Guess Who's Been Sainted

"You're a saint" might not be such a big compliment once you hear this episode! There are a lot of saints in the Roman Catholic Church... we're talking about some more questionable ones!

In this episode, we’re talking about five Catholic saints that probably shouldn’t be saints.

Saint Barbara

While her story is interesting, we have no evidence that Barbara ever existed! 

Saint Bernard of Clairvaux

Saint Bernard was really devoted to Mary. Like, a little too devoted. The miracle that got him canonized is an intimate dream her had about Mary feeding the baby Jesus and squirting some milk at Saint Bernard.

Saint Thomas Moore

A devout Catholic, Thomas Moore oppressed the Protestant reformation. He didn’t want anyone wrecking his version of Christianity so he even stopped the printing and distribution of the Bible in English by destroying buildings and printing presses. If you didn’t agree with his beliefs, well he had no problem using violence against you. 

Saint Junipero

Saint Junipero was a Catholic missionary that founded settlements across what is modern-day California. He was a big fan of corporal punishment and slave labour. As he converted the indigenous community of the region he forced them to do hard labour in cramped and unsanitary conditions. He was recently canonized by Pope Francis, who should’ve known better.

Mother Teresa

A literal monster, Mother Teresa created shelters for the sick and dying in Kolkata, India. However, she believed that suffering was a gift from God and that people should accept their suffering like Christ on the cross. Her mission raised hundreds of millions of dollars, but none of the money ever went to help the poor beyond sheltering them. She also baptized people without their consent to increase the numbers of the Catholic Church. She openly admitted in an interview that she didn’t do her work to help people, but rather to help the church. Oh yeah, and she would reuse needles on patients. 

In addition to chatting about saints that should be saints, we discuss the process of canonization in the Roman Catholic Church and the difference between veneration and worship (hint, there isn’t any!)

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Katie Dooley  00:12

Hi, Katie. How are you? Oh, great.

Preston Meyer  00:15

Excellent. Ready

Katie Dooley  00:16

to record another episode of

Preston Meyer  00:19

this the holy watermelon podcast? Absolutely, I am. Man, I've put a lot of work into studying this subject today actually

Katie Dooley  00:28

did so much and I've done so little. I'll just chime in with charming quips and and that's how I'll probably do this. I think I'll introduce it because I don't for it heart. Yeah. This is all person's idea. We're kind of going off of our path. We've we really thought methodically about what the next episode in the next episode next episode will be. And there's just so much content to cover on this topic. We didn't really know what to pick. So it's sort of throw a dart at a wall.

Preston Meyer  01:01

We used a couple of ideas here and there. And I feel like an episode or two ago, I teased what this one was going to be yes.

Katie Dooley  01:09

So today, we're talking about saints. That shouldn't be saints.

Preston Meyer  01:17

Yeah, there's there's a lot of complicated business around sainthood. Specifically, we're talking about the saints of the Roman Catholic tradition. Their the, their tradition is the most well recognized. system of saints were saints mean something.

Katie Dooley  01:36

Yeah, we haven't dived into Catholicism specifically, we had our Messiah Complex episode Christianity as a whole. But yeah, saints are huge in the Roman Catholic Church to the point where they're near deities, people pray specifically to their patron saint.

Preston Meyer  01:56

Yeah. It's, it's a behavior that is called veneration, but looks an awful lot like worship to me. We'll get into that a little bit later.

Katie Dooley  02:08

I figured we would start the episode with how does one even become a saint? So that we have a it's, how do I put this, you don't just become a saint from being a good person? Because that's what this entire episode is about. So how do you become a saint, if it's not just from being a good person,

Preston Meyer  02:32

you got to be recognized as holy. Ultimately, that's what the word Saint means is holy, set apart and sanctified different from the rest of the congregation, at least in the Catholic tradition in the Lutheran tradition and the Orthodox tradition, it's more of a if you made it into heaven, you're a saint and you just happen to be recognized as a saint. The Catholic Church makes saints Yes,

Katie Dooley  02:54

it's a it's a five or six step process. Number one, you have to be dead. And typically, you have to be dead for at least five years before you become a saint. It's a some saints wait hundreds of years before becoming sainted. And there are two modern exceptions where the five year period was not wait waited for we didn't not English, the five year period was not

Preston Meyer  03:24

it was not observed. It was weird. Thank

Katie Dooley  03:26

you. That's Thank you. And that is with Mother Teresa and Pope John Paul both have their five year waiting periods where I like

Preston Meyer  03:35

one of these a lot more than the other. And

Katie Dooley  03:37

even then I don't really like neither of them particularly.

Preston Meyer  03:41

We both have their weaknesses, for sure. We'll address one of them specifically today as being awful.

Katie Dooley  03:51

So you're dead. You've been dead for five years. And at that point, your life is reviewed by a committee to see if you are virtuous enough, including character witnesses that can speak to how you were in life, to your good deeds.

Preston Meyer  04:07

I think it's interesting that they're they take this process very seriously to the point that there is actually a designated devil's advocate who shows up and criticizes the entire process criticizes every aspect of the person's life. I would

Katie Dooley  04:24

love that job. You know, who wouldn't become a saint? I was devil's advocate.

Preston Meyer  04:29

Anyone on this list? Anyone at all?

Katie Dooley  04:33

I mean, there's I'm sure some though, are

Preston Meyer  04:38

worthy. There are some people who are good enough to stand up to scrutiny for sure, but not

Katie Dooley  04:42

these ones. After you've been reviewed, there is the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, though they they're the ones who review your case file, and if it passes, it then gets passed to the pope himself. So in this case, Pope Francis

Preston Meyer  05:01

Can you imagine if they didn't have that step in between and he got bombarded with every request for sainthood already too busy? Yeah. How nice to have a middleman

Katie Dooley  05:11

for this particular also running a country and a worldwide church.

Preston Meyer  05:15

Is he really running the country? And is that really a heavy burden?

Katie Dooley  05:21

I saw great. We'll have to do a separate episode explainer video on how the Vatican, the Vatican the church works and how the Vatican the country works. And then the Holy See is the Pope. But it's like, honestly, it's like the trend

Preston Meyer  05:39

is super complicated convoluted. The

Katie Dooley  05:40

explanation is that the Pope is the Holy See is the Vatican is anyway,

Preston Meyer  05:45

he's the ultimate authority. But like, as far as what he does, compared to say, a governor or a mayor, I don't think there's actually a lot of overlap.

Katie Dooley  05:55

But it's so different because his his citizens air quotes, their clergy, clergy and their worldwide. So in some ways, it's vaster than

Preston Meyer  06:07

the Imperial authority of the Church is definitely a subject for another.

Katie Dooley  06:12

we digress. So once it gets into the Pope's hands, and he thinks it's cool, the next step is called beatification.

Preston Meyer  06:22

I like that you said it, right? I, I'm gonna be honest, for my first many years going to church, this word was not a word that I could say, I'm not sound like an idiot.

Katie Dooley  06:33

There's no, there's a few actually really good documentaries on the Vatican. There's a PBS special on the Vatican Vatican. So that's how I know how to save Yeah, nice. I like it. This is basically the pope declaring that your departed soul is in a state of bliss, and that you are worthy of public veneration so that people are, it's cool if they venerate slash worship. While you're alive, a miracle must be attributed to you. Unless you're a murderer, which I don't know if we have too many martyrs kicking around anymore, but

Preston Meyer  07:14

not lately. But there are some from time to time.

