A Rose in Winter

The story of Edith Stein, born into an observant Jewish family, who chose to enter the Catholic Church as an adult, become a Carmelite nun, and then years later challenged the very foundation of the Holy See to stand up against the Holocaust. After fleeing to The Netherlands, she was caught and imprisoned by the Nazis, where a non-Jewish official was so impressed by her sense of faith and calm, he offered her an escape plan. Stein vehemently refused his assistance, stating she would now share in the fate of her brothers and sisters -- a path which would lead to her death in Auschwitz. In 1998, Pope John Paul II canonized her as one of the six patron saints of Europe, after a miracle was attributed to her intervention, making her the only modern patron saint who is also Jewish.