Anne Catherine Emmerich, CRV (also Anna Katharina Emmerick; 8 September 1774 – 9 February 1824) was a Roman Catholic Augustinian canoness of the Congregation of Windesheim.

[1] Emmerich was born in Flamschen, an impoverished farming community at Coesfeld, in the Diocese of Münster, Westphalia, Germany, and died in Dülmen (aged 49), where she had been a bedridden nun.

Emmerich purportedly experienced visions on the life and Passion of Jesus Christ as revealed to her by the Blessed Virgin Mary under religious ecstasy.

[1] In 1802, Emmerich (aged 28) and her friend Klara Söntgen finally managed to join the Augustinian nuns at the convent of Agnetenberg in Dülmen.

The Brentano compilation tells that during an illness in Emmerich's childhood, she was visited by the Child Jesus who told her of plants she should ingest in order to heal, including Morning Glory flower juice, known to contain ergine.

Based on Emmerich's growing reputation, a number of figures who were influential in the renewal movement of the Church early in the 19th century came to visit her, among them Clemens August von Droste zu Vischering, the future Archbishop of Cologne; Johann Michael Sailer, the Bishop of Ratisbon, since 1803 the sole surviving Elector Spiritual of the Holy Roman Empire; Bernhard Overberg and authors Luise Hensel and Friedrich Stolberg.

[1] Clemens von Droste, at the time still vicar‑general of the Archdiocese, called Emmerich "a special friend of God" in a letter he wrote to Stolberg.

The "Dolorous Passion" is claimed to reveal a "clear antisemitic strain throughout",[12] with Brentano writing that Emmerich believed that "Jews [...] strangled Christian children and used their blood for all sorts of suspicious and diabolical practices".

[13] When the case for Emmerich's beatification was submitted to the Vatican in 1892, a number of experts in Germany began to compare and analyze Brentano's original notes from his personal library with the books he had written.

[4] The analysis revealed various apocryphal biblical sources, maps, and travel guides among his papers, which could have been used to exaggerate or embellish some of Emmerich's narrations.

[4][5] At the time of Emmerich's beatification in 2004, the Vatican position on the authenticity of the Brentano books was elucidated by priest Peter Gumpel, who was involved in the study of the issues for the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints: "It is absolutely not certain that she ever wrote this.

Due to the cult of piety established after her death, most especially amongst Traditionalist Catholics, slips of paper with thanksgiving or personal intentions are collected at her tombstone and burned annually on Easter Sunday.

The height sloped obliquely toward EphesusIn 1881, a French Catholic priest, Julien Gouyet, used Emmerich's book to search for the house in Ephesus and found it based on the descriptions.

As Apostolic Nuncio, the former Cardinal Angelo Roncalli visited the shrine (1935), and later as Pope John XXIII later made the Pian declaration permanent [a].

[19] Pope John Paul II on 3 October 2004 declared the following: Her example opened the hearts of poor and rich alike, of simple and cultured persons, whom she instructed in loving dedication to Jesus Christ.

[22] In 1973, the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints allowed the case for her beatification to be re-opened, provided it only focused on the issue of her life, without any reference to the possibly doctored material produced by Clemens Brentano.

[5] Peter Gumpel, who was involved in the analysis of the matter at the Vatican, told Catholic News Service: Since it was impossible to distinguish what derives from Sister Emmerich and what is embroidery or additions, we could not take these writings as a criterion [in the decision on beatification].

[8][25][26] Gibson stated that Scripture and "accepted visions" were the only sources he drew on, and a careful reading of Brentano's book shows the film's high level of dependence on it.

[8][25] In 2007 German director Dominik Graf made the movie The Pledge as a dramatization of the encounters between Emmerich (portrayed by actress Tanja Schleiff [de]) and Clemens Brentano, based on a novel by Kai Meyer.