Katie Dooley  07:21

So murderers, you don't need a miracle link to you. But if you're not a murderer, died of natural causes, and not for the cause. You do need a miracle from your life with verified eyewitnesses. So we're gonna talk about some of those miracles

Preston Meyer  07:38

today. Yeah.

Katie Dooley  07:43

After beatification is canonizing. So this is when you'd actually be called Think, fill in the blank,

Preston Meyer  07:48

you get to be added to the list, you get a special feast day. It's kind of sweet. Yeah, I mean, you're dead for it. But whatever

Katie Dooley  07:55

you make, you actually get to enjoy it, but everyone else does. The so canonization when you reach the stage, a second miracle needs to be attributed to you, based off of someone venerating or praying to you. So they prayed to you, their prayers came true, this miracle happened. You are now worthy to be canonized again, if you're a murderer, you don't need to the pre death miracle but the post death, veneration praying miracle does still need to happen. And then you are candidates and you now get to become a saint in this huge ceremony. It's actually remarkable. I would maybe it was the same PBS documentary they actually show the setup for the I forget what the event is called. But basically the big St. Reveal day and it's remarkable, all the work that goes in and money that goes into announcing the new new saints.

Preston Meyer  08:55

Yeah, guess kind of cool stuff. I think it's interesting that the Catholic Church create saints and the criteria. It does line up well enough with the way other churches who worry about saints established the idea that a person is a saint, and Lutheranism Anglicanism the Orthodox churches, a saint to somebody who is in heaven. If you didn't make it to heaven, you're not a saint. And the Catholic Church has this system that verifies that person has actually caused something to happen from heaven or come to visit to create this miracle, whatever that miracle is, whoever did it. It's an interesting phenomenon to study for sure. But we've got to I've picked out a handful of some of my favorite ish favorites, a weird word. I really enjoy talking about some of these odd saints. The first on my list was St. Barbara, Santa Barbara, well enough known city named after her. In the Orthodox tradition, she's known as the Great Martyr Barbara. What an interesting figure. She was the daughter of a very rich man in the fourth century, her father kept her in a tower to keep her from being defiled by the world. This included Christians, her father was not a Christian. Oh, he wanted to protect her from the Christians. He was furious when he found out that she had secretly become a Christian. How that happened varies depending on who's telling the story. It shouldn't happen if she would like to lay in a tower. But the story gets more interesting. So when her father drew his sword to kill her for being a Christian, she prayed out and created an opening in the wall. And she went through the wall and was miraculously transported to a mountain gorge. Wow, she teleported out of the tower to someplace else. Our princess locked away in the tower, transported somewhere far away. And then her father chased her through the hole is usually meant to be understood as part of the story, I don't think he would have went a different way, which is sometimes left nebulous. And a shepherd was kind enough to her father, I guess, to reveal where she had gone. And so God cursed him, turned him to stone turned all of his sheep into locusts. Cuz, you know, your sheep don't matter anymore. Because you're gone. You're turned into stone. And she eventually got caught, she got locked away, and she was beaten fiercely every single day. But every morning, she woke up fully healed Wolverine. This girl's got a wicked healing factor. And after she was beheaded, her father was struck by lightning and his body disappeared in the flame that immediately followed a whole bunch of miracle surrounding this great story, right. Epic Story. Problem is, none of its true. We have, we have no evidence. We have no evidence that Barbara ever existed. Oh, not at all her story. Remember, she was supposed to have lived in the fourth century, three hundreds in the Common Era. And she's never mentioned in any literature before the seventh century. We got 300 years of nobody talks about her. And then bam, she's here. She's not mentioned in any of the early editions of Jerome's Martyrology, and we've we've, we don't have any reason to believe she existed at all. But she was a popular saint, revered by the church for ages and ages.

Katie Dooley  13:19

Can I read this pilot since I can't contribute anything else?

Preston Meyer  13:21

Yeah, go for it. Okay. Yeah.

Katie Dooley  13:25

Barbara, St. Barbara is the patron saint of Lebanon, armors architects, artillery men, firefighters, mathematicians, a miners, tunnelers. Light lightning, chemical engineers, prisoners and the Russian missile Strategic Forces. Yeah, she's just a fighter. Here's what I'm getting.

Preston Meyer  13:48

So, I mean, I pulled this list off of Wikipedia. But I went looking further into how she is connected to these things. Basically, anything that was connected to digging, because she went through the hole in the wall. She's connected to any job that's connected to digging, which is how you got your tunnellers. And then when digging started involving dynamite, they added anything that uses explosives and

Katie Dooley  14:17

Quick Fire started from the dynamite without firefighters yet a whole

Preston Meyer  14:20

lot of jobs just kind of got tacked on to the side of that one by one. I don't have any real knowledge personally firsthand, secondhand of the Russian missile strategic forces, choosing her as a patron saint, but it's not weird.

Katie Dooley  14:42

I mean, Russia is an atheistic country. So that is a little weird.

Preston Meyer  14:46

I mean, as a nation, they're an atheist nation. But there's still an awful lot of Christians in the country if you

Katie Dooley  14:51

were in the mythical Strategic Force and you need to pick a saint to pray to fair.

Preston Meyer  14:55

Yeah, I mean, no one and their governments a lot less Hardcore atheists than the previous Russian government. That's true. So, in 1969, her feast day was revoked the Catholic Church said, Well, we have an awkward relationship with this saint. You don't have a feast day anymore. She's still on the canonized list of saints. Even though she's getting to be more widely recognized as a fictitious figure,

Katie Dooley  15:31

who celebrates the feast days like if you're a devout Catholic, would you ever be feasting? Because that's probably every day or would you do it only if you were an artilleryman? Every day, that's an exam as

Preston Meyer  15:42

far as I've experienced the Catholic tradition, you usually only worry about a handful of saints. No, I don't know of anybody who pays attention to every single feast day for the saints and celebrates it. You've certainly got a handful of people who have the st day calendar kind of thing. But that's not typical.

Katie Dooley  16:05

St. George's Day St. Patrick's Day. At the big ones. Yeah,

Preston Meyer  16:08

we've everybody who is aware of saints to any degree at all recognizes at least one day that is a same day.

Katie Dooley  16:21

And it is them like the Valentine Oh, yeah. Well,

Preston Meyer  16:25

to say we haven't mastered how to St. Patrick's Day is a problem.

Katie Dooley  16:30

At least we keep it Irish,

Preston Meyer  16:32

do we? Yeah. So as we're looking through these saints, we're not worried about saints who were kind of crappy people and then change their lives around to become more worthy of the title. Worried about these people who really probably just shouldn't have been sainted.

Katie Dooley  16:57

Yes. While they were doing their saintly duties, they were bad dude. Oh, St. Bernard. I love St. St. Bernard.

