From 1374 people testified to 'her coming universal mission', which at first consisted of dictating fiery committed letters -'political letters' - to kings and queens, popes and bishops (she only learnt to write in the last years of her life). She was a passionate advocate of participation in the Crusades:
'God wants it and I want it.'
As we can see, Katherine was no model of Christian humility and modesty. Her activities, which were ostensibly inspired by religious motives, had political effects in reality.
Pope Gregory XI (1370-1378) lived in exile with the papal government in Avignon. Urged on by the mission given her in a vision, Katherine wanted to bring the Pope back so that he could maintain the unified power of the Church and rule it once again from its spiritual home, i.e. Rome. She enlisted sympathy for her ecclesiastical-cum-political mission in the castles of powerful nobles and among everyone she credited with worldly power. She also travelled 'to the brilliant worldly court of the Popes at Avignon ... Katherine was first and always the favoured mystic ... Only from that starting point is it possible to understand her political missions ...'
A dubious bit of whitewashing!
For one long year Katherine fought bitterly for the return of the Pope. In 1377 she achieved her goal.
Rome was Rome again, the church at the seat of its power.
While people constantly and all too clearly emphasize her credulous naivety and quote her visions as first-class references for her political commitment, they wrap the political tool Katherine of Siena in so much cotton wool that we completely lose sight of her. It may be that visions cannot be proved; but ecclesiastical and political power achieved by them can. That is something we should understand, if we are not 'smitten with blindness' (Genesis 19:11).
Then there was the no less politically active peasant girl Joan of Arc, who became a world star among visionaries. She was born between 1410 and 1412 in the village of Domremy on the Maas in eastern France. Today Domremy is called 'Domremy-la Pucelle' (la pucelle = the virgin), and has about 280 inhabitants, all eager to show tourists the house in which their famous saint was born.
The peasant girl from Domremy - known in literature as Jeanne d'Arc, St. Joan or the Maid of Orleans, the central figure of many great dramas - intervened in major European politics, claiming that she was instructed to do so by visions.
At the age of thirteen Joan had her first visions and heard voices. Statements by the martial maid at her trial are preserved in the 'Manuscripts of the Royal Library'. [19]
'At the age of thirteen I heard a voice in the garden of my father at Domremy. It came from the right, from the side near the church and was accompanied by a great brightness. At first I was afraid, but I soon realized that it was the voice of an angel, who has accompanied and instructed me ever since. It was St. Michael. I also saw St. Katherine (of Siena!) and St. Margaret, who spoke to me, exhorting me and guiding all my actions. I can easily tell by the voice whether a saint or an angel is talking to me.
Usually but not always it is accompanied by a bright light. Their voices are soft and friendly. The angels appeared to me with natural heads. I have seen them and I still see them with my own eyes ...'
After five years when Joan was looking after the cattle, a certain voice said: 'God has pity on the French people and you must go forth to save them. ' When she began to cry, the voice ordered her to go to Vaucouleurs where she would find a captain who would lead her to the king without hindrance ...
'Since that time I have done nothing that was not a consequence of the revelations and visions I have had, and even throughout my actual trial, I am only saying what I have been inspired to say ...'
At the siege of Orleans Joan predicted the capture of the town and also that she should shed blood from her breast. On the following day she was wounded by an arrow that went 'six inches deep' into her shoulder.
In constant communication with her voices, Joan was summoned to political activities two or three times a week. Towards the end of 1428 the orders were so specific that they charged the young girl to bring help to her countrymen immediately: she was to end the siege of Orleans by the English.
It was all right for the voices to give orders, but it was a difficult political task for a peasant girl, for France was split into two parties. There was the Orleans party under the feeble Dauphin (title of the heir to the French throne), whom Joan crowned King Charles VII in 1422 at Rheims. There was also the Burgundian party under Henry V which was allied with the English.
The maid was driven by her permanent visions as if by the Furies. In her peasant rags she easily overcame the courtiers with her ready wit and forced her way into the presence of the infantile Dauphin, whom she harangued at such length that he appointed her 'Chef de Guerre'.
At the head of 40,000 warriors Joan forced the English to withdraw from Orleans. This victory brought the turning point in the Hundred Years' War between France and England. Joan's remaining political wish, a reunited France, Orleans and Burgundy, could have destroyed England, but it was frustrated by the weak king.
Once again the valiant maid set forth to do battle, but she was taken prisoner by the Burgundians near Compiegne. 'Her' simpleton of a king left her to her fate. The Burgundians sold their prisoner to the English for a great deal of money. (Saints have their price, tool). They had had such unpleasant experiences with the maid that they wanted her in their power on pragmatic political grounds, regardless of the cost. They knew that France would no longer have a force to drive her to unity without Joan (and her visions!). The English regarded their prisoner of war as a magician. For safety's sake they put the maid in an iron cage!
The trial began on 21st February, 1431, under the Bishop of Beauvais. The records [20] show that Joan's visions and voices were an essential part of the evidence.
22nd February, 1431 - a castle at Rouen.
The cross-examiner: when did you first hear voices?
Joan: I was thirteen years old when a voice from God rang out to help me to live righteously.
The cross-examiner: Did the voices often haunt you?
Joan: Two or three times a week they said to me: 'Thou shalt leave your village and go to France.'
The cross-examiner: What else was revealed to you?
Joan: I was told that I should raise the siege of Orleans ...
The vision gave Joan what was clearly a political task! When they threatened her with torture on 28th March in order to sentence her as a heretic, she abjured her visions.
Joan: Since the Church asserts that my visions and revelations are unbelievable and cannot be supported, I do not wish to insist on them.
On 2nd April she retracted the recantation that had been wrung from her:
The Bishop: Have you heard the voices of St. Katherine and St. Margaret since Thursday?
Joan: God told me through the blessed ladies what miserable treason I had committed when I abjured and recanted in order to save my life.
On 30th May, 1431, lay executioners set fire to the stake with the tacit approval of the Christian judges. Joan died crying 'Jesus! Jesus!'
Twenty years later a court usher stated in evidence that Joan's heart had remained undamaged, although the rest of her body was completely destroyed.
It is no use puzzling or making far-fetched interpretations, the figures in Joan's visions wanted to achieve political goals. What kind of interest could the 'blessed in heaven' have in them?