Blessed Regina Protmann

Blessed Regina Protmann was a burgher’s daughter from Braniewo in Warmia. At nineteen she left a prosperous home to serve the sick and the poor and to teach girls, and she founded the Congregation of the Sisters of Saint Catherine. The Church commemorates her on January 18.

She was born about 1552 in Braniewo. The exact date is not known, and the year is accepted on the basis of the information that she was 61 at the time of her death. Her father, Peter Protmann, was a wealthy merchant and belonged to the elite of the Hanseatic town. Warmia, ruled by its bishops, belonged to Poland at that time, and Regina’s family, like almost all of Braniewo in those days, spoke German. The girl received a careful upbringing and education. According to her first biography, in her youth she was fond of amusements and fine clothes.

The turning point came in 1571. The Jesuits had been working in Braniewo for several years, and under their influence Regina matured spiritually, while Warmia was struck by the plague. Against the will of her parents, who wanted to give her in marriage, she left home. With two companions she lived first with a devout widow and then in a run-down house belonging to her family. They lived in great poverty. The biography recalls that, for want of a table, they ate their bread on a barrel.

What was new was that the sisters did not shut themselves behind an enclosure. They went out to the homes of the sick and the poor to nurse and support them. Regina also opened a school for girls, and the sisters sewed vestments and altar linens for churches. This way of life, joining contemplation with active service, aroused opposition, but it found a defender in the bishop of Warmia, Marcin Kromer. In 1583 he approved the first rule of the community. Its patroness was Saint Catherine of Alexandria, to whom the parish church in Braniewo was dedicated.

The congregation grew. Houses were founded in Orneta, Lidzbark Warmiński, and Reszel, and Regina, as superior, visited them regardless of the hardships of travel. In 1602 the revised rule was approved by Bishop Piotr Tylicki and the apostolic nuncio Claudio Rangoni. John Paul II said of Regina that she dedicated herself with all her heart to the work of renewal of the Church after the Council of Trent, and that the words “As God wills” became the motto of her life.

In her last illness, as was recorded, she showed no impatience. She died in Braniewo on January 18, 1613. In her spiritual testament she asked the sisters to persevere in humility, patience, obedience, and love, and to live in peace with everyone.

The beatification process began only in 1961. John Paul II beatified Regina Protmann on June 13, 1999, in Warsaw, together with Edmund Bojanowski and 108 martyrs of the Second World War. Today the Sisters of Saint Catherine work in Poland and in a dozen other countries of Europe, the Americas, Africa, and Asia.