Preston Meyer  17:09

I don't even remember where I first heard about St. Bernard of Clairvaux. But he is an odd duck. So this is not the St. Bernard after whom the dog breed is named. That is St. Bernard of Marathon. He was a crusader era hospitalar who died just before just a few years before this St. Bernard was brought on that

Katie Dooley  17:29

makes sense because St. Bernards are rescue dogs, right? But not the St. Bernard. No,

Preston Meyer  17:34

no St. Bernard of Clairvaux is not a rescuer so much, though, if you want to keep the image of a dog slobbering in your mind as we go forward. That's not an appropriate to the subject at hand. This Bernard was born in Burgundy around 1090 According to what I've been able to find, they haven't actually nailed it down. 100% But that's okay. We've got a pretty narrow window. The old Yes, 1000 years ago, almost. So he was connected to the famous Knights Templar at their foundation. I think, going off a memory now. I think it was his uncle who was actually the founder and he helped out writing some of their documentation, which is kind of cool. Not quite a thing that is worthy of sainthood. In my opinion, people may disagree and that's fine. He supported Pope Innocent the second and help him defeat anti Pope and Cletus the second, which may have earned him some favor. But it's definitely not what made them special. That slavery dog keep that image in your mind? No. So Bernard was way too devoted to a high Mariology he was really interested in seeing Mary as the intercessor instead of Gee, like,

Katie Dooley  18:52

really interesting.

Preston Meyer  18:54

Yeah. Oh man, our guy struggled perpetually with horniness, to the point that he seriously considered living a life of solitude. But he apparently couldn't manage it on everything. So the great tradition that surrounds this fella has inspired a lot of Renaissance art that reveals his struggle. The story is very on whether he was awake and praying in front of an image of Mary or whether he was asleep and dreaming. But either way, he sees Mary feeding a baby Jesus in the way that a mother does on regular nursing. And the baby takes a break from the nip. And Mary shoots Bernard a little squirt of milk and gets it right in his mouth like a champ. Or according some stories, just puts a little bit on him with her thumb or something. Kinda right. And the moral of the story is it changes depending on who you ask as well. So Sometimes marry is meant to be seen as a stand in mother for Bernards real mother who had died when he was 19. Or, and by extension, the universal mother of humanity. There's also a story that the milk cured his eye infection, which might be a euphemism for lecherous snus, hard to say for sure. Some people just say the milk represents wisdom more generally.

Katie Dooley  20:27

But in actuality,

Preston Meyer  20:31

our boy had a wet dream, and didn't have the sense to keep it to himself and got seated for this miracle.

Katie Dooley  20:41

The moral of the story is, we've all experienced a miracle. So YouTube can be so great. TMI

Preston Meyer  20:56

fright. Like I'm trying to imagine any situation where you need to go and tell your friends about this situation.

Katie Dooley  21:06

But then his friends be like, that's really great for you, Bernard, and they told other people the pope do about this actually.

Preston Meyer  21:15

Because obviously, Mary actually appeared to you and gave you some of her milk. When I mean, the the idea of this is certainly anachronous Baby Jesus stopped being a thing 1000 years before he died as an adult. 1000 years before? Yeah, so weird stuff. Our boy Bernard of Clairvaux was canonized in 1174. His feast day is August 20. Don't think too hard about the feast?

Katie Dooley  21:48

At all milk isn't milk shakes. I love it.

Preston Meyer  21:55

Most saints don't have a specific feast of this is what you're supposed to be feasting on. I

Katie Dooley  21:59

hope he St. Bernard is the patron saint of a purist's candle makers. sterian monks and a handful of cities and the Knights Templar. But not cows.

Preston Meyer  22:19

No, not cows. Nobody wants to make that parallel between Mother Mary. Fair. Well, Hindus are a ok with approximating cows to divinity. Catholics are not exactly comfortable with that. Too bad. But he's an interesting fellow. St. Bernard of clarify. Oh, and as wet dream

Katie Dooley  22:39

is interesting.

Preston Meyer  22:42

I'm sorry, I didn't understand.

Katie Dooley  22:45

I said it's interesting the word we would use.

Preston Meyer  22:48

Well, we both thought it was interesting enough to include and share with our audience. It was gross. Yeah, that's the way it goes. All right. I've talked to you guys a little bit about this guy before.

Katie Dooley  23:05

Yeah, he came up in our atheist episode. Yes.

Preston Meyer  23:09

He was our theistic humanist, or so he liked to tell people. Sir Thomas Moore was an English lawyer and a social philosopher in the first half of the 16th century. He served as the Lord High Chancellor to King Henry the eighth. Yeah. King Henry of the many wives fame.

Katie Dooley  23:31

Yeah, he's in the there's a Yeah, he's prominently featured in the tutor series. Thomas. Yeah, yeah, he's a big player.

Preston Meyer  23:38

Yeah. And he's a he's an interesting fella. He's not a dummy. That's for sure. He was present when King Henry the Eighth started the Church of England. He was not a fan. Huge, so very devoted Catholic, he oppressed the Protestant Reformation as any good Catholic would have. And he was killed for opposing the Kings self appoint? For Yeah, opposing the king self appointment. As head of the right. He was, yeah, he hated the idea of change in the church, and believe that the publication of the Bible was a crime against the church, and that its translation into English was a crime against God.

Katie Dooley  24:19

I mean, I see both sides. Because even just looking at the difference in the English translations, they're vast, and there's so much different meaning and connotations you can take from the translations and we see that in Islam where they keep it in. I mean, not that you can't get tradition or translations rather, but they keep it in the Arabic as much as possible because that was the Word of God. So I see it but also want to make your stressful to the people you're converting,

Preston Meyer  24:52

right. I've got a Koran and it's got the Arabic and then an English translation. Without the Arabic it's not a Actually the Koran. And if somebody wanted to make that argument for the Bible, I wouldn't say that it's a bad position to hold. There's a lot of King James Version supremacy for the Bible, which makes no sense at all. But

Katie Dooley  25:16

that reminds me of a story. I'll have to tell you off air.

Preston Meyer  25:19

All right, I look forward to it. I have versions of the Bible that come with the Greek text and the Hebrew text in the same book. So if we want to keep that standard, my library holds up. So our guy, he went to great effort to suppress Tyndale English New Testament, He destroyed buildings and presses, and anything you get his hands on that would have helped the Protestant effort. He would torture people for questioning the church or its dogma. He came to child for heresy against the Eucharist. Now, I've been a child who questioned things. I've seen children question things more recently. And the idea of a child committing heresy against the Eucharist. In reality sounds an awful lot like it was this bread really the body of Jesus? And the kid got caned. It may have been worse. I seriously doubt it.

Katie Dooley  26:23

No, kids were pretty tame back then. Because of the beatings, right.

Preston Meyer  26:30

So our guy Thomas Moore, Sir Thomas Moore, because he was knighted, being a Lord High Chancellor and all. Back when the king was Catholic, he didn't see any problem in punishing people for not believing something. We've, in our episode about secularism, and our episode about belief, and a few other episodes. We've talked about how this is a problematic behavior. Yes.

Katie Dooley  26:53

Correct. Very, who I was glad he wasn't any more powerful than he was because he was already plenty powerful,

Preston Meyer  27:03

right? Not cool, good devotional, the church makes a fair argument for celebration within that community. But considering his character and deeds, I wouldn't say he's worthy of veneration Who

Katie Dooley  27:16

are these eyewitnesses that talk to the congregation of causes

Preston Meyer  27:22

while he was? Okay. I don't know what his miracles are. I couldn't find them. Apart from martyrdom, that is the fast track to sainthood, well, then he

Katie Dooley  27:32

would need a miracle. And until post post mortem, right.

Preston Meyer  27:37

And that's the tricky thing. So he was canonized in 1935. Wow. So

Katie Dooley  27:42

recently,

Preston Meyer  27:44

I mean, less than 100 years

Katie Dooley  27:45

ago, for us to know better. This is what I'm saying now, like, 400 years after he died, like not five years after they die when he was like, oh, yeah, I write to caning children. Right? Like, I mean, maybe 95. We still can't.

