Meet some of the real women of the Roman Catholic Church: saints, sinners, remembered, forgotten, and from all centuries. Curated by historian @bronwenmcshea.
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Real Roman Catholic Women retweeted
Meet EDITH ARENDRUP (1846-1934), an artist from a wealthy Unitarian English family who started a family with a Danish soldier in Egypt, became Catholic after losing many family members too young, built London's Sacred Heart Church, gave up her wealth, & became a religious sister.
Real Roman Catholic Women retweeted
Meet BL. DIANA DEGLI ANDALÒ (1201-1236) from Bologna. After St. Dominic de Guzmàn welcomed her into his new order, her family stopped this & kidnapped & physically hurt her to get her out of an Augustinian hermitage she fled to. She finally founded a convent on her father's land.
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Meet ISABELLA THE CATHOLIC (1451-1504), Queen of Castile & Léon, who eloped with (future king) Ferdinand of Aragon against her family's wishes, instituted the state-run Spanish Inquisition, sent Columbus across the Atlantic, & appointed numerous bishops with 3 popes' approval.
Real Roman Catholic Women retweeted
Meet MARIE-ADÉLAÏDE (1894-1924), Grand Duchess of Luxembourg & her country's first female monarch. Very conservative, she resisted pressures to weaken the Church's public position in Luxembourg. When WWI ended, she abdicated in her sister's favor & retired to a Carmelite convent.
Real Roman Catholic Women retweeted
Meet BRONWEN PUGH ASTOR (1930-2017), English fashion model, muse to designer Pierre Balmain, 3rd wife of the 3rd Viscount Astor, mother of 2, socially sidelined by the Profumo scandal, & Catholic convert who opened her Surrey home to the homeless & became a psychotherapist at 56.
Real Roman Catholic Women retweeted
I'm considering launching a companion account to @RealRCWomen called -- you guessed it -- @RealRCMen. So I've set it up, and I may start posting soon. I'm curious if folks in and beyond #CatholicX think this would be worthwhile for me to pursue?
Real Roman Catholic Women retweeted
Due partly to her extensive authority over male & female religious of the Fontevraud order in Louis XIV's France, this nun was known as "Queen of the Abbesses." In addition to her intellectual gifts, she was a strong personality, refusing the King himself in favor of her monastic seat when he asked her to take up residence at Versailles -- in an era when many abbots, bishops, & other ecclesiastical officials regularly were "absentee" in order to reside at what was then the greatest royal power center in Europe. Louis XIV respected her for this.
Real Roman Catholic Women retweeted
Meet one of the #RealTradWives of medieval Christendom -- who governed "the Most Christian Kingdom" of France for many years, led an army against rebellious nobles, AND composed a beautiful Marian hymn & raised TWO saints, including the Crusader-King St. Louis IX.
Real Roman Catholic Women retweeted
Marie Antoinette, the infamous Queen of France who lost her head to the guillotine, had sisters -- including this gentle, spiritually & intellectually serious soul who was their father Emperor Francis's favorite child & their ruling mother Empress Maria Theresa's least favorite.
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Queen Joan I of Navarre died in childbirth in 1305 at age 32, but Guichard, the Bishop of Troyes, was accused of killing her by means of witchcraft & spent several years in prison before being released.
Real Roman Catholic Women retweeted
Without this non-canonized Frenchwoman's persistence and courage decades earlier, Doctor of the Church St. Thérèse of Lisieux might never have had a Discalced Carmelite community to join in the France of her time.
Real Roman Catholic Women retweeted
The devoutly Catholic wife of the famous Marquis de Lafayette owed her life to the future First Lady of the USA, Elizabeth Monroe. The latter's high-profile visits to the long-imprisoned noblewoman shortly before her scheduled execution in early 1795 gave the revolutionary French authorities pause, not wishing to alienate the USA while at war in Europe. (Her husband was in solitary confinement in Austrian-controlled Olmütz at this time, as he was seen as a radical revolutionary outside of France despite having been deemed too moderate & an Enemy of the State by the radicals of his own country.
Real Roman Catholic Women retweeted
St. Joan of Arc is in the news today (she sure has staying power!), after rioters in France targeted statues of her in Paris & Toulouse yesterday. So I thought it was a good day to feature this Patron Saint of France today over at @RealRCWomen. NB: She was not canonized as a saint in Rome until 1920, almost 500 years after she was condemned as a heretic by an ecclesiastical court answerable to the Bishop of Beauvais. But she was venerated widely as a saint in practice in France long before that, including by St. Thérèse of Lisieux.
Real Roman Catholic Women retweeted
It was not until 1456, 25 years after Jeanne d'Arc's conviction by the Bishop of Beauvais's tribunal, that PP Callixtus III rehabilitated her in the official eyes of the Church -- thanks in part to her mother's years of campaigning. xitter.cf/RealRCWomen/status/202…
Real Roman Catholic Women retweeted
Meet ST. JEANNE D'ARC (c. 1412-1431), a farmgirl from the Duchy of Bar who urged King Charles VII to fight for his crown, shamed & rallied French troops toward victories in the Hundred Years War, & was convicted of heresy by a Church tribunal & given to the English for execution.
Meet ST. JEANNE D'ARC (c. 1412-1431), a farmgirl from the Duchy of Bar who urged King Charles VII to fight for his crown, shamed & rallied French troops toward victories in the Hundred Years War, & was convicted of heresy by a Church tribunal & given to the English for execution.
It was not until 1456, 25 years after Jeanne d'Arc's conviction by the Bishop of Beauvais's tribunal, that PP Callixtus III rehabilitated her in the official eyes of the Church -- thanks in part to her mother's years of campaigning. xitter.cf/RealRCWomen/status/202…
Real Roman Catholic Women retweeted
Meet MARIA KUNIGUNDE OF SAXONY (1740-1826), daughter of King Augustus III of Poland. As Princess-Abbess of Essen & Thorn, she voted in the Imperial Diet, outlawed abortion, & had quasi-episcopal jurisdiction in church affairs, such as appointing & disciplining parish clergymen.
Real Roman Catholic Women retweeted
Meet ISABELLA OF PORTUGAL (1503-1539), Holy Roman Empress & Regent of Spain as the wife of Emperor Charles V. Highly educated & an effective ruler in Spain's economic, defense, & colonial affairs, she also bore Charles 7 children, among them the future King Philip II of Spain.
Real Roman Catholic Women retweeted
Meet AELIA FLACCILLA (d. 386), Roman Empress as wife of Theodosius; mother of 3 (including 2 emperors); staunch backer of the Nicene Creed who limited her husband's negotiations with Arians; & benefactress of the disabled. St. Gregory of Nyssa called her "a Pillar of the Church."
