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Regina Protmann was born sometime in 1552, in Braunsberg (Braniewo), Royal Prussia (today northern Poland). Her father, Peter Protmann, was a merchant and local politician, and her mother, Regina nee Tingel, was a homemaker.
In her youth, Regina showed an attraction to the religious and spiritual life. She was an active member of a Marian group that Jesuit priests had started in the area where she lived, and she turned to Jesuit priests for her spiritual direction. Her first biographer was one of those Jesuit priests, Engelbert Keilert.
In 1571, when she was around nineteen, Regina informed her parents that marriage was not for her. Rather, she wanted to serve God in the single state, caring for the sick and poor and learning more about her religion.
Even though her parents were not in favor of Regina’s plan of life, Regina left home with two other women. Together, they lived in an abandoned house and devoted themselves to caring of the sick and doing housework; that is how they obtained money to live.
In this time, the Roman Catholic Church was reacting to the Protestant Reformation by making a set of rules for religious sisters and others to follow. These rules, codified by the Council of Trent (1545-1563), included ones mandating that religious sisters live in convents.
Regina and her friends, however, founded a religious order that they called the Sisters of Saint Catherine. This congregation had Saint Catherine of Alexandria as their patron, a woman martyred around 305 in Alexandria, Egypt.
The Sisters of Saint Catherine spent their early days not only nursing the sick, but also engaging in nursing education. The sisters also made sure nurses received good nursing and medical care when they were sick, and they established hospitals
Finally, the sisters founded schools for girls so they could get the same education foundation that boys were receiving.
Sister Regina Protmann died on January 18, 1613, in Braunsberg. Pope John Paul II beatified Regina on June 13, 1999, in Warsaw, Poland. Blessed Regina Protmann’s feast day is January 18.
In time, the Sisters of Saint Catherine continued their work in many nations of Africa, Europe, and South America.
