Why Do Catholics Keep Body Parts and Other Memories of Saints? A Beginner’s Guide to Relics...

St. Catherine of Siena is counted among the thirty-seven Doctors of the Church and is one of the most respected and revered woman in all church history. She was a mostly-illiterate laywoman, a third-order Dominican who worked among the sick and poor. She is revered not only for her deep piety and spiritual wisdom, but for using her supernatural skills of persuasion to mediate conflicts among the most powerful men of the 14th century, ultimately persuading the Pope Gregory XI to return the seat of the church from Avignon to Rome. She lived only 33 years, but in that time exerted and outsized influence on the church, and continues to inspire through her Dialoguesand letters.

Here's her head.

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