German philosopher Edith Stein (1891-1942) was a leading proponent of the phenomenological school of thought led by Edmund Husserl in the first half of the twentieth century. In her writings, Stein attempted to reconcile phenomenology with her Catholic beliefs in works on Thomas Aquinas, St. John of the Cross, and the topic of women in the Church. A Jew by birth who converted to Catholicism, she was killed in a Nazi concentration camp and canonized in 1998.

The twentieth-century German philosopher Edith Stein was a student of Edmund Husserl and a prominent supporter of his theories on phenomenology. Born into a Jewish family, Stein's search for spiritual truth led her first to atheism and later to the Roman Catholic Church, where she eventually became a Carmelite nun. She attempted to connect her philosophical and religious beliefs in her writings that discussed topics such as the role of women in...