Catherine of Palma

Catherine of Palma
Anonymous 18th-century altarpiece showing St Catherine, in a chapel at Valldemossa, Mallorca
Born	Catalina Thomás 1 May 1533 Valldemossa, Mallorca, Spain
Died	5 April 1574
Beatified	12 August 1792 by Pope Pius VI
Canonized	22 June 1930 by Pope Pius XI
Feast	1 April 27-28 April in Valldemossa
Patronage	Mallorca

Saint Catherine of Palma (1533–1574) was a Spanish nun canonised in 1930. She is also known as Catalina Thomás, Caterina Tomàs i Gallard, and Catherine or Catalina Thomas or Tomas.^[1][2]

She was born 1 May 1533 at Valldemossa, Mallorca, Spain, in a peasant family. She worked as a servant in a household in Palma where she learned to read and embroider, before joining the Canonnesses of St Augustine at the convent of St Mary Magdalene in Palma. She was visited by devils and angels, and went into ecstasy for the last years of her life. She died 5 April 1574 at Palma, Mallorca, of natural causes. As of 1904 her hat, thimble, and other relics were kept, and her body preserved in a marble sarcophagus, in the convent of St Mary Magdalene, Palma.^[1][2]

After her death she was celebrated locally as a saint for half a century until a decree of Pope Urban VII forbade the worship of unrecognised saints. Local people appealed to Rome and eventually she was beatified on 12 August 1792 by Pope Pius VI and canonised on 22 June 1930 by Pope Pius XI.^[1][2]

The house in Valldemossa where she was born, Carrer Rectoria 5, has become a shrine, and many houses in the village bear a plaque in her honour.^[3][4]

She is considered the patron saint of Mallorca,^[3][5] although other sources apply this title to Saint Sebastian,^[6] Saint Alphonsus Rodriguez^[7][8] or the Virgen de Lluc of the Santuari de Lluc.^[9]

Plaque commemorating the saint

She is commemorated on 1 April, and on 27 and 28 July in her home town of Valldemossa.^[1]

References