LITANY OF STUPID SAINTS

Proselytism is solemn nonsense, it makes no sense. We need to get to know each other, listen to each other and improve our knowledge of the world around us... This is important: to get to know people, listen, expand the circle of ideas.

                       Pope Francis (interview w/Eugenio Scalfari, La Repubblica, 1 October 2013)

Martyrdom of SS. Gabriel Lalemant and Jean de Brebeuf in 1649.

You see, ladies and gentlemen - look what happened to SS. Gabriel Lalemant and Jean de Brebeuf, those so-called "North American Martyrs", after they proselytized to the genteel Iroquois. They were tortured, stoned, scalped, mutilated with knives, their necks seared with "red hot" tomahawk collars, they received mock baptisms with boiling water, then burned at the stake. Good grief. You don't want this to happen to you, do you? Who were they to judge? Those stupid saints, they deserved to be slaughtered. Who cares that these "ideological Christians" were the vanguard of Catholics to spark the Faith in Canada, eventually to spread throughout North America. Why were they so critical of Indian paganism? It was "solemn nonsense" that they attempted to convert those noble savages. What a waste of time. Too bad Francis was not around in the seventeenth century. Otherwise, Gabe and Jean would have gotten to know the Iroquois, listened to them, then expanded the circle of their ideas. "Solemn nonsense" was Christ's command: "you, therefore, must go out, making disciples of all nations, and baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all the commandments which I have given you" (Matthew 28:19-20).

And what about this miserable "old maid"...

St. Teresa Benedicta (1891-1942)

Look at her - a "sourpuss", a "long-faced, mournful funeral Christian". That expression does not convey gravitas, of someone in deep mystical union with Christ, but - as Pope Francis tells us - just of a "religious [with] a heart as sour as vinegar". Who cares that St. Teresa was intellectually brilliant, a philosopher, doing her doctoral dissertation under the German phenomenologist Edmund Husserl. She dropped it all, including her Jewish religion, converted to Catholicism, then became a Carmelite nun. She even wrote an insipid book called Studies on John of the Cross: The Science of the Cross. Hilarious! And what did all of these eventually get her? Murdered in a gas chamber at a Nazi concentration camp. What a "sad Christian", what a "querulous and disillusioned pessimist", one of those "people without light  - real downers". Just another stupid saint.

Then there is St. Thérèse of Liseux, the so-called "Little Flower". Look at this corny, over-the-top image of the child Thérèse in prayer whilst on her mummy's lap...

That is so phoney and ridiculous. Instead, we should listen to Pope Francis so as to shun such portrayals of hypocrisy and inauthenticity. As he said: "they disguise themselves as good people: they make themselves up like little holy cards, looking up at heaven as they pray, making sure they are seen - they believe they are more righteous than others, they despise others". That's right, Holy Father, those Catholics hate everyone. Thank you for affirming aloud a thought that was running through my head for years. Now look below, even more of this idealized "little holy card" posturing by the "Little Flower"...

 

St. Thérèse Liseux (1873-1897)

What a stupid saint. Pope Francis smartly counsels us against such Catholic romanticism by reference to a discredited psychologist and charlatan: "Sigmund Freud used to say... that in every idealisation there is an attack". Awesome stuff, Holy Father, you must be reading Ron Rolheiser. And lest us not forget St. Therese's parents...

Bl. Marie-Azélie Martin (1832-1877) and Bl. Louis Martin (1823-1894)

Clearly, what we have here is "Mr. and Mrs. Whiner". Imagine those two at a party? How depressing. Wonder what the topic of conversation would have been? Devotion to the Sacred Heart? Proper protocol when confessing sins to a priest? Meatless Fridays? That they had five daughters who were all nuns? Too bad Zélie was not more outgoing, that she was so "afraid to dance, to cry, afraid of everything". Ah, the fun that would have been had, because she was so darn cute. Look closely, at her faux couture clothing, at her hair tightened into a constricting bun. Symbolic, yes? Of what, you ask? Answer: of her inwardist psychological repression desperately seeking relief. Notice that combined distressed goddess/naughty librarian look about her, which I find to be so magnetic, so sexy, so delicious. Nonetheless, thank goodness for His Holiness in that he warns us enlightened moderns that such "older people [were] nostalgic for structures and customs which are no longer life-giving in today’s world". We do not want that. Thus, with such profound Peronist insights we can confidently infer that Louis and Zélie were "starched Christians, too polite, who speak of theology calmly over tea". Borrrrrriiiinnnngggggg. Avoid such Catholics at all costs.

Here is yet another one of those stupid saints who "make themselves up like little holy cards, looking up at heaven as they pray". May I introduce to you...

St. Jean Marie Baptiste Vianney, the Curé D'Ars (1786-1859)

Ever read a hagiography on this buffoon? What pious baloney. Allegedly, his diet regimen consisted of only a potato a day and he regularly suffered from physical attacks by the Devil. He spent up to 18 hours per day in the confessional. Moreover, Vianney refused to give absolution if the penitent did not stop dancing when at the local tavern! What a "rigid Christian", "afraid to dance, to cry, afraid of everything". Using the Holy Father's most excellent example, we must remember that dance forms an important component of the liturgy, especially The Tango. Who cares that Vianney was responsible for thousands upon thousands of French Catholics returning to the Faith after the French Revolution's devastating assault upon the Catholic Church. Who cares that thousands of pilgrims from around the globe came to see him. Who cares that he performed miracles, or that he healed the sick, or that he could read souls instantaneously, or that he possessed Heaven-infused knowledge of the past and future. Look at him now, he's a "museum mummy"...

Now we come to perhaps the most stupidest type of saint in the litany of saints - that is, the "Rosary-bead counters". Perhaps the most famous of these types in recent times was Padre Pio...

 

St. Pio of Pietrelcina (1887-1968)

Often, did he recount the count of his beads. For example, "Today I said 32 or 33 rosaries. Maybe 1 or 2 more". Is that not funny? I want to laugh uproariously whenever reading such infantilism. But as Pope Francis wisely tells us, "it is not to laugh at". It's more than acceptable - indeed, it is laudatory -  in today's antinomian post-Conciliar climate to be smugly dismissive, condescending or insulting to those plebeian Catholics with their quaint devotions to the Most Holy Mother God.

So, then: to all you papalotrers, ultramontanists and Vatican II cultists out there, to all my beloved excuse mongers and deniers of the obvious and ignorers of the elephant in the room, to all you smiley face salesmen apologists and social justice Marxists, to all you pewsitter parasites populating the Magic Circle, hear me now: Let us never ever disremember those most sacred, dogmatic, Magisterial, Holy Spirit inspirited words of our pope:

The most serious of the evils that afflict the world these days are youth unemployment and the loneliness of the old... This, to me, is the most urgent problem that the Church is facing.

Amen. Amen.

 Viva la revolución !

H/T The Pope Francis Little Book of Insults

LITANY OF STUPID SAINTS