1377 · Avignon, France / Rome, Italy
Catherine of Siena and the Return of the Papacy to Rome
In 1377, Catherine of Siena, a Dominican laywoman with no official authority, personally persuaded Pope Gregory XI to leave Avignon and return the papacy to Rome after nearly seventy years of French exile.
By the 1370s, the papacy had been in Avignon, France, for almost seven decades. The popes lived comfortably there, surrounded by a French-dominated curia, while Rome crumbled. The Papal States were in chaos, St. Peter's Basilica was deteriorating, and the rest of Europe increasingly viewed the papacy as a tool of the French crown. Several popes had talked about returning to Rome. None had actually done it. Catherine Benincasa was a Dominican tertiary from Siena — not a nun, not a priest, not a scholar, not a person with any institutional power whatsoever. She was the twenty-fourth of twenty-five children in a dyer's family. She had begun having mystical experiences as a child and had gradually built a reputation for holiness, attracting a circle of followers. She was also blunt to the point of being alarming. Her letters to popes, cardinals, and kings read like the work of someone who forgot she was supposed to be intimidated. She called Gregory XI 'babbo,' an Italian term roughly equivalent to 'daddy,' while simultaneously telling him he was failing in his duty and needed to get back to Rome immediately. In 1376, she traveled to Avignon and met Gregory in person. The combination of her moral authority, her unrelenting pressure, and the political situation in Italy finally broke through Gregory's hesitation. On September 13, 1376, he left Avignon. He entered Rome on January 17, 1377. Catherine had accomplished what diplomats and politicians had failed to do for decades. She was thirty years old. Gregory died the following year, and the disputed election that followed triggered the Western Schism, which would last until 1417. But the papacy never returned to Avignon. Catherine was canonized in 1461 and declared a Doctor of the Church in 1970, one of the first women to receive that title.
Why it matters
Ended the Avignon papacy and restored the pope to Rome through the moral persuasion of a laywoman with no institutional authority, demonstrating the power of holiness in the life of the Church.
What Happened
In 1376, Catherine of Siena, a Dominican laywoman, traveled to Avignon and personally urged Pope Gregory XI to end the papacy's nearly seventy-year residence in France and return to Rome. Her letters and personal meetings, combined with deteriorating conditions in Italy, convinced Gregory to make the move. He departed Avignon in September 1376 and entered Rome in January 1377. Catherine had succeeded where political pressure and diplomatic arguments had failed for decades.
Why It Still Matters
Catherine's role in returning the papacy to Rome is one of the most striking examples of lay influence in Church history. She had no title, no office, and no army — only her reputation for holiness and her willingness to speak directly to the most powerful men in Christendom. She was declared a Doctor of the Church in 1970, and her example continues to inspire Catholics who believe that sanctity, not just authority, can move the Church. Her letters remain widely read as spiritual classics.