Born Caterina di Giacomo di Benincasa in 1347, she gave her life to her faith at an early age and as a teenager became a member of the Third Order Dominicans lay community. At the age of 29 she traveled to Avignon in an attempt to bring peace between the divided papal-states and worked to end the Western Schism that divided various factions of the Catholic Church. For her lifelong devotion to, and actions on behalf of the church, Catherine was canonized in 1461; made a ‘Patroness of Italy’ in 1939 and named as a Patron Saint of Europe in 1999.