Pudentiana

Infobox Saint
name=Saint Pudentiana
birth_date=
death_date=
feast_day=May 19
venerated_in=Roman Catholic Church


imagesize=200px.
caption=Saint Pudentiana in the mosaic of the apsis of the basilica of Santa Pudenziana
birth_place=
death_place=
titles=
beatified_date=
beatified_place=
beatified_by=
canonized_date=
canonized_place=
canonized_by=
attributes=
patronage=
major_shrine=
suppressed_date=1969
suppressed_by=Pope Paul VI
issues=

Saint Pudentiana is a traditional Christian saint of unknown dates. She is also sometimes called Potentiana and is often coupled with her supposed sister, Saint Praxedes.

According to her "acta", published by the Bollandists (dating from the 8th century) and the traditional martyrology, she was a Roman virgin of the early Christian church, daughter of Saint Pudens, "friend of the Apostles", and sister of Saint Praxedes. Praxedes and Pudentiana, together with presbyter Pastor and Pope Pius I (140-154), built a baptistery in the church present inside their father's house, and started to baptize pagans. Pudentiana died at the age of sixteen, possibly a martyr, and is buried next to her father Pudens, in the Priscilla catacombs, in via Salaria.

While there is evidence for the life of St. Pudens, there is no direct evidence for either Pudentiana nor Praxedes. It is possible that the early Church's "ecclesia Pudentiana" in documents (i.e. the Church of Pudens) was mistaken for "Saint Pudentiana."

Her feast day in the Roman Catholic Church is May 19. [CathEncy|wstitle=Praexedes and Pudentia] In 1969, owing to the lack of her name in ancient martyrologies and the unreliability of her origins, Pudentiana's cult was suppressed and her veneration is currently confined to her basilica in Rome and has not been included in the Roman Catholic calendar of saints [http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=5511] .

ee also

*Santa Pudenziana
*Saint Praxedes
*Saint Pudens

References