Blessed Eustochium Bellini: Possessed or Holy?

Lucrezia Bellini was born in 1444 in Padua, Italy, became a Benedictine nun, and died in her native city in 1469. She is remembered by the Catholic Church as Blessed Eustochium of Padua this week, on February 13. But the details of her life are so bizarre that, at least during her lifetime, there was considerable controversy over whether she was a great sinner or a great saint.

Lucrezia’s mother, Maddalena Cavalcabò, was a Benedictine nun who traveled from her own convent to spend some time in the Benedictine convent in Padua. While in Padua, Maddalena had an affair with a young man named Bartolomeo Bellini and became pregnant. The Benedictine nuns of this convent were not known for their piety or virtue, so if Maddalena’s adultery had become known, it probably would not have surprised the city’s residents. But she did manage to conceal her pregnancy, secretly give birth, and place her baby in the care of a nurse. She then returned to her previous Benedictine convent and disappeared completely from her daughter’s life.

Lucrezia’s father, who was a married man, agreed to take responsibility for his child. Lucrezia became a pretty and lovable little girl, and her father was fond of her. His wife, however, increasingly resented the presence of her husband’s illegitimate child in her home. Lucrezia was still small when strange phenomena began to occur.

Lucrezia was a sweet-tempered girl—most of the time. At other times, she would become perversely disobedient. Her behavior escalated from annoying to inexplicable: sometimes she appeared to be beaten by unseen forces, and other times she seemed to be carried through the air.

If Lucrezia were alive today, her situation might be evaluated for mental illness, a poltergeist, demonic activity, or some other cause. But in the fifteenth century, it was assumed that she was possessed. A priest repeatedly attempted to exorcise her, although this did not stop the phenomena. On the other hand, outside of these bizarre episodes, she seemed to be a friendly, devout child. That did not stop her stepmother from beating and neglecting her, and eventually her frustrated father gave up and sent her to be educated at the same Paduan convent where Lucrezia’s mother had briefly lived as a nun. Lucrezia was then about seven years old.

At the convent school, the nuns and other students soon discovered that Lucrezia was an intelligent, quiet, prayerful, and modest girl. All the disturbances of the past simply disappeared.

When Lucrezia reached the age of sixteen, the abbess at the Paduan convent died. The bishop of Padua, who had been concerned for years about the lack of discipline and piety among the nuns of this convent in his city, decided it was time to introduce reforms. The nuns refused to accept any of the bishop’s orders, so he commanded them to leave the convent and return to their families. Then he invited nuns from a more observant Benedictine community to take over the convent and its school.

Almost all the students were also sent home. But Lucrezia, who had no other home, was now seventeen years old, and she asked to be admitted as a novice in the new community. The nuns initially rejected her because of her illegitimate birth. They were also afraid that the bad example of the previous nuns would make her a poor candidate for religious life. But the bishop overruled them, and Lucrezia was accepted, taking the name in religious life of Eustochium, after the faithful, saintly woman who assisted Saint Jerome in his translation of the Bible.

At this point, all the terrifying behavior from her childhood returned with a vengeance. Although Eustochium was just as humble, obedient, and devout as before, she also experienced random, strange outbursts. She would shriek, howl, scream, and bounce like a ball into the air. She sometimes seemed to be catatonic, and other times she groaned under the weight of invisible blows. The shocked nuns asked a priest to exorcise her, which he did repeatedly, but without any apparent effect. As was common at the time, in the treatment of the mentally ill, she was also left chained to a pillar for months. However, each time these attacks ended, Eustochium returned to her previous, gentle personality, and witnesses heard her praising God and praying for the grace to endure her trials.

Eustochium suffered in other ways too. The nuns were so frightened of her behavior that they avoided her completely her at first. The people of Padua found out about these events too, and when the convent’s abbess became ill, they were convinced that Eustochium had tried to kill her through diabolical means. Local residents threatened to physically expel the nun from the convent and the city. But the abbess recovered, and the other nuns gradually recognized Eustochium’s virtues, particularly her incredible patience. Slowly, they came to believe that Eustochium was a victim, not an instigator, of these phenomena, and they saw her charity and humility as signs of holiness.

On one occasion, a nun heard and saw (through a small window) Eustochium being beaten even though she was inside a locked room with no other people inside. The nun found bruises and marks of strangulation on Eustochium’s neck afterward. When Eustochium was twenty-one years old, the community decided to allow her to be professed as a nun, but frequent vomiting and other physical attacks had weakened her body. She only lived a few years longer, dying at the age of twenty-five, almost bedridden and alternating between these strange outbursts and periods of prayer.

Was Eustochium attacked by demons? Was she mentally ill? Or is the story of her life just creative fiction?