Preston Meyer  27:59

Oh, for sure.

Katie Dooley  28:01

But still, I feel like we should know better. 1935

Preston Meyer  28:03

his feast day is on July 9, it was moved to June 22. In 1970. For some reason, I couldn't find why. The thing that really gets me though, this guy devoted Catholic, died because of his opposition to the king, who had started his own church, the Church of England. Our boy, St. Thomas Moore, is revered in the Church of England, commemorated on July 6, the anniversary of his martyrdom? I don't know. I still don't know. It is upsetting. I don't. His character doesn't explain to me why the Catholics would have sainted him. And his whole life's mission makes it mind boggling that the Anglicans would have been honored to be recognized as a saint. It's, it's frustrating to me.

Katie Dooley  29:01

And then this next part is frustrating where in 2000, Pope John Paul the second declared St. Thomas Moore, the heavenly patron, a statesman and politicians again, where we should have known better also that doesn't speak highly of statesmen and politicians. Like this is like a double insults. He's also the patron saint of a couple universities and a couple diocese. But that that really, as a if I were a politician, I would be offended.

Preston Meyer  29:36

I mean, I recognize that an awful lot of politicians wish they had more power than they do. And our boy Thomas Moore was very much a fan of authoritarianism.

Katie Dooley  29:49

Yes, I can tell. He makes me uncomfortable. Yeah, but I do want to rewatch the tutors now.

Preston Meyer  29:59

Yeah, well Oh, our next st. St. Hoon Ibero. Sarah Oh, great

Katie Dooley  30:05

pronunciation when your pero

Preston Meyer  30:08

so I'm going to be honest, every time I've read it to myself in my head while I was preparing this I've always said Junipero in my head. It is spelled with a J. But it's when apparel when apparel love it or St. Juniper is it occasionally comes up with that name is actually meant for somebody else who an apparel. Sarah was a Catholic missionary in the late 1770s and 80s. In what is now California, we got ourselves an American almost, except at this time, this was not the United States of America. It was just North America, more Mexico was straight up was Mexico, that there's no halfway is about that. He founded nine Catholic settlements from San Diego to San Francisco. And he did it to bring natives to their farms and baptize them. Which I mean, if you're a missionary, that's that's your goal to baptize people. And I'll recognize and admit that, in his baptizing work of growing the church is definitely the number one reason why people were interested in having him canonized. But there's baggage with this. The native people were forced to stay and work

Katie Dooley  31:27

from Central American.

Preston Meyer  31:29

Yeah, all of the literally anybody who was not European, he did not treat like they were people. Oh, apart from his need to save them. The problem this guy was a huge fan of slave labor. Keep these people working. Remember when he talked about some of our red flags for cults? This is one of those situations where the church looks an awful lot like an authoritarian cult. This guy's work is unnerving. While the pope who canonized him claimed that Sarah was a priest who protected the dignity of native communities from abusers as he developed Catholicism in the New World Hoonah pero Sara's own writings in 1780 advocate his use of corporal punishment, just not for like big crimes, but just to maintain control over new converts. That's a problem.

Katie Dooley  32:28

I mean, we probably I don't know if any of them had been sainted. But this is just the Catholics in the residential schools. This is basically I don't know if they had been formalized in the 1770s. But this is definitely a precursor to what is about to happen. In the United States, Canada. Yeah. To native populations. Well, all.

Preston Meyer  32:52

Yeah. He was only canonized by Pope Francis Pope Francis 2015.

Katie Dooley  32:59

You're better than this very recent. Pope Francis, you're the cool Pope.

Preston Meyer  33:05

Which makes me think that the devil's advocate that they chose for this guy did a very poor job.

Katie Dooley  33:12

Can I call Francis,

Preston Meyer  33:15

you can try. Where do you find his number?

Katie Dooley  33:18

How many phone numbers? Can I read the country that's small?

Preston Meyer  33:24

That's no idea.

Katie Dooley  33:26

Their own area code. They probably have the generic, but I'm gonna pretend that the Vatican has its own phone area code.

Preston Meyer  33:33

Okay. Yeah, so Hoonah Barrows feast day is August 28. And also July 1, if you're American, I guess. I don't know why. When I found this in my initial research, I thought, there's this gotta be somebody failed at the research. No, I dug deep and for some reason, in America, he has a second feast day. He is well liked by some people and viciously hated by others.

Katie Dooley  34:05

I don't blame the second group. He is the patron saint of California, Hispanic Americans and religious vocations. he's gross. That is St. Quinn apparel, Sarah.

Preston Meyer  34:26

Yeah. Well, a guy. Gross, not a guy that I would have scented.

Katie Dooley  34:35

I just really want to call Pope Francis and be like, Please, tell me why.

Preston Meyer  34:40

Right? What an odd choice. Now Now I'm curious who the patron saint of California was before he was sainted six years ago.

Katie Dooley  34:51

I'll do some Googling when we're doing

Preston Meyer  34:53

well, anyway, our next one. Is this our last one? This is our last one are the climax So our list, I didn't know any of the things that I have learned about this woman

Katie Dooley  35:07

I want to jump in.

Preston Meyer  35:10

So for years, I just heard that she's so nice. She's just a wonderful woman. And that's the way the news painted her when we were kids.

Katie Dooley  35:20

And so Preston came to me whenever and said, I want to do an episode on St. St. Shouldn't be saints. And I said, You mean like Mother Teresa. And he was like, Excuse me? And I was like, She's literally the worst person. And he was like, No, I'm in like St. Bernard's wet dream. And I was like, Oh, that's cute. Well, we're gonna add Mother Teresa. Because, ah,

Preston Meyer  35:43

turns out, she's just awful. I looked into it. I've like, awful Oh, I don't like what I found no. And so as I looked into it, the guy who played devil's advocate, apparently there was more than one for this woman. And they are vicious. They pull out all of the awful things. That is her ministry. And they still went ahead and painted her.

Katie Dooley  36:16

Yeah, because it's not about being a good person. As we said, it's about doing something for the church that is divine. And that doesn't necessarily need to be a good thing.

Preston Meyer  36:28

Right. All right. So her real name, I can see you struggling with how it's there. And so she's an Albanian Indian woman. And her name is Ania. Reza, gon J. Boy Jew that's that's as close as I'm gonna get. I know it's not perfect on not Albanian. But I tried real hard. I feel I did good. That's her name. Go from here on out. We're just gonna call her mother Teresa, because it was way easier. Yeah, so she was born in Ottoman Macedonia in 1910. And after the Second World War, she had lived through the First and Second World Wars. After the Second World War, she decided to start a missionary congregation called the Missionaries of Charity. Because charity being the love of God, that He spreads to all mankind, and their job is to manage homes for people who suffer with AIDS, leprosy and tuberculosis

Katie Dooley  37:34

Sounds good so far, but it gets worse.

Preston Meyer  37:39

It really does. These missionaries swear vows of chastity, pretty standard. Poverty, kind of sketchy, and obedience. Sounds kind of culty

Katie Dooley  37:51

this is where I get really rankled about Mother Teresa, what do you got a Mother Teresa, I believe that the Sikh must suffer like Christ on the cross. And that suffering was a gift from God. And that is basically like her entire thing and it carries out throughout. You should be poor because it's godly. You should be sick and sad and horrible because it's godly. And we'll get into more detail. But basically, she kept people in that state because that's what she thought was the holy, godly way to be,

Preston Meyer  38:27

but she sheltered them. Katie is literally all she did.

