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The Deeply Weird Stories of Patron Saints · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
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Speaker 1: the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
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Speaker 1: for tuning in. Let's hear it for the patron Saint
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Speaker 1: of our podcast, our super producer, mister Max Williams, the
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Speaker 1: patron Saint of all podcasts, Saint Maximus, Saint Maximus, I
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Speaker 1: love the wise. What would you be a patron saint
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Speaker 1: of noel? Oh? Gosh? What? Uh oh? Let me let
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Speaker 1: me think on that. Okay, okay, Ben, I've got um.
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Speaker 1: I think you know. I feel like I would be
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Speaker 1: a good patron saint of travel to obscure places. I
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Speaker 1: like it. I'll be the patron Saint of modesty, and
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Speaker 1: I'll be the best damn patron saint of modesty that
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Speaker 1: there ever was ever. No one could ever beat me
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Speaker 1: because I'm the patron Saint of modesty, right? Could I
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Speaker 1: be the patron Saint of difficult cats? Not like cats
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Speaker 1: that are the trouble, but like that demand a lot,
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Speaker 1: totally can't You could also be the patron Saint of
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Speaker 1: curling of folks. If you haven't put it together quite yet,
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Speaker 1: this is an episode about patron saints because we three
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Speaker 1: non popes are still very interested in so much of
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Speaker 1: Catholic history and patron saints in particular. We talked about
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Speaker 1: this a few times off air. For a lot of people,
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Speaker 1: I think the idea of saints in Christianity feels a
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Speaker 1: little bit odd, right because christian it is monotheistic. There's
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Speaker 1: only one God, right, so why would you pray to
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Speaker 1: someone else? Well, I mean, you don't see the same
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Speaker 1: canon of saints in Protestant Christianity as you do in Catholicism, right,
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Speaker 1: Like they're not like imbued with mystical powers per se,
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Speaker 1: right right, Yeah, And saints occur in other religions and denominations.
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Speaker 1: But I think most of us when we hear the
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Speaker 1: word saint, we think of a Catholic saint, and in Catholicism,
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Speaker 1: a saint as a person who is believed to have
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Speaker 1: a special connection with God, a closeness of sorts, And
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Speaker 1: the idea is that these saints can intercede on your behalf,
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Speaker 1: a kind of heavenly advocate and patron saints or advocates
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Speaker 1: for very particular stuff. It could be a nation, it
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Speaker 1: could be a town or a city, it could be
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Speaker 1: all kinds of stuff. Yeah, it could be like a
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Speaker 1: particular discipline, you know, crafts or whatever it might be.
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Speaker 1: And a lot of times folks that associate themselves with
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Speaker 1: these particular you know, disciplines or families or classes or
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Speaker 1: whatever it might be, may where either some sort of
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Speaker 1: talisman I guess let's call it. That might not be
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Speaker 1: the right term in Catholicism, but you know, some sort
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Speaker 1: of trinkets perhaps that represents that saint, like a Saint
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Speaker 1: Christopher's metal is a very popular one, for example. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: and saints also, of course, have other forms of veneration
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Speaker 1: and commemoration, like feast days. Here's the thing. You probably
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Speaker 1: have heard of patron saints. Saint Christopher's a great example,
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Speaker 1: but you might you've almost certainly not heard of all
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Speaker 1: of them. And if you're not Catholic, you might not
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Speaker 1: be aware that a lot of saints or patrons of
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Speaker 1: some really really specific or deeply weird stuff that you
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Speaker 1: wouldn't associate with sainthood and general. You know, it's true,
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Speaker 1: And before we dive into a list, this isn't going
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Speaker 1: to be sort of a saintlyalistical episode. I do think
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Speaker 1: the use of the word patron here is interesting and
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Speaker 1: it's always kind of fascinating me because you think of
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Speaker 1: like an individual perhaps as being a patron of the arts,
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Speaker 1: you know, or someone who perhaps finances something, a patron
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Speaker 1: of an individual cause perhaps, But a patron saint is
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Speaker 1: I guess the implication being that they somehow represent and
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Speaker 1: support some particular thing, right, Yeah, yeah. We don't mean,
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Speaker 1: of course, to disrespect in any shape, form or fashion,
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Speaker 1: the spiritual beliefs of the Catholic doctrine or any spiritual beliefs.
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Speaker 1: We have learned a lot with episodes like this, and
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Speaker 1: I'm doing that preface. I'm doing that disclaimer because when
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Speaker 1: I was growing up, one of the ways it was
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Speaker 1: explained to me as a kid was that patron saints
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Speaker 1: I could think of them as like mascots for specific things.
