In 1431 a nineteen-year-old girl was burned alive in Rouen. The tribunal that condemned her charged her with heresy and witchcraft: the "voices" of Saint Catherine, Saint Margaret and the Archangel Michael that Joan of Arc claimed to have heard since childhood were declared the work of the devil. In truth, her real crime was having led the armies of France — and having won.
Twenty-five years later, on 7 July 1456, a church tribunal assembled in that same city of Rouen declared her trial "corrupt, fraudulent and null". Joan's mother, Isabelle Romée, had begged the pope to reopen the case; more than a hundred witnesses were heard.
From the flames to the altars
Joan's story is the most extreme parable of how the world treats those who hear the invisible: the same Church that sent her to the stake as a witch proclaimed her a saint in 1920. Her voices never changed; only the way men chose to judge them did.