St. Perpetua — The Catholic Martyr Who Wrote Her Own Death Sentence

In this episode of Everyday Saints, a Catholic podcast about the saints, host John O'Connor tells the story of St. Perpetua of Carthage — a young Roman mother who wrote her own prison diary in the year 203 AD, knowing she would die for her faith. It is one of the oldest surviving documents written by a woman in the ancient world.The sand is hot beneath her feet. She is twenty-two years old. She has a baby she will never hold again. How she got to that arena — and what she wrote in the days before — is a story most people have never heard.In this episode: — Who Perpetua was, and the Roman Carthage she grew up in — The prison cell she called "a palace" the moment her baby was placed in her arms — Her father's desperate pleas, and her unforgettable response — Felicity, the enslaved woman who labored in prison rather than face the arena alone — The eyewitness account of what happened in the arena itself — How — and why — a condemned woman's diary survived nearly 1,800 years — What Perpetua's clarity about who she was can teach us todayEveryday Saints is a weekly Catholic podcast telling the real, human stories behind the saints — no theology degree required. New episodes every Thursday.