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Speaker 1: And that was another That was another kid who told
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Speaker 1: me that, and that kid went to Catholic school. So
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Speaker 1: I thought, yeah, Max is doing the nod. I thought, okay,
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Speaker 1: that checks out. You know, but we're both seven years old.
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Speaker 1: What do we know. Anyway, we thought we thought this
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Speaker 1: would be a strange exploration. We're only scratching the surface
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Speaker 1: here because there are a lot of patron saints and
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Speaker 1: they are the advocates for a lot of things, often
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Speaker 1: some of which aren't like good things, you know, yeah,
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Speaker 1: or what one might consider to be like a positive trait.
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Speaker 1: And that's very much so of our first entry into
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Speaker 1: this saintly listical. Yeah, and a lot of these saints
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Speaker 1: are patrons of more than one thing. We're just we're
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Speaker 1: focusing on one or two aspects. Yeah, we want to
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Speaker 1: introduce you to Saint Drogo, no relation to cal Drogo
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Speaker 1: of the Song of Ice of Fire. Saint Drogo is well,
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Speaker 1: bluntly put, the patron saint of UGO's and also delightful
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Speaker 1: coffee coffee, which is interesting and you know, and again
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Speaker 1: there may be other aspects um, but oh yeah, there
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Speaker 1: are there. Well, one for example, might be shepherds. And
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Speaker 1: it's odd here because there there's a bit of inherent
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Speaker 1: like almost judgment built into that, because it's almost like
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Speaker 1: are all shepherds ugly? You know? That's always thinking too,
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Speaker 1: because I like, I like envisioning the creation and patron
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Speaker 1: saints as a pitch meeting and someone's like, I don't know,
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Speaker 1: up shepherds, uh coffee, And someone's like ugly people and
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Speaker 1: he's like, yeah, yeah, them too, them too. Let's give
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Speaker 1: them something, let's give back to them. Yeah, and and
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Speaker 1: you know a lot of these saints are usually there's
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Speaker 1: a reason. It's not like it's just done willy nilly,
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Speaker 1: you know, a saint in well, first of all, a
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Speaker 1: saint isn't just some sort of like angel or celestial being.
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Speaker 1: A saint is someone who is sainted posthumously. Usually no,
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Speaker 1: always right, there's no canonized that's right, sort of the
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Speaker 1: way you might be knighted. Only that happens usually while
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Speaker 1: the person is still living. But this is something that
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Speaker 1: can only be bestowed this honor by the Catholic Church.
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Speaker 1: And there's probably some interesting meetings that go into those
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Speaker 1: kind of decisions right where they then decide which which
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Speaker 1: aspects of the saint represents. Saint Drogo was born as
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Speaker 1: Drogo of Seaborg on March fourteenth, eleven oh five. He
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Speaker 1: passed away on April sixteenth of eleven eighty six. Decently
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Speaker 1: long life for that period of time. Amazing, yeah, kind
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Speaker 1: of long life. You usually will only associate with members
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Speaker 1: of nobility because of their access to you know, better
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Speaker 1: healthcare for whatever it was at the time, or perhaps
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Speaker 1: members of the clergy, but for similar reasons. So he
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Speaker 1: is born into a pretty well placed family. He's a
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Speaker 1: Flemish noble. Feeling a little Flemish today. I think I've
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Speaker 1: had too much coffee. He was also he also is
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Speaker 1: known to some historical sources as drew On or Drukes
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Speaker 1: or Drogon again no relation to song Ice and fire.
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Speaker 1: Was a dragon perhaps or definitely an appoyeah. But we
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Speaker 1: also know that George R. Martin pulled a lot of
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Speaker 1: his names and even conflicts from historical figures, so this
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Speaker 1: doesn't surprise me one bit that we may we may
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Speaker 1: see more of these. Um. He was primarily a French citizen.
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Speaker 1: Um and but but he you know, much like our
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Speaker 1: story and stuff they don't want you to know about
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Speaker 1: a member of the Rockefeller family that kind of eschewed
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Speaker 1: a life of luxury, perhaps in favor of more like
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Speaker 1: self discovery or living a little bit more like you know,
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Speaker 1: the common folk. He wasn't all about that life of
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Speaker 1: luxury and being which you might call a shiftless lay about. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: this story is actually really tragic. So his father dies
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Speaker 1: before he's born, his mother dies in childbirth. He doesn't
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Speaker 1: learn the truth about what happened to his parents, until
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Speaker 1: he's ten years old, and that's still still though. Ten
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Speaker 1: is very young to lay that on a kid, right,
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Speaker 1: So he feels terrible about this, and at twenty years old,
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Speaker 1: he has this crisis of faith at kind of a
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Speaker 1: breaking point, and he gives away his money and his possessions,
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Speaker 1: his goods to the poor. He renounces his claim to
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Speaker 1: the estate so other heirs in the family can get it,
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Speaker 1: and he says, I'm going to live a life of
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Speaker 1: poverty and penance. I'm going to travel around to all
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Speaker 1: these different holy sites. He goes to Rome more than once,
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Speaker 1: and eventually he starts to kind of settle down. He
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Speaker 1: gets job as a shepherd for a wealthy woman named
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Speaker 1: Elizabeth de la Hare and Seaborg like you mentioned, and
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Speaker 1: which means Elizabeth of the Hair of the hair, Yeah,
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Speaker 1: legendary actually patron saint of champoo that lady and rabbits, yeah,
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Speaker 1: don't fact check the He liked this. It was kind
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Speaker 1: of like a retirement for him almost. He liked being alone.
