Saints and Sinners

Isn't Catholocism wonderful?

Recently I've been reading Angela's Ashes, the story of the Author's (Frank McCourt) triple whammy of an upbringing - poor, Irish and Catholic. And it's taught me more about Catholocism and Catholic people than any number of state funded 'Religious Education' lessons ever could. One thing that struck me, amongst many, many others is the different saints that they have for different purpooses - for example they frequently have cause (what with them being poor, sick and dying all over the place) to pray to st Jude, he of 'desperate cases'.

After relaying this observation to a friend of mine who happened to have suffered - sorry, experienced - a Catholic upbringing she explained to me that when you have your first communion, confirmation or various other dark rituals that Catholic people must endure in order to feel more guilty about themselves, you have to 'choose' your own saint. So this got me to thinking: Who would I choose?

My immediate response was st George - not out of any kind of patriotism (remember, I'm Welsh not English) but because I remember reading years ago that as well as England, his patronage also covers Portugal and syphillis. One quick Wikipedia search later and I have the (really quite exhaustive) list - st George is to be prayed to if you are English, German, Portugese (the irony of football louts waving their St. George flags at European matches is not wasted), Greek, a Brazilian football team called the Corinthians (?!) or if you have Syphillis, Herpes (I guess these two wouldn't be so necessary if they were allowed to wear condoms, eh?), Leprosy or any order of skin disease, amongst many, many other things. Wow. What a poor guy - he must be rueing the day he was canonised....what a bunk patronage!

So if st George gets it so bad, what about the other national saints of the UK? I didn't have to look far before I was satisfied.

Paddy doesn't get it too bad - he has to deal with a few places other than Ireland; Nigeria (?!), New York and Boston (at the same time surprising and not so - I guess the pope realised that the Irish in America were having all the fun, and I this must have boosted sales of Guinness there) as well as his only employment sector - engineers.

And on to the only UK saint to actually be a native in the country for which he offers patronage. To 'my' Saint, St David, the patron saint of Wales. And boy was I proud. Those who know me know full well that I am far from religious, and only the tiniest bit patriotic, but this list made me smile; our very own Dewi Sant is, as well as Wales, the patron Saint of Pembrokeshire (hardly surprising as he was born there), vegetarians and poets. That's it. I felt warm inside; I imagined a humble Dewi, sat on a cloud somewhere (possibly with a harp - or is that just angels?) engaged in relaxed conversation with Dylan Thomas, over a tofu salad while on a nearby cloud a red faced St George is stooped over some man's infected bits, being heckled on either side by drunken football louts.

It's a nice image.