Saints Preserve Us
19 episodes - English - Latest episode: over 2 years ago - ★★★★★ - 13 ratingsSaints Preserve Us is an irreverent but informative show that chronicles the bizarre lives, often equally bizarre deaths, and posthumous mythologies of Catholic Saints. It's a glorious mash-up of true-life crime documentaries, shocking but true historical exposés, reassuring spiritual feel-goodery, and gory examinations of mankind's exaltations and depravations.
Each episode will showcase specific saints examining their lives, the art they've inspired, and the legacies they've left behind. Through the lens of these misfits, martyrs, and messiahs we will also explore themes and topics that are relevant to the culture today including political division, apocalyptic fixation, quests for revenge, women's rights, racial inequality, life, death, and the debate over free will versus determinism. We'll interview members of the clergy, art historians, religious studies professors, theologians, and luminaries from the world of literature and pop culture who can offer insight into the pantheon of Saints, their meaning, their significance, their impact on our society and how they can help us understand our current moment.
Every week the show will also feature our in-house Saints experts and award-winning authors of the book Saints Preserve Us, Sean Kelly and Rosemary Rogers. Sean Kelly was the editor of National Lampoon from 1971 to 1978 during which he "broke his own record for obscurantism, reach an apotheosis with a dense parody of Finnegan's Wake." In 1975 he was a founding editor of Heavy Metal, the adult fantasy magazine, and as a freelance writer, he has been published in Bazaar, Benneton’s Colors, Interview, Irish America Magazine, The Old Farmer’s Almanac, Playboy, SPY, The Village Voice, & the Quarterly of Joyce Studies. He reviewed a great many children’s books for the New York Times and created material for John Candy, George Carlin, Jane Curtin, Robert Klein, Steve Martin, Martin Mull, Gilda Radner, & Jonathan Winters.
Rosemary Rogers is an author, humorist, and former music producer whose eight books have been published by Random House, Villard, St. Martin’s Press, Hearst, Barnes & Noble, and City Lights. She collaborated with Sean Kelly on the bestseller Saints Preserve Us, currently in its 18th international printing. Her articles have appeared in The New York Times, O. The Oprah Magazine, Oprah: Live Your Best Life, and Irish America, where she contributed to the magazine, website, and podcast and has been running her ongoing series “Wild Women.” She also frequently collaborates with her husband, Robert Downey, Sr.
Sean and Rosemary are joined each week by their producer and co-host Christian O’Toole, former Director of Video and Podcast Producer for Men’s Journal and story producer and editor of two documentary features on psilocybin assisted therapy, Focus on Clinical Research: Part One - The Johns Hopkins Stoy and Focus on Clinical Research: Part 2 - Death, Dying and Psychedelics.
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Episodes
Ep. 16 - The End of Ordinary Time with St. Nicholas & Christ the King of the Universe
January 05, 2022 00:51 - 1 hour - 64.3 MBIn this episode we recognize the End of Ordinary Time and the end of Season One of Saints Preserve Us. Along the way we acknowledge The Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe and discuss a little celebration that happens around his birth, which was overshadowed this year by our grander celebration of Michaelmas. We also highlight some other December Saints, most notably Jolly Old Saint Nick and learn how New York City invented Christmas as we know it today to stop the Irish...
Ep. 15 - Saints Who Performed Abortions With Maeve Callan
December 03, 2021 08:51 - 1 hour - 61.3 MBOn this episode we are joined by Maeve Callan Chair of the Religion Department, Director of the Women’s and Gender Studies Program, Co-Director of the Interfaith Fellows Program and Professor of Religion at Simpson College in Iowa, and author of The Templars, the Witch, and the Wild Irish, to discuss the sure to be uncontroversial topic of four Irish Saints who were said to have miraculously ended unwanted pregnancies. We also explore the history of the Catholic Church's stance on abortion a...
Saints Who Performed Abortions With Maeve Callan
December 03, 2021 08:51 - 1 hour - 91.7 MBOn this episode we are joined by Maeve Callan Chair of the Religion Department, Director of the Women’s and Gender Studies Program, Co-Director of the Interfaith Fellows Program and Professor of Religion at Simpson College in Iowa, and author of The Templars, the Witch, and the Wild Irish, to discuss the sure to be uncontroversial topic of four Irish Saints who were said to have miraculously ended unwanted pregnancies. We also explore the history of the Catholic Church's stance on abortion a...