Katie Dooley  38:33

Let me put a tarp over your head, doing something. Sorry, get really upset.

Preston Meyer  38:39

They had a place. They had a place to be while they suffered. Oh. Her facilities were built to store the sick and the dying. They were not hospices, no care is just okay. There was some care. They shared needles a lot. has AIDS or leprosy or tuberculosis? Can you

Katie Dooley  39:07

share leprosy and tuberculosis through needles.

Preston Meyer  39:10

Leprosy probably laid leads, obviously, we know that tuberculosis is mostly airborne nonsense. And when you've got them pack ly tight together under a tarp, everyone

Katie Dooley  39:22

has AIDS in that proceeding. It's not aids or leprosy or tuberculosis. It's all of the above all three.

Preston Meyer  39:30

And you know, the full gamut of everything else running rampant through India. This is a very poor country at this point in history. Broadly speaking, of course, there's rich spots in every country. We see our ads for save all the poor African kids every country in Africa has a place where people with money are But broadly speaking, these nations are quite poor, especially in the 70s and 80s, when Mother Teresa was most famous for doing actively actively doing stuff.

Katie Dooley  40:03

Yeah, that's about it. Thanks for doing stuff.

Preston Meyer  40:08

Yeah, I mean, you said, you know, she helped people. And that would be true if helping people didn't include doing things for them. It's just our claim that people need to suffer like Christ on the cross, that it's a gift from God is something that I'm super uncomfortable with, doesn't

Katie Dooley  40:36

just downplay all the gifts God has given us in, in the sense of He's given us brains and knowledge and two, technologically advanced science and medicine and

Preston Meyer  40:50

almost to this degree thing, the irony of this wonderful little ball of awful that is Theresa, is that while she was happy to say that about other people, she would not suffer herself in silence. She had a serious heart condition, one that would have killed her a couple of times, if not for wonderful top notch medical care, that she refused to let the people in her care get the president,

Katie Dooley  41:22

how did she get the money, she took a vow of poverty.

Preston Meyer  41:28

Oh, man, they had active fundraisers, people donated huge amounts of money, specifically, specifically to Hermitian Missionaries of Charity. And though it's hard to get any statements about a church's money, especially the Roman Catholic Church that likes to keep secrets, even even India, where she operated for most of her life, they have laws that say that, if they ask, you have to tell them how much your charity holds, and they never reveal that information to the government. But we're talking hundreds of millions of dollars on a regular basis. Money was donated in huge piles. And we don't know where it went because it wasn't going to take care of these poor people. It wasn't going to build schools, which she did actually say was happening.

Katie Dooley  42:29

Because do you imagine that difference she could have actually made

Preston Meyer  42:32

if she was actually worthy of the center that was offered her this world would be a much better place?

Katie Dooley  42:39

Because Kolkata is still a rough city in India, like she could have transformed it.

Preston Meyer  42:44

It's Kolkata now. Even though Okay, so she's St. Teresa of Calcutta, the diocese is still the Diocese of Calcutta. The Catholic Church is not upgraded or updated their names for the for this place. Well, to be fair, Kolkata took a long time to change their name after they became an independent nation from England. But when they did, everybody else should have gone along with it. It's it's weirder to say Kolkata with O's than the US, Canada, Calcutta sounds more familiar to the English tongue. But Kolkata is not that hard to say. It's it's really frustrating. So these facilities she she was responsible for were run by undereducated nuns, who you can say that part of the problem is attributed to the poverty of the nation that they come from. Yeah, that makes sense. Apart from the fact that they're super well funded. And they have several missions around the world that operate pretty much the same way. It's, I don't think it's okay. But her efforts were famous around the world, her mission raised hundreds of millions of dollars for decades. None of that money was used for helping the poor. It was used to support missionary conversion efforts. Look at us, we're doing stuff we're here. So you could you should come join our church.

Katie Dooley  44:28

See, and that's even a problem I still have. I need to be careful. I need to be careful how I phrase this, but any religious charities like the one that comes to mind is World Vision, where it's like how much is actually going to help the kids and how much is just going to religious education and conversion.

Preston Meyer  44:45

Well, and with this specific example, an awful lot of it goes to pay the staff and the advertising fees. Yeah.

Katie Dooley  44:51

And I mean, I guess if you are a Christian giving to World Vision, the fact that people are being converted is probably very important to you. Make sense? But It's not something in that I want my dollars going to,

Preston Meyer  45:04

right. What's further interesting to me is like all of this money is going towards missionary efforts, not to the missionaries themselves, they've also made, they've made vows of poverty as well.

Katie Dooley  45:16

So it's all we're in advertising and marketing,

Preston Meyer  45:19

I guess.

Katie Dooley  45:22

I mean, they must have had a good PR campaign, because if you were giving hundreds of millions of dollars, and nothing was getting done, when you start to wonder where your money was going, but there, there's been in that real,

Preston Meyer  45:35

I spent more time than is responsible, trying to figure out how much money this really is, and where it is, now that she's gone. And

Katie Dooley  45:46

I think that is responsible. I mean, you're not kidding. The amount

Preston Meyer  45:49

of time I put into digging through this rabbit hole is questionable. If you're a Catholic, you should question your authority. Fair enough. And while that's nobody's willing to report the actual numbers, there's more than one source that says if Saint Teresa had pulled out all of her money before she died, the church would be broke.

Katie Dooley  46:11

What?

Preston Meyer  46:13

Yeah, cool. I don't know if that's true. The idea of it makes me uncomfortable.

Katie Dooley  46:26

Knowing how much money the Catholic Church has. That is a scary thought.

Preston Meyer  46:33

Right? I mean, and we only know in vague ideas being the money. Yeah. We don't know specifically how much money the Catholic Church has. Because that's, that's not a thing for outsiders to know. But being the biggest single church, that as far as I'm able to observe, they have a lot of money.

Katie Dooley  46:54

Yeah, I'd be interested to go down this rabbit hole, because I know they're starting to run into problems. So we weren't set up for our one off episodes, or bonus episodes yet. But probably three or four months ago, a diocese in the States was bailed out by the government, which is a gross breach of the separation of church and state. It was also a diocese that had sexual abuse allegations, which makes it even worse.

Preston Meyer  47:22

So that was when they were going broke. Yeah.

Katie Dooley  47:26

So they were bailed out. And then I was reading a book, basically saying that, you know, there's no money to going going, like clergy don't make any money. Nobody wants to join the clergy. And people are leaving the Catholic Church in droves. And the clergy can't support like they used to, so they're not becoming a part of everyday life in a way that might make a young boy want to become a priest. Yeah, they're just like very overstretched. So I'm not surprised, but I still think they have a ton of money.

Preston Meyer  47:58

Right. But they can only hand out so much to each individual diocese, a little bit more to the Archdiocese. And ultimately, the people see you gets the big bucks. Yeah. So it's, I'm uncomfortable with a lot of things here. But yeah, I have listed here again, I need to re emphasize, they were reusing needles after just running them through cold water. Like that's. So we do know, there was some care. But we're not talking like hospice care. We're talking like, keep you alive care. Yeah. And just a little bit along. Yeah.

Katie Dooley  48:48

So people think we're doing something. Yeah.

