Edith Stein, Co-Patroness of Europe, Honored on Feast Day

August 9 marks the feast day of Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, born Edith Stein (1891–1942). A brilliant philosopher and student of Edmund Husserl, Stein was a prominent figure in the field of phenomenology.

Born into a Jewish family in Breslau, Stein eventually converted to Catholicism in 1922 after being moved by the writings of Saint Teresa of Avila. She later joined the Carmelite Order, taking the name Teresa Benedicta of the Cross.

Due to her Jewish ethnicity and the rise of Nazism, Stein's academic career was halted. She eventually sought refuge in a Carmelite convent in Echt, Netherlands. Following a protest by Dutch bishops against Nazi persecution, she was arrested and deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp, where she died in a gas chamber alongside her sister, Rosa.

In 1998, Pope John Paul II canonized her, describing her as a "symbol of the dramas of 20th-century Europe." He also proclaimed her a co-patroness of Europe in 1999.