With her deep prayer life and total devotion to serving God and the good of her fellow citizens, St. Joan of Arc is a wonderful model for Christian politicians, Pope Benedict XVI said. “Hers is a beautiful example of holiness for laypeople involved in politics, especially in difficult situations. Faith is the light that guided all her choices,” the pope said Jan. 26 during his weekly general audience. The pope’s remarks about St. Joan were part of an ongoing series of audience talks about influential Catholic women of the Middle Ages.
Addressing about 3,000 people gathered for the audience, the pope said that St. Joan of Arc, like St. Catherine of Siena, was a young laywoman and mystic who lived her faith commitment “not in a cloister, but in the midst of the most dramatic realities of the church and the world of her time.” St. Joan and St. Catherine are perhaps the best examples of “those strong women who at the end of the Middle Ages brought the Gospel to bear on the complex events of history,” he said.
VATICAN CITY (CNS)