Review: Fascinating view into the arcane process of creating a saint
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 01 3, 2012
Saints, apparently, aren't born. They are made. At least according to Bill Donahue's Kindle Single The Secret World of the Saints. Having been raised in a mainstream Protestant denomination, the idea of saints was murky at best. They seemed to hold a middle ground somewhere between mere sinful mortals and exhalted angels. Now The Secret World of Saints lifts the curtain a bit to explain the process.Much of the work deals with efforts to have a 17th century Native American woman, Kateri Tekakwitha, declared a saint. After a little more than three centuries it appears she is about to become a saint.Using a good deal of humor (the gentle kind ... I never got the idea that Donahue's humor was aimed at the Catholic church, only at the byzantine process and intrigue that often accompanies beatification) Donahue outlines the steps it takes to get to sainthood so that even an outsider to Catholicism like me can understand the process. He also explains why the church has begun an effort to name non-European saints to appeal to non-European Catholics in the hope that the church's waning influence in Europe and America and be offset by growing influence in other parts of the world.I'm sure there are books out there that offer greater depth at explaining the process and listing the saints (be they "the good, the bad or the ugly") but The Secret World of Saints provides an excellent overview of the process or a great place to start before reading further into the subject. I found it a very enjoyable reading experience that can easily be read in a single setting.