Preston Meyer  48:51

It's very uncomfortable. They could easily have built a hospital with the money they got, they could have paid for real doctors and nurses, rather than severely under trained nuns, to take care of the medical trained your nuns with hundreds of millions they could have they could have they didn't. Yeah, I mean, they do do that in some countries. We have Catholic hospitals here in places where we already have other hospitals. Some Catholic hospitals where they need hospitals.

Katie Dooley  49:31

Yeah. Even you know, I obviously I would prefer secular care. But if it was a real Catholic hospital, and she was helping people fine, right, but that's not what's going on here. We're evil reusing syringes.

Preston Meyer  49:43

But so I had some fun looking into this. All kinds of things I learned because you brought it up and I didn't know that she was awful. She never paid for anything.

Katie Dooley  49:55

I can see that just like a real deal.

Preston Meyer  49:59

That's the way People described her once. When she wanted a building, she wouldn't offer money, even though she had lots of it with all these donations coming her way, she would work with the owner. She would work them around until he just gave in and gave her the building when she said she wanted it. Which, I mean, okay, that's a actually kind of common enough practice in churches that if you get somebody to believe in your cause they'll donate to Sure, fine. She did damage to some of these cases. What's more interesting is a story I found when once she she was in London, and she had collected about 500 pounds that, you know, your English dollars pounds, not pounds, not kilograms, pounds. Yeah. 500 pounds of food she had collected to take back to her mission, feed the nuns. And when she was asked to pay at the register, she threw a fit until somebody else said, Fine, all pay for your groceries.

Katie Dooley  51:22

You know what that just bothers me because they feel like if she had given as much as she would, as much as she received, she would have received even more

Preston Meyer  51:33

right? People fully believed in her cause, generally speaking, but an awful lot of people who were close to her and her work, saw a lot of problems. Some of these issues that we've described were reported by people who felt that they needed to leave the missionaries for charity, because they didn't feel comfortable with the way things were going. It's insane. It's getting my blood pumping.

Katie Dooley  52:04

I know this one. Yeah. She's, maybe we'll do a full episode on her to go through her whole life. And, yeah, can I read these Christopher Hitchens quotes,

Preston Meyer  52:14

I really would like that because I feel like I've kind of dominated the voice

Katie Dooley  52:17

as well. You've done a great job. And I didn't say Christopher Hitchens is my boy.

Preston Meyer  52:22

So Christopher Hitchens. I want to I want to preface his statements a little bit. He was one of the devil's advocates when they had the big examination on whether or not she should be made.

Katie Dooley  52:35

They picked people outside of the Catholic Church. Yes. Wow. I thought they would have picked Catholics willing to be devil's advocate.

Preston Meyer  52:41

I don't think that's actually a comment because you want people who are going to be serious do their due diligence, who really want to have the dirt revealed on these people. And Christopher Hitchens did a kick ass job,

Katie Dooley  52:54

man. He says she spent her life opposing the only known cure for poverty, which is the empowerment of women and the emancipation of them from a livestock version of compulsory reproduction.

Preston Meyer  53:09

Man, I love his words, too. He's he's he's an excellent writer, writer.

Katie Dooley  53:13

Yeah, she hated women.

Preston Meyer  53:17

Sure, looks that way. She was anti abortion, which is pretty standard for main Christianity overall. But she was like, really into you must subject yourself to anybody who looks like they should have any kind of authority instead of criticizing authority with a healthy judgment clear mind. I don't know. It's kind of weird.

Katie Dooley  53:51

So there's a another Christopher Hitchens CO are these all from his Devil's advocacy? Or was this like post?

Preston Meyer  53:59

He actually, he wrote a couple of books about how awful she was before the church said, Hey, you're perfect for this position.

Katie Dooley  54:08

That gives me a little bit of respect for the Catholic Church for picking her worst enemy, but

Preston Meyer  54:15

Right. He was a very, yeah, he was a very vocal anti theist. But his main job, he was a journalist and a political critic. So kind of just fell on Mother Teresa because she was very popular at kind of the height of his career.

Katie Dooley  54:37

It was by talking to her that I discovered and she assured me that she wasn't working to alleviate poverty. Let me say it again, that she wasn't working to alleviate poverty. She was working to expand the number of Catholics. She said, I'm not a social worker. I don't do it. For this reason. I do it for Christ. I do it for the church.

Preston Meyer  55:03

Yeah, like, I understand not everybody's good at everything. Sure. She had the money. She had the resources. She had the social confidence. People trusted her. She could have gotten the people to do the things that the people in her care needed. And she didn't.

Katie Dooley  55:26

I'd be curious how many people she converted to Catholicism?

Preston Meyer  55:30

I got some bad news for you. No one. It's on paper. It's a lot more than no one.

Katie Dooley  55:38

Is it? People in India or people watching her do her work outside of India?

Preston Meyer  55:43

Honestly, I really doubt she converted anybody just from seeing her work? She might have? I don't know. But it doesn't seem like it would.

Katie Dooley  55:51

I don't, I don't mean to turn this into a capitalistic argument. But what good are poor Catholics?

Preston Meyer  56:02

If you're worried about money, poor Catholics only help in that they might have friends with slightly more money than they have, who they can convert, who in turn, have friends with slightly more money, who they can convert? Eventually, it's like trading up from your pig paperclip to a convertible. It's, you can do it. It just takes

Katie Dooley  56:24

getting someone out of poverty and into gainful employment and also having them as a Catholic who then dies every week. Of course you are. This doesn't make even make economic sense. It doesn't

Preston Meyer  56:36

the return on investment. As far as so as capital dollars is nothing. But if you believe that converting people to your faith is going to help you out with the big guy with the big guy then yeah, this is an excellent return on investment in her perspective.

Katie Dooley  56:58

So her faith was just that twisted. It sure looks that way. Yeah. Sorry. So much of me. grunting and disgust.

Preston Meyer  57:10

Yeah, that's, it's really, really not great. Sisters, the nuns that worked for her were asked to, were to ask each person in danger of death.

Katie Dooley  57:22

This is a quote.

Preston Meyer  57:24

Yeah. This is a quote from Susan shields, a former member of the Missionaries of Charity. This is firsthand experience being related to you third hand. Sisters were to ask each person in danger of death if you wanted a ticket to heaven. If they offered any affirmative reply, she says an affirmative reply was to mean consent to baptism. All they said was ticket to heaven. Obviously, this means baptism, I guess. Okay, back to the quote. The sister was then to pretend that she was just cooling the patient's head with a wet cloth, while in fact she was baptizing him. Remember, in the Catholic tradition, baptism is not a full immersion. Just a little bit of water on the forehead is enough. So cooling a patient's head with a wet cloth, while in fact, she was baptizing him saying quietly the necessary words, secrecy was important so that it would not come to be known that Mother Teresa's sisters were baptizing Hindus and Muslims.

Katie Dooley  58:30

This is problematic for a ton of reasons.

Preston Meyer  58:34

Yeah. Some birding consent is a huge problem, if it's the sick, ethical catastrophe.

Katie Dooley  58:44

Yes, and then you get it say that she converted people to Catholicism when she didn't.

Preston Meyer  58:48

Right. Sorry, if they survived and left the care of these shelters, they would not go about living as Catholics.

Katie Dooley  58:59

But you can get them on the books. Yeah.

Preston Meyer  59:04

It's, it's unnerving. I have another quote from Mother Teresa. This is from 1981 press conference. I think is very beautiful for the poor to accept their lot to share it with the passion of Christ. I think the world is being much helped by the suffering of the poor people.

Katie Dooley  59:26

What the fuck does that mean?