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Speaker 1: He loved the solitude. And apparently he loved the solitude
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Speaker 1: because it gave him time to pray, So that's what
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Speaker 1: he was doing while he was shepherd. Ey well, and
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Speaker 1: let's also not forget the religious connection that shepherds have,
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Speaker 1: you know, the idea of Jesus being the shepherd and
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Speaker 1: his followers being his flock and all of that, and
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Speaker 1: also specifically actual shepherds, you know, watching their flocks by
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Speaker 1: night and all of that stuff. It's very big image
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Speaker 1: that that pops up in the Bible time and time again. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: and you know, part of these stories are quite possibly
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Speaker 1: embellished a bit. You know, we're telling you the official version,
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Speaker 1: but please realize that sometimes the stories may be considered
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Speaker 1: figurative or they may be considered works of fiction, and
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Speaker 1: we'll see a few of those in this episode as well.
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Speaker 1: But yeah, he's ticking all the boxes for good imagery.
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Speaker 1: He wants to tell people about the stuff he's learned
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Speaker 1: as a shepherd. So other folks in the in the
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Speaker 1: area will come to him and he'll diagnose their sheep.
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Speaker 1: He'll tell them if there's an illness and how to
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Speaker 1: address that malady. He can read the weather pretty well,
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Speaker 1: and people liked him, especially his boss, because he was
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Speaker 1: he was good, he had a good vibe, he was
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Speaker 1: helpful to be around. People also started thinking he had
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Speaker 1: superpowers and just about you, ever so slightly. Jesus himself
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Speaker 1: was a figurative shepherd, these all kinds of passages referring
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Speaker 1: to him as I'm pretty himself as being the good shepherd,
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Speaker 1: using all of these kind of sheep analogies, talking about
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Speaker 1: how the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.
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Speaker 1: He who has hired hand and not a shepherd who
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Speaker 1: doesn't own the sheep, sees the wolf coming, leaves the
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Speaker 1: sheep and flees. We also see very important biblical figures
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Speaker 1: like Abraham and Moses, King David even and the Old
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Speaker 1: Testament prophet Amos, who are shepherds. So that's a very
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Speaker 1: important actual occupation in the Bible as well. But you're right,
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Speaker 1: I mean, he's very well liked and very much living
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Speaker 1: among you know, people who if he had played his
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Speaker 1: cards as they were dealt to him, would have been
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Speaker 1: considered like lesser than him. But instead he is very
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Speaker 1: much living amongst them and giving, you know, everything that
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Speaker 1: he has to help these these people. And you know,
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Speaker 1: he got a really good reppegea And to your point,
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Speaker 1: bend a bit. A part of that reputation had to
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Speaker 1: do with him having these kind of like supernatural abilities,
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Speaker 1: one of which was the gift of by location, which
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Speaker 1: is kind of what it sounds like. I mean, I
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Speaker 1: guess maybe in like you know X men terms, that
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Speaker 1: would be something to the equivalent of like teleporting or
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Speaker 1: being able to perhaps duplicate oneself, you know, like trying
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Speaker 1: to think of like an X man who had that
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Speaker 1: AUTI many were less. It's right, It's right there in
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Speaker 1: the name, folks. So yeah, this is Drogo is kind
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Speaker 1: of our biblical multiple man, the gift of by location,
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Speaker 1: because there were reports that he'd be seen in the
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Speaker 1: fields and simultaneously at church, so he was tending his
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Speaker 1: flocks with on the one hand and then you know,
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Speaker 1: doing his Bible studies on the other. Um. So there
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Speaker 1: was a kind of almost like a catchphrase that came
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Speaker 1: up among some of the kind of the common folk
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Speaker 1: of the area and this rural area in the region.
