St. Catherine of Genoa

Their story

Catherine Fieschi was born in Genoa, Italy, in 1447 into a noble family. At thirteen she tried to enter a convent but was turned away as too young. At sixteen her family arranged her marriage to Giuliano Adorno, a nobleman who proved unfaithful, hot-tempered and careless with money. For years Catherine was deeply unhappy, first withdrawing into loneliness and then trying to fill the emptiness with the distractions of high society. In 1473, while going to confession, she was suddenly overwhelmed by a vision of God’s immense love and of her own sins. From that moment her life was transformed. She began caring for the sick and the poor at the great Pammatone hospital in Genoa, eventually becoming its director. During a plague in 1493 she nursed the dying herself. Remarkably, her husband also changed his life, and the two served the sick together. Catherine’s mystical experiences led to her Treatise on Purgatory. She described purgatory not as a place of punishment cut off from God, but as the fire of God’s own love, burning away everything in the soul that is not yet ready for heaven. The souls there, she wrote, embrace this purification with joy, because they long to be completely united with God. She died in 1510.