Preston Meyer  59:28

It means the world is better because poor people are suffering.

Katie Dooley  59:33

I guess. I understand what she's saying. But the

Preston Meyer  59:40

we scented her. I say we I'm not even Catholic,

Katie Dooley  59:44

can accept that. How is the world better by the suffering of poor people?

Preston Meyer  59:49

Oh, easy. They're not collecting the dollars that are going into her bank account. I'm not sure That's what she meant. I don't see any logical. I need to get the date where she's right.

Katie Dooley  1:00:08

I need to get the pope because he's the boss like anti capitalistic leader Francis is very white palatable. Yes, but he's very anti capitalism. So I'd love to be like, What do you think of this crazy Mother Teresa, who is just all about the dollars? And exploiting that.

Preston Meyer  1:00:29

i Yeah, I'm I'm super uncomfortable with this woman being a saint. Well,

Katie Dooley  1:00:33

okay, let's go back to the wet dream.

Preston Meyer  1:00:37

So saints are meant to be people who are role models for the rest of humanity. And turns out saints are sainted by a community because they accomplish part of the mission of the church in some way. Yes. And while she's not a martyr, so I'm curious what the miracles are associated with her.

Katie Dooley  1:01:04

Is it raising hundreds of millions of dollars for the Catholic Church with no.

Preston Meyer  1:01:09

Shooting? Yeah, I think so. Expenses,

Katie Dooley  1:01:12

entirely profit. That is a miracle. She operated a business with no expenses.

Preston Meyer  1:01:19

Yeah, it sure looks that way. I mean, somebody theoretically bought those needles. But was it somebody who's directly affiliated with the missionaries for charity? I'm starting to doubt it based on her preference to not pay for things.

Katie Dooley  1:01:38

I'm googling what her miracle was. Mother Teresa says first miracle was curing a woman with a lump growing in her abdomen. In 1990, Monica Bezerra went to a Missionaries of Charity home in West Bengal, India. She had a fever, headache, vomiting and swollen stomach. Her care was therefore a tribute to the miraculous intervention of Mother Teresa. Oh, what you got? She had begun treatment for tuberculosis meningitis see her before however the medication she'd taken intermittently depending on what her family could afford, having kept a lump from growing in her abdomen. Surgery was deemed necessary but Bowser was too weak too unwell to undergo an operation. Apparently there was a light immense emanating from Mother Teresa and she placed her hands on bed was abdomen, and upper was said and the next day this lump had disappeared. And she no longer required surgery.

Preston Meyer  1:02:46

It's an interesting story. It fits the requirement for miracles, I guess based on the description.

Katie Dooley  1:02:52

But I bet she just got more medication.

Preston Meyer  1:02:56

From the things that I've understood about reading the scriptures of Christianity. I don't see Mother Teresa as a figure who could wield divine power based on who she is, it seems in Congress.

Katie Dooley  1:03:18

My problem with Mother Teresa is that so many people think she's a good person.

Preston Meyer  1:03:24

And she's kind of monstrous. Yeah, I

Katie Dooley  1:03:26

feel like we're gonna call out emails. Being like, Mother Teresa is a saint literally and figuratively. I mean, even you were like, What do you mean? Yeah, I don't know. Nay.

Preston Meyer  1:03:40

Well, I mean, to be fair, I didn't know in detail any of the positives either that people thought of when they thought of her. And I'm gonna say the positives that have been attributed to her are wildly exaggerated, and certainly overshadowed by the negatives. In my opinion, obviously, people disagree and that's fine. I'm not cool with the Pope. So her feast day.

Katie Dooley  1:04:12

Can you write read what you wrote please?

Preston Meyer  1:04:15

On which, what? So this monster has her feast day celebrated September 5. Her patronage is currently limited to the missionary congregation. She started the Missionaries of Charity as well as the Archdiocese of Calcutta. Like I said before, they haven't updated it to Kolkata yet. Wikipedia also adds World Youth Day for some reason. And I follow that rabbit hole. And it looks like the author of the Wikipedia article to edit that detail. Confused her with St. Teresa of Avila, who was one of nine patrons for the 2011 World Youth Hey, I don't, I could be wrong, but I couldn't find any other source that says that she was connected to World Youth Day. So at least she's not the patron of anything important.

Katie Dooley  1:05:16

And she and Thomas Moore,

Preston Meyer  1:05:18

what I mean, these are just five. These are the five, a couple that I've known for a while that I wanted to talk about, and a couple others that I've learned about more recently who just sucked. There's loads of saints that are deeply awful, I'm sure of it. And there's loads of saints who are deeply awful, who then went on and decided to be good. Like St. Augustine famously said that he would love to be blessed with chests. Yeah, chastity. He loved the ladies. And so he wanted to be blessed with a pure heart, and just not right now. Fine, that doesn't make you awful, that makes you a human that maybe says things that you don't need to say. Right? But some saints are just deeply unpalatable. And that's a problem because these people are venerated to a status that is really difficult to distinguish from divinity. We've talked about what worship is and what Gods are. And from one tradition to the next. There's a fair bit of variance, but enough commonality to underline enough of what it generally broadly looks like. And from an academic perspective, a god is any being that is revered as divine. And these saints fit the bill.

Katie Dooley  1:06:54

I mean, there's Claire cantos. Yeah, there's, I don't know if the name for it, they probably have a real name, but you get necklaces with your saint. And, you know, people expect these things to do things for them, which is part of the definition of what a god is absolutely. To have a patron saint of your profession means that you're expecting something from the saint in your profession. So if you're the patron saint of firefighters, you're probably looking for protection every time you head into a fire.

Preston Meyer  1:07:24

Yeah, just like, I'll make the parallel to Hinduism, where there's many gods and each one has a specific patronage and a thing that in the real world is an issue you would pray to that specific god. That's not different from the Catholic relationship with saints. A divine being is one with powers beyond those of natural humans, especially those who carry human consciousness beyond the mundane. The saints are meant to help you elevate to understand well, and that's a

Katie Dooley  1:07:57

criteria to perform a miracle after death. Yeah, they have some sort of supernatural power,

Preston Meyer  1:08:03

there's a divinity ascribe to the saints, to be canonized is to become one step closer to God, like any sort of official statement can be condensed down to every church that venerate saints does deny that this behavior constitutes worship.

Katie Dooley  1:08:23

They mean they still say they're monotheistic and it doesn't even Yeah, I'll get into it.

Preston Meyer  1:08:29

But it's, there's no difference between veneration and worship, no matter how much you want to argue about the words you use. The behaviors are the same. Worship is the recognition of honor. The word itself comes from an old English equivalent of venerate. So we don't have a difference between worship and veneration here. And the edamame etymology of the word worship indicates an object or person is worth something or worthy of honor.

Katie Dooley  1:09:03

I would I know this is like semantics. And we're like splitting hairs here. But it's my thing, though, right? But we hear the word venerated so much less than the word worship, that I would

Preston Meyer  1:09:19

almost it's almost like it has a higher

Katie Dooley  1:09:24

stare. Yeah, absolutely. And I do a lot of this in my day job is looking at these connotations of words to figure out which one fits perfectly so you know, talking about the difference between veneration and worship. Yeah, I would say there's, yeah, it's like sometimes I think are like worship is like this submission. But veneration is like a celebration. Absolutely. And that is almost more powerful. All right. Anyway, I know I know we're splitting hairs on it semantics, but something to think about. Drop a message in our Discord. If you have any thoughts on the difference between veneration and worship.

