Story 02 3 min read
Who decided
A whole monastery told to stop singing, over one grave
St. Hildegard of Bingen built that monastery above the Rhine, and she would not let anyone open the grave.
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Catholic Saints for Kids
Junior Edition · September 17, 2026
True stories of the saints for curious readers ages 10–12.
Start here 3 min read
Growing up
Second-youngest of twenty-five children, St. Catherine wins her own room
At fifteen she refused to marry, so her family took away the room she slept in — until her father gave in and she chose the smallest room in the house.
- Her age
- Fifteen
- Where
- A dyer's house in Siena
- When
- 1362 AD
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About this picture
AI-generated image, in the manner of an oil and tempera panel by Hans Holbein the Younger, from the paper's reference portrait based on Portrait of Sir Thomas More (Hans Holbein the Younger (1497/1498-1543), 1527, The Frick Collection, New York (acc. 1912.1.77)) View source artwork.
Story 03 3 min read
The big question
St. Thomas More answered only half the King's question
King Henry VIII wanted to hear that his marriage to Queen Catherine of Aragon had never been a marriage at all, so that he could marry Anne Boleyn.
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Story 04 3 min read
The big question
Fifteen minutes was all the jury needed
St. Thomas More would not tell King Henry VIII what he thought, and one man's account of one talk in a prison was enough to convict him.
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Story 05 3 min read
A play to sing
St. Hildegard never studied chant. She wrote a sung play.
Fifteen Virtues and the Devil fight over one Soul in her new play, and every voice in it sings music she made.
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Story 06 3 min read
Who decided
Shot through the leg, she still called for another attack
A crossbow bolt went through St. Joan of Arc's thigh at the wall of Paris, and days later she laid her white armour on an altar.
Read storyToday in the Church for kids
Thursday in Ordinary Time, with two optional memorials
- Saint Robert Bellarmine, a bishop and one of the Church's great teachers
- Saint Hildegard of Bingen, a nun who never married and one of the Church's great teachers
Saint of the day for kids
Saint Hildegard of Bingen was a German Benedictine abbess who died in 1179 AD at the monastery she founded on the Rupertsberg, above the river Rhine. She wrote down her visions, composed music for her nuns, and in 2012 AD was named a Doctor of the Church.
Read their storyOn this day in the Church for kids
- 1228 Pope Gregory IX granted Saint Clare of Assisi the Privilege of Poverty at Perugia, confirming that nobody could force her sisters to accept possessions.Our reportSource
- 1498 St. Hildegard of Bingen was entered in the Roman Martyrology under September 17 as a virgin of the diocese of Mainz, and from that entry the whole Church keeps her feast on the day she died.Source
- 1904 On St. Hildegard's feast, Benedictine nuns from St Gabriel's at Prague moved into the newly built Abbey of St Hildegard above Eibingen, bringing Benedictine life back to the place where her relics rest.Source
- 1918 The Capuchins at San Giovanni Rotondo kept the feast of the Stigmata of St. Francis of Assisi, and three days later the same wounds were given to St. Pio of Pietrelcina in that house.Source