In this episode of Everyday Saints, a Catholic podcast about the real lives of the saints, host John O'Connor tells the story of St. Margaret of Castello — one of the newest saints in the Catholic Church, canonized by Pope Francis in 2021, and one of the most overlooked.

She was born blind, severely disabled, and a dwarf. Her own wealthy parents were so ashamed of her that they sealed her into a small room beside a chapel when she was six years old. When a pilgrimage they took her on didn't produce the miracle they were hoping for — they left her there. In a city she had never been to. Among people she did not know.

What she became in the years after that moment is one of the most unexpected things you will ever hear.

What you'll hear in this episode:
— The child born into privilege who was hidden from the world
— A decade sealed in a stone cell — and what she built inside it
— The pilgrimage, the missing miracle, and the moment her parents walked away
— The poor people of Castello who took her in — and what they found
— The nuns who couldn't handle her — and why
— The joy that made no sense given everything she had been through
— What Margaret's story says about the condition you have placed on your own peace

St. Margaret of Castello is the patron saint of the unwanted, the disabled, the abandoned, and the homeless. Her incorrupt body still lies beneath the altar of Saint Dominic's Church in Città di Castello, Italy — seven hundred years after her death.

Everyday Saints is a weekly Catholic podcast telling the real, human stories of the saints in plain language — for regular people with real jobs, real doubts, and real lives. No theology degree required.

New episodes every Thursday.

Host: John O'Connor