Ep. 14 - Santa Muerte & Malachy O'More in Folk vs. Canonized Saints
November 16, 2021 17:14 - 47 minutes - 43.9 MBIn this episode we apologize for an image of the Blessed Virgin Mary depicted as a skeleton that was posted to our Twitter account on Halloween, and we explore the controversial kerfuffle kicked off by the image around the Mexican cult figure and folk-Catholic, but unofficial, Saint: Santa Muerte. We then turn to a Saint officially recognized by the Roman Catholic Church, Malachy O'More, a reformer of the Irish liturgy and the first Irish Saint to be officially Canonized. We learn about Mala...
Ep. 13 - All Hallows & Incorruptible Saints with Elizabeth Harper
October 31, 2021 16:13 - 34 minutes - 31.4 MBOn this very special All Hallows Spooky Saint Spectacular, we learn about the Saintly origins of Halloween and dive deep into the mysterious world of incorrupt Saints with writer and photographer Elizabeth Harper of All the Saints You Should Know, who has faced and photographed these Saintly relics in person around the world. From martyrs whose exquisite corpses never decompose to the bejeweled skeletal remains of the catacomb Saints, we explore the uncanny valley of Saints who exist in a sp...
Ep. 12 - The Mysteries of the Rosary with Ian Chillag from Everything is Alive
October 30, 2021 16:28 - 39 minutes - 36.4 MBOn today's episode of Saints Preserve Us, we are joined by Ian Chillag, host and producer of the incredible podcast Everything is Alive, to ponder the mysteries of the Holy Rosary. We learn the history and religious significance of these inanimate objects and ask Ian who he would cast to play a Rosary if one were ever to appear as a guest on his show. We also learn about Ian's brief time in a Catholic middle school and how there he learned first and foremost about the worst possible ways to ...
EP. 11 - Saint Ursula and The 11,000 Virgins with Eric Huang from Saint Podcast
October 21, 2021 18:45 - 49 minutes - 45.7 MBThis week we are joined by the creator and host of Saint Podcast, Eric Huang, to discuss Saint Ursula, a British princess who was killed by the Huns in Cologne Germany on October 21st 383 AD, and who miraculously managed to take 11,000 virgins and one pope down with her. We also learn how Ursula inspired a very early commune of liberated women and how a convent of Ursuline nuns suffered madness and demonic possession during a quarantine lockdown in a global pandemic (something we can all rel...
Ep. 10 - Merry Michaelmas!
October 06, 2021 15:19 - 58 minutes - 53.1 MBSince recording this episode on September 29th, Sean, Rosemary, and Christian have been celebrating Michaelmas, the feast of St. Michael the Archangel, for seven days straight, in honor of the seven churches, lined up from Skellig Michael in Ireland to Stella Maris Monastery in Israel, on the famous geographic Sword of Saint Michael. From the Book of Revelation to Paradise Lost, we learn all about Michael's incredible powers and his legendary performance in the Battle in Heaven, as he cast d...
Ep. 09 - The Stone That the Builder Refused: From Matthew to Marley
September 26, 2021 18:43 - 56 minutes - 51.4 MBIn this episode, we explore the gospel of Saint Matthew, champion of the meek, the outcasts, and the stones that the builders refuse. We also hear how the church abuse scandals of the 1980s led one of our hosts to a crisis of faith and how the music of Bob Marley, much of which was inspired by the book of Matthew, brought him back from the brink. We also explore the suspect stigmata of the modern Italian Saint Padre Pio and learn why Sean's vote for canonization goes to American Trappist mon...
Ep. 08 - Pondering Purgatory with Saint Nicholas of Tolentino
September 23, 2021 05:27 - 45 minutes - 41.3 MBOn this episode, we move beyond the bloody beheading horrors of last week's show to question the more metaphysical nightmare of Purgatory, the eternal waiting room where people who sinned (but not too mortally) await their souls' slow movement through the afterlife's most mundane bureaucracy. We also learn about the divine daycare of unbaptized babies known as Limbo and hear the tales of two German frauleins, one of whom had an amazing cookie recipe, wrote new age music, and could be conside...
Ep. 07 - Four Beheadings and a Funeral
September 18, 2021 22:52 - 35 minutes - 48.7 MBIn this blood-splattered, gore-soaked episode we learn about the noted masochist and self-harmer Rose of Lima and her power to prevent earthquakes. We also find out why John the Baptist, Saint Sabina, and Saint Seraphima were all beheaded and how the Saints' stories relate to another beheaded character, Ned Stark of Game of Thrones. Finally, we explore who would the Bachelorette be more likely to take on a date: Saint Michael the Archangel or Lucifer the Lightbringer, and the answer surprise...