Preston Meyer  1:10:11

Yeah, so worship, like veneration is revealed in many forms, you've got prayer, especially intercessory prayer where you're asking for something, to pray to God as most Christians do as the Jews do as the Muslims do. Or you can pray to saints as Catholics do. And the the behavior is not different one from the other. Some people may word things slightly differently, but the behavior is the same. And as we talked about, in our episode on Satan and Satanism, if you've called on magic, and it works, honor it, don't deny it. And so you have to honor the saints when you've received what you've asked for, if you prayed to them, so kind of have a funny relationship with here with saints. Worship is also revealed through songs and storytelling, and recitations of mantras. This is definitely associated both with Gods and saints. We've got artistic depictions. There's rules on how you're supposed to draw saints, there's attributes that they're meant to be drawn with. If you're allowed to draw gods in your faith, there's rules typically. There's dedications of sacred spaces. Every Catholic Church is dedicated to a saint except for a handful that are dedicated to Christ Jesus. And that's a short list. Right, but that's not just

Katie Dooley  1:11:56

to give every Catholic Church I've ever driven by You're right. They're always saying something. Yep.

Preston Meyer  1:12:00

Every time. And that's not just Catholics. Lutherans do it sometimes, that I've been able to I can't I've can't say I've looked into it enough to say all the time, but I know what the thing that they do. Anglicans and Orthodox Christians do the same orthodox for sure. Yep. And so did the old Hellenists. The Temple of Athena dedicated to Athena the Parthenon, you've got sometimes even martial practices in arts, you've got yoga in Hinduism. And St. Sebastian is the patron saint of athletics.

Katie Dooley  1:12:46

That's my athletic voice.

Preston Meyer  1:12:49

I like it. So, the way I see it, there is no difference between worship and veneration. I can't I can't put a line there, apart from the argument that they're different because we use different words. And

Katie Dooley  1:13:06

is it like a square is a rectangle, but a rectangle isn't a square.

Preston Meyer  1:13:11

It's kind of like that. We talked about when we were discussing Gods months and months ago now that some of your behaviors to your father might look like worship. And ultimately, the thing that separates him from divinity in that situation is intent. And that is the key word when talking about the difference between veneration and worship is intent. But I don't think that makes us strong distinction here. When you have religious devotion, dedication of sacred spaces, and prayer, especially intercessory. Prayer. You've you've really blurred that line.

Katie Dooley  1:13:54

I mean, it's a blurred line. But at the end of the day, if you ask someone is St. Bernard, God and they said, No, then that's that's all you can do. Right? Yeah. Re episode on belief. Yeah,

Preston Meyer  1:14:11

I agree. It's a complicated issue. It's one of Martin Luthers. big issues with Catholicism is the way they were treating saints.

Katie Dooley  1:14:20

It is like, man, if you get a chance to go to a Catholic country, it is remarkable

Preston Meyer  1:14:28

that it is

Katie Dooley  1:14:30

i is Mary like Jesus is mama. Is she St. Mary? Yeah. And then there's a sense.

Preston Meyer  1:14:39

Yeah, well, even her mother, who is who appears in a story that is not canonical Saint Anne. We don't know if she's a real person. In my own studies. It looks an awful lot like she's a fictional character, taking the place of a real person being named after a biblical figure. I like currently I doubt Mary's mother's name was and or Hannah or Anna whatever your linguistic preferences their adult that's what her name was at all

Katie Dooley  1:15:10

so I am this is years ago now I drove through the town of NOK Ireland and I think it was in the 60s or 70s There was a Marian apparition and just driving through a town is the weirdest thing you've ever just everywhere stalls with Mary memorabilia. Like just driving like we're in I was in a bus, like a like a greyhound charter bus. And just all on the streets just merchants flogging Merica I've never seen anything like it.

Preston Meyer  1:15:51

I've lived in some pretty Catholic parts of North America. New Jersey is an interesting place and incredibly diverse with pockets of extreme concentration of a variety of cultures and some neighborhoods. That situation you described as the only one where you would see more short dolls and half bathtubs.

Katie Dooley  1:16:21

So true. Yeah, that's the one where I I mean, I I spent some time in Guatemala as well, which is also very Catholic country, but I went right after Easter. So everything was very cheesy. But driving through nach Ireland was It was weird because it was so religious. But it had nothing to do with your typical you know, God, right. We're on a theistic religion and it had nothing to do with God. It had everything to do with Mary and that she had appeared to have been anyway bench why we witnesses. So

Preston Meyer  1:16:53

yeah, the, the way we treat saints is is awfully weird. But like a parallel that to Hinduism before there's the saints and the Hindu gods have an awful lot of simile similarities. Each is subordinate to a highest almighty. Each is honored with specific dominion, you pray to them if you need a specific thing. And each receives a specific sacrifice, sometimes, less often with Catholics, but sometimes it's a thing. There's tokens or relics. And every single one has at least one special shrine. Just nifty to see the parallels, I guess. Hegyi olive tree is the kind of ugly word that gets thrown on here. It's the it means the worship of saints. And it is denied by all Christians, doesn't matter your denomination. That's it is non acceptable to actually admit to worshipping saints in any Christian tradition. But it's obviously present in Catholicism, and to a slightly lesser degree in the Orthodox churches. And it's denied a little bit harder in the Anglican tradition. And Lutherans push away from that a little bit harder. And then Methodists and any other Christian church who uses the word St. Usually, usually everyone else doesn't even have feast days or anything. They just if you're going to talk about a biblical figure who was not the villain of their story, you'll use the word saint as their title. But it's we have a tricky relationship with the word Saint now. But

Katie Dooley  1:18:58

I yeah, I think my biggest takeaway is that went Don't. Don't say, oh, Preston, you're such a saint for doing a favor for me. Because it's not really a compliment, I think is the biggest takeaway today. Take that phrase out of your vocabulary. Unless it has to do someone approached you about their wet dream, then you can say, Oh, you're such a thing.

Preston Meyer  1:19:25

That's great. I agree. But I enjoy it. Go along with it for a little while.

Katie Dooley  1:19:33

I just want to see the confused look on other people's faces and then you get tell them about St. Bernard.

Preston Meyer  1:19:37

Right. If this leads to a conversation with somebody, then you might have a good time.

Katie Dooley  1:19:43

I think you should all bring the story of St. Bernard to your next family get together. Let us know how it goes.

Preston Meyer  1:19:49

Yeah, tell everybody about your wet dream and see if they are willing to sing you for it.

Katie Dooley  1:19:54

I didn't mean your personal my dream. I just meant tell them about St. Bernard.

Preston Meyer  1:19:59

I think that'll go over much better at the dinner table

Katie Dooley  1:20:01

moderately better. Yes.

Preston Meyer  1:20:07

We've had fun. As much as some of this included some downers. Some of these saints are kind of fun and interesting. They're certainly great adventures of saints that we have not explored. But the whole world of religion is out there for you to explore. Maybe you can beat us to it.

Katie Dooley  1:20:26

Or make a suggestion on our Discord which you can find the links for that on our Facebook and Instagram at Holy watermelon pod.

Preston Meyer  1:20:33

Feel free to email us any questions privately if you want at Holy watermelon [email protected]

Katie Dooley  1:20:41

and our online store is live it's two weeks old now. So if you want to grab some holy watermelon merch, we would love you for it. Peace be with you.