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This thesis examines three sixteenth-century Italian life cycles of Saint Catherine Benincasa of Siena (1347-80; canonized 1461) which previously have not been studied together. They are: 1. Giovanni de' Vecchi's frescoes in the Capranica Chapel in Santa Maria sopra Minerva in Rome (1577/8-86) 2. A series of oil paintings by a number of Tuscan artists in the Oratorio della Cucina in the Santuario-Casa di Santa Caterina in Siena (1567-1600/35) 3. A printed vita of the saint designed by Francesco Vanni and etched by Pieter de Jode, published in Siena (1597).

Katharine Drexel (1858-1955), the founder of the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, was canonized by Pope John Paul II on October 1, 2000. This thesis analyzes Drexel’s life and virtues to establish why she became a saint. The examination of Drexel’s life begins in Chapter 2, which discloses the family life of a wealthy Philadelphia debutante, who, nonetheless, learned charity and philanthropy from her banker father and her religious mother. Following the deaths of her parents, Drexel wanted to enter a Catholic convent to spend her life in prayer and contemplation. Chapter 3 details the process of her vocational discernment that was carried out over several years in an epistolary argument with her spiritual director, Bishop O'Connor of Omaha. While he first believed that her vocation was to remain a single woman dedicated to serving the poor through judicial disbursement of her large inheritance, he later decided that she should found a new order of missionary nuns dedicated to the needs of the Native- Americans and African-Americans. Chapter 3 details the difficulties she encountered in the establishing of her new order at a time when the United States was racially divided by both law and custom. Drexel's order grew slowly in the face of open hostility towards her mission, including that of the Ku Klux Klan, and it then declined following the upheavals that came in the wake of the Second Vatican Council. Chapter 4 addresses the spirituality that sustained Drexel throughout her long life. Her deep spirituality was both kenotic and Eucharistie, and it allowed her to face daunting challenges in the mission field. Chapter 5 analyzes why the pope chose to canonize Drexel and entails a study of the process of saint-making as it evolved over the centuries.

This thesis explores the portrayal of the devil in the/writings and thought of Pope Gregory the Great (590-604). It examines his exegetical, hagiographical and homiletic works in addition to his correspondence. It analyses the ways in which Gregory described, understood, and used the figure of the devil, and places this within Gregory's wider conceptual framework. It proposes new ways of approaching the topic, particularly in his exegetical works, and looks as much into the associations that he drew as the doctrines that he preached. By looking at a wide selection of his works, this thesis gives an insight into how this one idea manifested itself across a variety of genres, and also how it affected his practical politics and interpretation of real-life situations. As part of this it explores the relationship between Gregory's diabology and ecc1esiology, and the influence of this upon his understanding of the Roman primacy. Whilst Gregory the Great has been subject to vast amounts of scholarship, as of yet no such study has been done which takes into consideration so many of his works. This thesis therefore offers a fresh perspective and provides new ways of thinking about how Gregory used and understood the idea of the devil.

The mid-fourteenth century was a time of political and social turmoil - of imperial pretenders and rebellious kings, of incessant European warfare, of unchecked Islamic expansion and aggression and the concomitant persecution of Christians, of tensions generated by plague, economic decline, and violent, often heretical, popular movements. It was also an age of nationalism and the growth of the lay spirit, when novel and extreme theories led to the growth of constitutionalism not only within the regional kingdoms but even within the clerical body. Using the correspondence and sermon literature (largely unpublished) of Clement VI, the thesis aims to discover whether such challenging circumstances were reflected in adaptations to the strict letter of papal doctrine. Was Clement a ’humanist pope’, as has been suggested, or one in the customary hierocratic mould? After ’a historiographical introduction, the early chapters are devoted to an examination of the Pope’s conception of the Church, of his authority over it, and his special relationship with his see of Rome, at a time when the papacy was under attack for leaving it, Within the framework of his, largely traditional, ecclesiology, the later chapters aim to test Clement on a particularly sensitive aspect of papal theory, the creation and control of the officials of Western Christendom. His attitude to members of the Sacred College, to the Emperor, and to rulers of kingdoms both inside and out› side the territorial limits of the Empire are explored. Although in his private capacity Clement appears to have been a humanist, as Pope he emerges as a traditionally authoritarian monarch, whose views were in general similar to those of contemporary canonists and papal publicists.

This thesis focusses on the theology of Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI) and asks to what extent his Augustinian orientation facilitates a greater rapprochement between Catholicism and contemporary Evangelicalism. Benedict emerges as a nuanced and fundamentally open theologian who has pursued a consistent theological vision throughout his long career. The first two chapters orientate the reader to his life and thought and demonstrate his essential theological conservatism which is the sine qua non for any exploration of his merits as a dialogue partner with Evangelicalism. The following three chapters examine the implications of Ratzinger's Augustinianism for the contemporary ecumenical context, focussing primarily on the themes of soteriology and ecclesiology. In the case of soteriology, there is shown to be an unqualified embrace of Augustine's anti-Pelagianism and a corresponding emphasis on the priority of grace in salvation. In the final chapter of the thesis, the argument becomes more intel1'0gative in nature when Ratzinger's ecclesiology and sacramental theology are made subject to a rigorous critique in order to establish whether the definitively Catholic emphases impede ecumenical progress. We conclude that Evangelicals may find Augustinian elements in his ecclesiology ecumenically suspect but that aspects of his sacramental theology are surprisingly fruitful, and that the ambivalence created by this disjuncture provides the best context for future ecumenical dialogue.

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