# Catherine's own account holds the head but does not describe a kiss

Commentary on Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton.

On [CH06.P025](https://glosses.org/orthodoxy/pg16769-r1/CH06.P025/#char=1259,1343): "St. Catherine, who, in the official shambles, kissed the bloody head of the criminal"

Catherine of Siena's letter to Raimondo of Capua recounts accompanying a condemned man through confession, Communion and execution. In Vida Dutton Scudder's *Saint Catherine of Siena as Seen in Her Letters* (1905), inspected in the Project Gutenberg transcription, the editor identifies him as Niccolo Tuldo, a Perugian condemned for speech against Siena's government. Catherine describes steadying his neck on the block, receiving his severed head in her hands, and remaining stained with his blood. This translated letter does not mention kissing the head. [Catherine, letter to Raimondo](https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/7403/pg7403-images.html).

The distinction matters because Chesterton's vivid gesture should not be passed off as a quotation from this witness. Yet the letter supports the deeper contrast: she physically shares the condemned man's terror and death while interpreting his reconciliation as entry into Christ's mercy. She calls the execution ground a place of justice and presents his final submission as holy. Her charity therefore operates within acceptance of the sentence, rather than as a campaign to abolish execution. That uncomfortable conjunction gives historical substance to Chesterton's separation of pity for a person from judgment upon wrongdoing.

## Sources

- [Saint Catherine of Siena as Seen in Her Letters, translated and edited by Vida Dutton Scudder](https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/7403/pg7403-images.html), Section TO BROTHER RAIMONDO OF CAPUA OF THE ORDER OF THE PREACHERS, editor's introduction and letter paragraphs beginning 'I went to visit him', 'I waited for him', and 'His lips said naught'; Scudder translation first published 1905, Gutenberg no. 7403

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