Ep. 07 - Four Beheadings and a Funeral
September 18, 2021 22:52 - 35 minutes - 32.7 MBIn this blood-splattered, gore-soaked episode we learn about the noted masochist and self-harmer Rose of Lima and her power to prevent earthquakes. We also find out why John the Baptist, Saint Sabina, and Saint Seraphima were all beheaded and how the Saints' stories relate to another beheaded character, Ned Stark of Game of Thrones. Finally, we explore who would the Bachelorette be more likely to take on a date: Saint Michael the Archangel or Lucifer the Lightbringer, and the answer surprise...
EP. 06 - Shakespeare & Saint Robert Southwell with Garrett Armyn
August 29, 2021 21:35 - 29 minutes - 26.7 MBOn this episode we are joined by actor Garrett Armyn, fresh off his performance as The Count of Monte Cristo for the Hudson Classical Theater Company, to discuss the surprising connection between English Jesuit martyr Saint Robert Southwell and his cousin William Shakespeare. Garrett performs poems by Southwell and explores how phrases and passages written by the Saint show up in plays such as Hamlet and Macbeth. We also note the feast of Saint Genesius, patron of actors, comedians, clowns, ...
Ep. 05 - Saint Helena and the Patrons You Need For COVID19
August 22, 2021 23:27 - 53 minutes - 48.7 MBOn this week's episode, we go through a laundry list of Saints whose feast days were observed over the past week including Saint Rock and his dog (and saint in his own right) Saint Guinefort. Saint Rock is the patron saint of doctors and contagious diseases so he's a great patron for these troubled times as is Saint Mamas, patron Saint of nurses. We also learn about "Honey Sweet" Saint Bernard, Saint Stephen of Hungary, and Saint Helena, mother of Constantine, and the woman who discovered th...
Ep. 04 - The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary with Frances O'Toole
August 15, 2021 16:15 - 43 minutes - 39.4 MBOn this very special episode, we learn about the assumption, body and soul, of The Blessed Virgin Mary into heaven and hear why she threw her holy girdle down to the ground on her way up. We speculate on where that sacred relic now resides and discuss how Saint Mary may have been much more than the nuns from catholic school would have led us to believe. We also feature an interview with a very special guest, and Saint in her own right, co-host Christian O'Toole's own blessed mother Frances O...
Ep. 03 - Santa Monica with Elizabeth Rodriguez
August 09, 2021 16:03 - 38 minutes - 35.2 MBIn this week's episode, we are joined by Tony-nominated actress and Orange Is the New Black star Elizabeth Rodriguez to discuss her role as Saint Monica in the LAByrinth Theater Company's 2005 production of The Last Days of Judas Iscariot. The play was written by Stephen Adly Guirgis and directed by Philip Seymour Hoffman and featured Sam Rockwell as Judas, Eric Bogosian as Satan, and Elizabeth as a powerful, Latina incarnation of Santa Monica who nags and nags and nags until she gets the jo...
Ep. 02 - Saint Augustine on Free Will vs. Determinism
August 01, 2021 19:04 - 55 minutes - 50.4 MBIt would be difficult to overstate Augustine of Hippo’s role in shaping Catholic theology. In this episode, we explore Saint Augustine’s philosophical evolution from a belief in the predestination of the heretical Manichaean sect to his conversion to the True Faith of free will, swayed finally by his mother’s tears and the sermons of Saint Ambrose. Along the way, we discuss how this debate continues to this day in popular shows like Devs and Loki, and how quantum physics and the multiverse c...
Ep. 1 - The Greatest Saints of All Time with Father James Martin
July 18, 2021 18:19 - 48 minutes - 44.5 MBIn this episode, Rosemary and Sean give their picks for the GOATS or Greatest Of All Time Saints. They also share the stories of some of their less-known personal favorites and Rosemary interviews special-guest Father James Martin, Jesuit priest and author of “My Life with the Saints,” about the real-life humanity of the saints and the miraculous sermons of baby saints Rumbold and Ambrose. We also learn how the cinematic life of the Irish poet-saint Columba led to a landmark copyright infrin...
Ep. 0 - An Introduction to the Catholic Saints
July 13, 2021 19:34 - 27 minutes - 24.9 MBYour name, your birthday, your nationality, your job, your hobby, each entitles you to the papally prescribed, perpetual, personal protection of a plethora of powerful patrons in paradise. Whatever your problem, a holy host of heavenly helpers is at hand. And you don't even have to be Catholic! In this pilot episode authors and experts, Sean Kelly and Rosemary Rogers explain where the saints come from, how they are officially canonized, and how they can help us in everyday life. We learn the...