It is true that Eustochium’s biography was not written down until eighteen years after her death. But the author of that biography was a subsequent bishop of Padua. If he had not known Eustochium personally, there were many Paduans and nuns still alive who had. Other later manuscripts about her life tell essentially the same story described in that initial biography. That is, the details of her life were not embroidered or creatively retold by later generations.

Another reason to conclude that her biography is not fiction is the fact that the events described are so odd. If her life story was merely fabricated by the citizens or nuns of Padua, what reason would they have to do that? Why would they want it to be widely thought that a nun in their city was possessed by demons? Her behavior frightened and disturbed them, and it would have frightened and disturbed other Christians and Church leaders.

We have good reasons to be cautious about instantly attributing inexplicable phenomena to either angels or demons. In A Still, Small Voice,¹ Fr. Benedict Groeschel recounts the stories of some true and false mystics. As an example of the latter, he describes the life of the sixteenth century Franciscan nun Magdalena of the Cross, who was widely known as a holy woman and stigmatist during her lifetime. But when Magdalena became ill and thought she was about to die, she admitted to others that she had inflicted the wounds on herself. She even said she had made a deal with the devil in order to display mystical phenomena, like levitation. Sister Magdalana repented of her sins, however, and was successfully exorcised.

It is certainly possible that Eustochium suffered from some sort of mental disorder. Obviously, it is impossible to diagnose a psychological condition for a patient who has been dead for five hundred years. But Eustochium did demonstrate striking changes in her behavior. Those wild mood swings could have been the result of her psychological attempts to cope with the mistreatment, neglect, and isolation that she suffered at the hands of other people for most of her life.

But those who are mentally ill can’t harm their own bodies invisibly and in front of witnesses. They also don’t defy the law of gravity. Those phenomena sound much more like the attacks described by exorcist Fr. Gabriel Amorth and by Church expert on religious demonology Adam Blai, both of whom have written several books on the subject.

While demonic involvement in the lives of ordinary people may be relatively rare, it does happen. Scripture itself tells us so. The Gospels record Jesus freeing many people from evil spirits.² The power of His Name to cast out unclean spirits was witnessed by early Christians too.³ While it is tempting to attribute anything and everything we don’t understand to the devil, in Eustochium’s case, that cause seems to be a likely contender.

Modern-day exorcists have pointed out that multiple exorcisms are often required to free a possessed person, so the fact that many exorcisms did not resolve Eustochium’s symptoms is not surprising. And some great saints—like Saint Pio of Pietrelcina—have endured years of spiritual attacks by the devil, with descriptions which sound very similar to the phenomena experienced by Eustochium.

Perhaps we can draw some likely conclusions about these strange experiences, considering when they occurred and when they didn’t. Her strange symptoms happened when she was living in her father’s home and then again after she became a Benedictine novice. They disappeared when she was a student in a Benedictine school. This leads us back to the circumstances of her not-very-holy conception.

Eustochium’s mother and father carried on a sexual relationship while her mother was a nun. The convent in which her mother lived had a reputation for disorder and a general lack of virtue. Perhaps something about her parents’ relationship opened the door for demonic involvement in Eustochium’s life, through no fault of her own. Perhaps being removed from her father’s presence closed that door, but Eustochium’s desire to become a nun reopened that door. And perhaps Eustochium—whom everyone described as gentle and devout—recognized at some point that her sufferings were due to the circumstances of her birth. Perhaps she was so patient with being tormented and misunderstood not only out of her own desire to grow in holiness. Maybe she also hoped to do penance for the sins of her parents and the sins of anyone else (perhaps a nun or two in that disreputable convent?) who was involved in serious sin.

We may never be certain of the true cause of Eustochium’s torments, but her story leaves us with three obvious lessons about holiness and sin.

First, the modern world assumes that sexual sins are inconsequential. But sexual sins are an offense against God’s plan for human sexuality, and they can have physical, emotional, social, and spiritual consequences in our lives. Fortunately, these effects are not usually as dramatic as was the case for Eustochium.

Second, we should not jump to conclusions when we see phenomena that we do not understand. It is just as easy for us to be misled out of fear as it is for us to be misled by our desire for pleasure. We can thank God for establishing a Church, which has the authority to exorcise demons. We can also thank God for the Church’s two thousand years of experience in evaluating the difference between someone who is fighting against evil and someone who is cooperating with evil.

Finally, Eustochium’s life also reminds us of the importance in trusting in God, particularly when our sufferings seem to be caused by the sins of other people. What seems completely unjust to us—such as an innocent child being tormented by demons—may be part of God’s plan. Eustochium’s valiant fight against sin helped her become a holy woman who inspired others. Perhaps she united her sufferings to those of Christ to help atone for the sins of her parents. That would make her a victim-soul, just like the One whom she loved above all others, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who defeated all the demons of Hell through His patience and His willingness to become the perfect Victim for us all.

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