saxon family was educated in an abbey of religious women, which had its own court, kept its own army, coined its own money and whose abbess had a seat on the imperial diet. Hrostvit is considered the earliest known German poet and the first dramatist since classical times. Among her writings were eight sacred legends, six sacred dramas, and two epics. Recent scholars have recognized her for her intellectual endeavors, her familiarity with Scripture and for her writing style. (In Her Words and Medieval Women's Visionary Literature)

Julian of Norwich (1342-1416?)
A mystic and visionary of late medieval England, she led a solitary life devoted to contemplative prayer. She is the first known woman of letters in the English language, having composed a book of profound spiritual and theological richness based upon her religious experience. Her insights into the nature of Godžs unconditional love for us, her theology of the trinity, her advice about avoiding scrupulosity regarding sin, her hope in the certainty of salvation, and her imaging of Jesus and God as Mother, are particularly original contributions to Christian theology, as relevant today as they were for her own age. She emerges as a paradigm for women scholars, and, perhaps even more importantly, for anyone who needs a practical, sensible approach to the spiritual life. (Wisdomžs Daughter, Crossroads, 1 991 Dr. Joan Nuth)

Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179)
Born into a noble family in Hess, she was raised from the age of 8 in a female community attached to the Dominican order. As an adult, she founded two convents near Bingen. Hildegard had mystical experiences and visions. She was a poet, healer and counselor to many prominent people of the day. Unprecedented for women of the time, she undertook four preaching missions to clergy and laity. (Women Mystics in Medieval Europe)

The Beguines (1200 - 1800)
In the 13th century a feminine spirituality developed that eschewed a cloistered life and instead focused on evangelical poverty, self sufficiency by work, intellectual pursuits and a communal, although not necessarily vowed, life. The beguine movement, a precursor to todays religious communities, began in northern Europe with individual women, who lived religious but uncloistered lives. Eventually many beguines gathered in communities that evolved into full-fledged parishes, self-sufficient towns of women who were free to pray, study and teach, and do charitable works. Many were mystics who were investigated and suppressed by church officials. (Medieval Women's Visionary Literature)

Clare of Assisi ( 1193 - 1253)
In addition to being St. Francis' friend and confidant, Clare was a dynamic and innovative religious leader in her own right. She founded the order of the Poor Clares based on Francis' rule. This non-hierarchical community of women was committed to absolute poverty and service of the poor. Clare believed that her community did not need to be supported by others, nor did she want it to live off the income generated from owning property. While Francis waited eight years for Rome to approve his rule, Clare waited nearly 40. (Body and Soul: Essays on Medieval Women and Mysticism, by Elizabeth Alvilda Petroff Oxford University Press, 1994)

Catherine of Siena (1347-1380)
A visionary from childhood, she dedicated her life to religious service after experiencing a mystical marriage to Christ. Catherine set about public preaching in response to a divine command to go into the world and save souls. Hugely influential in the church and society of her day, she was outspoken regarding the Crusades, civil war, and the Avignon papacy. She convinced Pope Gregory XI to return to Rome, and worked to end divisions in the church until her death at the age of 33. She was declared a Doctor of the Church in 1970. (In Her Words)

Joan of Arc (1412-1431)
Rather than bow to her society's expectations of women, Joan of Arc paid strict attention to the persistent, divine voices within her. They impelled her to convince French authorities of her divine mission to help the French defeat the invading English. Clad in armor Joan led a few successful battles, and was present for the crowning of French King Charles VII. Ultimately she was captured, turned over to the English, proclaimed a heretic by the local Catholic bishop and was burned at the stake. The church later reversed its court decision and canonized her. (Source: Butler's Lives of Patron Saints, Michael Walsh, ed. Harper and Row, 1987)

