The authors of two books released this year are on a mission to unmask the lives of Roman Catholic saints.
Thomas J. Craughwell and the Rev. James Martin would have you know that the exclusive club of saints who are memorialized in statues, on medals and on prayer cards has members with skeleton-filled closets that have been nailed shut by years of history.
Inside are tales of murderers, streetwalkers and thieves who doubted God, threw tantrums and stole from poor widows.
But for Craughwell and Martin, the whitewashing of the saints' stories is ultimately a disservice, because the truth holds redemptive power.
Thus, Martin's memoir "My Life With the Saints" and Craughwell's lighthearted "Saints Behaving Badly: The Cutthroats, Crooks, Trollops, Con Men and Devil Worshippers Who Became Saints" give readers a glimpse of iconic figures in the church with all their human frailties.
"The saints teach us that holiness is being who you are and trusting that the way God made us is wonderful, and we don't have to be like everybody else to be holy," Martin said.
Martin, a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, is a Jesuit priest and author who is an associate editor at America magazine, the moderate-to-liberal Catholic journal. Craughwell, a columnist and author of 14 books — several of them on religious topics — describes himself as conservative and traditionalist when it comes to his Catholic faith.
"I was nervous," Craughwell said. "I thought if the book gets into the hands of the wrong (blogger) when he's in a bad mood, they'd say I was holding the church up to contempt. But I've been lucky, there wasn't a single one that didn't get it."
The "it," said Craughwell, is the message that everybody sins, including "the people we call saints." So, there's hope for all of us, Craughwell said.
Craughwell's breezy 197 pages are divided into chapters with headings that include: "St. Callixtus, Embezzler," "St. Moses the Ethiopian, Cutthroat and Gang Leader," "St. Augustine, Heretic and Playboy" and "St. Olga, Mass Murderer."
Callixtus stole the savings of poor widows before he became pope in about A.D. 217 and died a martyr; St. Moses led a gang of 75 on a crime spree before he sacrificed his life to save a group of monks; St. Augustine lived with his mistress and their son for years before he and his son were baptized together; and St. Olga ordered the deaths of hundreds to avenge her husband, but ordered the construction of churches in Russia after her conversion to Christianity.
Craughwell clearly states which of the saints' stories are based in fact and those that incorporate legend and apocrypha. Apocrypha are any scriptural texts that fall outside church canon.
Early church writings, and those from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, often tell the stories candidly, Craughwell says. It was around the 19th century that details of the saints' lives were replaced with the pat phrase "he or she was a great sinner," Craughwell said.
"It makes holiness seem completely unattainable, and it turns the saints into this elite group as if they were born that way, and no saint is born saintly," Craughwell said.
The sanitizing sometimes attempts to gloss over history that includes saints who butted heads with the church and the government. A bishop once attempted to kick recently canonized Saint Mother Theodore Guerin out of her own order, Martin said.
For him, the portrait of a kind of untouchable holiness lets the people in the pews off the hook.
"They can say, 'Well, I'm no Mother Teresa,"' Martin said. In other words, "'I have no responsibilities to do the kinds of things she did because she was perfect."'
In his book, Martin lets the readers know that Mother Teresa, who is one step away from sainthood, wasn't perfect. She was tough, and scolded the sisters in her order for being lazy, Martin said. She even struggled through intense personal doubt about God's very existence.
Martin's memoir tells the story of his own path toward the priesthood and the saints that inspired him.
He grew up attending Epiphany of Our Lord Church in Plymouth Meeting, Pa., and earned a bachelor's degree from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He worked for six years for General Electric, but he wasn't happy. One night, he watched a documentary on Thomas Merton, the Catholic theologian and Trappist monk. Merton's story so intrigued him that Martin wanted to know more, and it led him toward a future as a Jesuit.
He discusses 20 saints in his book. Each chapter includes his personal reflections, the saint's life story and excerpts from their writings.
Martin and Craughwell view their books as part of a trend toward humanizing the saints.
Pope John Paul II sparked renewed interest in saints by canonizing so many, including very popular ones such as Philadelphia's St. Katharine Drexel, Craughwell said.
Pope John Paul II canonized 482 saints during his 26 years as pope.
"People are searching for models of holiness in very confusing times," Martin said. "The saints are being rediscovered by a new generation as human beings and not simply as plaster statutes."