From the desk of the Tar Heel disciple:
July 14, 2026 (#116)
The Cause of Sigrid Undset
On July 9, the Bishop of Oslo, Norway, announced his intention to open the diocesan phase of the investigation for the cause for the canonization of Sigrid Undset (1882-1949), a Catholic convert and recipient of the 1928 Nobel Prize for Literature. Her trilogy, Kristin Lavransdatter, a monumental historical novel, is among her best-known works. It was published between 1920 and 1922, and tells the life story of a passionate woman, who lived in 14th century Norway. (The most commonly recommended English translation by Tiina Nunnally is available in the Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition.) The deep Catholic culture, local political and social realities, as well as the natural settings of that time and place are brought to life in especially vivid prose. Love, personal autonomy, faith, and redemption are among the principal themes explored.
Undset’s own life, at least at first glance, might not initially appear to be the stuff of sanctity. She was raised by atheist parents with minimal conformity to the state religion, the Lutheran Church. During a time in Rome, she met and began to live with a married man, a Norwegian painter, who after three years finally divorced his wife and married her when she was 30. She raised their three children, including a daughter with significant mental illness. Her oldest son was killed by the Nazis early in World War II. She and her husband eventually divorced. She was an early and ardent critic of Hitler and his regime. Her books were banned in Germany, and when the war came to Norway, she went into exile in the United States.
Around 1917, she was influenced by the writings of Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson. When she became a Catholic in 1924, at the age of 42, she greatly scandalized many of her fellow countrymen and encountered the raw anti-Catholic prejudice present in the Norwegian culture of the time. She subsequently became a “lay Dominican,” and wrote a book on the life of Saint Catherine of Siena (published in 1951; it was republished by Ignatius Press in 2009). She also met and translated into Norwegian the writings of the famed English Catholic apologists G. K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc.
Undset returned to Norway in 1945, after the conclusion of the war in Europe. She is reported to have had a mental breakdown in 1948. In June 1949, she was admitted to a hospital in Lillehammer, near where she lived, for kidney inflammation. She died shortly thereafter, at the age of 67.
This was a woman of superior intellectual ability, who suffered great human losses in her life and who found solace in the Catholic Faith which she ardently embraced and to which she gave witness despite the prejudices of the time. This step to open a cause for canonization, whether successful or not, might serve to once again draw the world's attention to her magnificent writings.
Also by Sigrid Undset