Teresa of Avila (1515-1582)
At the age of 16 Teresa left her aristocratic Spanish family for religious life. After years of spiritual and physical struggle, she had a "second con-version" in 1555 which drew her closer to God, deeper into prayer and further into the life of the poor. She founded a small convent dedicated to a more austere Carmelite life, which required the nuns to live off of alms and their own labor. Her reforms had a wide-spread impact on the structure and spirituality of religious communities. Teresa's spirituality greatly in-fluenced St. John of the Cross. By the time she died she had written 11 books, 23 poems and more than 15,000 letters. Teresa was declared a "Doctor of the Church" in 1970, along with Catherine of Siena. (In Her Words)

Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz (1651-1695)
Born in a small Mexican town, Juana had a keen intellect and chose a life of scholarship over marriage. She entered the order of St. Jerome and lived a comfortable convent life where she studied science, music and literature. Her fine poetry earned her the reputation of being the "Tenth Muse" of New Spain. When clerical authorities accused her of being too secular in her writing, Sor Juana argued that because God made her a rational creature, it was her duty to study and to serve humanity with her gifts of great learning. (In Her Words)

Pauline Jericot (1799-1862)
A French woman with incredible organizational skills, she developed the structure of fund raising which ultimately became the Society of the Propagation of the Faith. She organized the popular Living Rosary and initiated the Association of the Holy Childhood, organizing children to raise money for the missions. Jericot spent the last several years of her life begging alms to repay debts incurred when fraudulent financial managers destroyed her dream to build a Christian factory town. She died in poverty. (Eight Women Who Made A Difference: With Minds of Their Own, Boniface Hanley, OFM. Ave Maria Press, 1991)

Jeanne Jugan (1792-1878)
Raised in a Breton peasant family, Jugan was a member of the "Trotting Sisters" an outlawed group of uncloistered religious women who moved around constantly in their ministry to the poor. At the age of 47, Jugan and three other women began to take in elderly, homeless women. Tenacious in her ability to beg for money and provisions, she established housing and care for thousands of France's elderly poor. Her ministry ultimately became The Little Sisters of the Poor, of which she was the first superior. (Eight Women Who Made A Difference)

Catherine de Hueck Doherty (1897- 1985)
Russian born and highly educated, she fled the Bolshevic revolution with her husband, an army colonel, ending up Canada in 1921. Ten years later, Catherine, a divorced mother of one, chose to live among the poor in the slums of Toronto. A convert to Catholicism, she started the first Friendship House, which provided meals and shelter and support to the poor of Toronto. In 1947 she and her second husband, Eddy Doherty, established Madonna House in Combermere, Ontario. It developed into a community and retreat center dedicated to spirituality, agriculture, cooperative work and service to the poor. (Eight Women Who Made A Difference)

Satoko Kitahara (1929-1958)
A wealthy, well-educated Japanese pharmacist, she converted to Catholic Christianity as a young woman. Defying the strict social propriety expected of wealthy Japanese women of the time, she dedicated the last seven years of her short life to living among the Ant People, a self-sufficient community of Tokyo's poorest residents. She taught the community's children, begged for shared provisions and rallied for the community's rights. She died of Tuberculosis at the age of 29. (Eight Women Who Made A Difference)

Dorothy Day (1897-1980)
Active in the radical socialist world of Greenwich village in the 1920s, she converted to Catholicism as a young woman. She channeled her economic and political ideology into the Catholic Worker movement, which she developed with Peter Maurin. Day was a single mother who embodied the Catholic Worker movement's ethic of communal life with the poor, the eschewing of property ownership, intellectual critique of social problems, and a commitment to pacifism. (Eight Women Who Made A Difference)

Thea Bowman ( -1990)
A charismatic African American sister of the Order of St. Francis of Perpetual Adoration, she helped bridge the divide between African American and European American Catholics. Throughout her extensive singing and lecturing engagements, she encouraged African American Catholics to claim their rich heritage of spirituals and stories, and challenged the church to embrace its diversity.



This brochure was written by Barbara Ballenger, a freelance journalist who works full time in Beacon Street, a performing arts ministry. She is currently completing a master of arts degree in pastoral ministry from Ursuline College in Pepper Pike, Ohio.