She sent numerous letters to princes and cardinals to promote obedience to Pope Urban VI and to defend what she calls the "vessel of the Church".

Urban VI celebrated her funeral and burial in the Basilica of Santa Maria sopra Minerva in Rome.

Lapa was about 40 years old when she gave birth prematurely to her 23rd and 24th children, twin daughters, named Catherine and Giovanna.

Besides fasting, Catherine further disappointed her mother by cutting off her long hair in protest of being encouraged to improve her appearance to attract a husband.

[13] Catherine would later advise Raymond of Capua to do during times of trouble what she did now as a teenager: "Build a cell inside your mind, from which you can never flee."

In this inner cell, she made her father into a representation of Christ, her mother into the Blessed Virgin Mary, and her brothers into the Apostles in the New Testament.

[15][16] A vision of Dominic de Guzmán gave strength to Catherine, but her wish to join his order was no comfort to Lapa, who took her daughter with her to the baths in Bagno Vignoni to improve her health.

Catherine fell seriously ill with a violent rash, fever and pain, which conveniently made her mother accept her wish to join the "Mantellate", the local association of devout women.

[23] She wrote in a letter (to encourage a nun who seems to have been undergoing a prolonged period of spiritual trial and torment): "Bathe in the blood of Christ crucified.

[28] After this visit, she began travelling with her followers throughout northern and central Italy advocating reform of the clergy and advising people that repentance and renewal could be done through "the total love for God.

"[29] In Pisa, in 1375, she used what influence she had to sway that city and Lucca away from alliance with the anti-papal league whose force was gaining momentum and strength.

[17] These letters were intended to reach men and women of her circle, increasingly widening her audience to include figures in authority as she begged for peace between the republics and principalities of Italy and for the return of the Papacy from Avignon to Rome.

She carried on a long correspondence with Pope Gregory XI, asking him to reform the clergy and the administration of the Papal States.

[34] Gregory did indeed return his administration to Rome in January 1377; to what extent this was due to Catherine's influence is a topic of much modern debate.

[35] Catherine returned to Siena and spent the early months of 1377 founding a women's monastery of strict observance outside the city in the old fortress of Belcaro.

Following Gregory's death in March 1378 riots, the revolts of the Ciompi broke out in Florence on June 18, and in the ensuing violence Catherine was nearly assassinated.

[39][40][41] Catherine died in Rome on April 29, 1380, at the age of 33, eight days after suffering a massive stroke, which paralyzed her from the waist down.

"[42] Three genres of work by Catherine survive: The University of Alcalá conserves a unique handwritten Spanish manuscript, while other available texts are printed copies collected by the National Library of France.

[48] Interested mainly with achieving an incorporeal union with God, Catherine practiced extreme fasting and asceticism, eventually to the extent of living solely on the Eucharist every day.

[49] For Catherine, this practice was the means to fully realize her love of Christ in her mystical experience, with a large proportion of her ecstatic visions relating to the consumption or rejection of food during her life.

[54] This mystical concept of God as the wellspring of being is seen in the works and ideas of Aquinas[55] and can be seen as a simplistic rendering of apotheosis and a more rudimentary form of the doctrine of divine simplicity.

Cardinal Lambertini (later Pope Benedict XIV) in his treatise De servorum Dei beatificatione et de beatorum canonizatione, 1734–1738, cites theologians who believed that Catherine's directors or editors had falsified her words; he also cites Father Lancicius,[58] who believed that Catherine had made a mistake as a result of preconceived ideas.

After miracles were reported to take place at her grave, Raymond moved her inside Santa Maria sopra Minerva, where she lies to this day.

She helped Raymond of Capua write his biography of her daughter, and said, "I think God has laid my soul athwart in my body, so that it can't get out.

[65] On 4 October 1970, Pope Paul VI named Catherine a Doctor of the Church;[6] this title was almost simultaneously given to Teresa of Ávila (27 September 1970),[66] making them the first women to receive this honour.

[5] On 1 October 1999, Pope John Paul II made her one of Europe's patron saints, along with Teresa Benedicta of the Cross and Bridget of Sweden.

A story is told of a miracle whereby they were partially successful: knowing that they could not smuggle her whole body out of Rome, they decided to take only her head which they placed in a bag.

Though much of the material is heavily hagiographic, written to promote her sanctity, it is an important early source for historians seeking to reconstruct Catherine's life.

Various sources are particularly important, especially the works of Raymond of Capua, who was Catherine's spiritual director and close friend from 1374 to her death and himself became Master General of the Order in 1380.