One fairly regular question the apologists receive at Catholic Answers is "Who is the patron saint of [insert need or desire]?" While the answer to many such questions can be found at sites like the Patron Saints Index, more than a few are not readily answerable. I remember one person who wanted to know the patron saint of skateboarders. Not exactly a patronage that the Congregation for the Causes of Saints is going to...
If I were to compile a list titled "Common Catholic Misconceptions of the Catholic Faith," near the top would have to be this Catholic misconception about the nature of sanctity:
The saints are to be considered perfect in their earthly lives, to such an extent that all that they did while in this life is considered right, just, and necessary for Catholics to imitate in their own lives.
We see this misconception play out in the multitude of ecclesial...
Protestants need not worry about Catholics worshipping Christ's mother and the saints. It's taken us some 2,000 years to figure out four dogmatic truths about the Blessed Virgin Mary—that she is the Mother of God, a perpetual Virgin, immaculately conceived...
As an unrepentant history geek, I've often wondered about the less than saintly descendants of saints. Sometimes we don't have to wonder, because the saints' relationships with their immediate families are part of what demanded their heroic virtue.
Venerable Cornelia Connelly (1809-1879) was the wife of a Protestant minister who decided to convert to Catholicism and become a Catholic priest....
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