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Speaker 1: I'm not Saint Drogo. I can't ring the church hell
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Speaker 1: from Mass and be in the procession. Yeah, silly, I laughed.
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Speaker 1: Found that. Let's shout out to a Catholic dot org.
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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and shout out to you Ben for this
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Speaker 1: wonderful research brief. This is really really fun one as
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Speaker 1: y'all will continue to discover. So Ben, why so far
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Speaker 1: this guy seems like a lovely fellow, you know, a
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Speaker 1: friend to the poor, a friend to the to the
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Speaker 1: lowly shepherd. Where does the ugly part come in? Yeah,
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Speaker 1: that's the question. So none of this has addressed physical appearance.
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Speaker 1: We don't shame people for their appearance here on ridiculous History,
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Speaker 1: but the reality is he is the patron saint of
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Speaker 1: unsightly people. That's another euphemism you'll hear, and it's because
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Speaker 1: he came down with some sort of extreme physical affliction.
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Speaker 1: Some stories will just say there was this unexplained condition
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Speaker 1: that of him, gross deformities like hus filled boils all
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Speaker 1: over his body, but not the plague. And then other
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Speaker 1: sources will say that he just had a real bonker's
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Speaker 1: bad hernia, and a bad hernia would maybe give you
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Speaker 1: like a hunch perhaps, or really bad posture. Perhaps it's weird.
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Speaker 1: Whatever it was really affected his appearance so much so that,
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Speaker 1: according to the story, he was cloistered up or put
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Speaker 1: into a solitary room, a cell you could call it,
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Speaker 1: but not like a prison, that was attached to the
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Speaker 1: church he went to all the time and for quite
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Speaker 1: a while, he only survived on barley, water and the Eucharist,
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Speaker 1: and this was given to him through a small window,
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Speaker 1: so he get food and water through this window. People
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Speaker 1: who were seeking prayers and counsel would come to him.
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Speaker 1: You see some jokes about kids coming to look at him,
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Speaker 1: almost like a freak show vibe, but I don't know
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Speaker 1: how much of that is actually true. He lives basically
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Speaker 1: like an anchorite there for forty five years, which is
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Speaker 1: a huge amount of time to spend in one room, right,
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Speaker 1: And eventually he passes away at eighty one years old.
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Speaker 1: And it's because of his appearance and his story that
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Speaker 1: he became known as the patron Saint of these different things,
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Speaker 1: like patron Saint of ugly people, because you were at
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Speaker 1: one point ugly but remains bious. I guess the coffee
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Speaker 1: thing's interesting, though. The coffee thing doesn't quite check out
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Speaker 1: because it's kind of anachronistic. He never had coffee in
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Speaker 1: his life. He had had no idea what it was,
16:48
Speaker 1: that's right, Like, I mean, when did coffee really hit
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Speaker 1: the scene? That would have been something that came from
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Speaker 1: other lands, right, So coffee isn't really a thing for
16:59
Speaker 1: your Peans at this time in the eleven hundreds. It's
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Speaker 1: a few centuries later we found a book Uncommon Grounds,
17:07
Speaker 1: the History of Coffee. Now it transformed our world. Love
17:11
Speaker 1: books about very specific things, and this guy, Mark Pendergrass,
17:17
Speaker 1: the author, says that it probably wasn't until sometime in
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Speaker 1: the fifteenth century that someone roasted coffee beans, ground them
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Speaker 1: and made an infusion. Well, and to a point, it's
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Speaker 1: probably going to continue to come up. A lot of
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Speaker 1: these saints are given additional aspects many many, many years
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Speaker 1: after their saint hood. Oh you mean, like the multiple
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Speaker 1: Saints of the Internet. Correct, Yeah, definitely, definitely. But you know,
17:44
Speaker 1: we also have modern saints, you know, of course, you know,
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Speaker 1: we'll get to that. Like I mean, Mother Teresa is
17:50
Speaker 1: a saint, if I'm not mistaken, Yeah, you're right. She
17:53
Speaker 1: was canonized fairly recently. I think twenty sixteen she became
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Speaker 1: a saint, Saint Teresa of Calcutta, that's right. So, yeah,
18:03
Speaker 1: where did this coffee business come from? This is interesting? Yeah,
18:06
Speaker 1: this one's kind of weird. Okay. So the some of
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Speaker 1: the first sources that associate Saint Drogo with coffee don't
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Speaker 1: come out until the eighteen hundreds, and it looks like
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Speaker 1: coffee house owners in the area kind of proactively claimed
18:25
Speaker 1: Saint Drogo as their patron. But there's no reason, like
18:29
Speaker 1: there's no solid source or something from the story of
18:33
Speaker 1: his life. He may have just been a local saint
18:36
Speaker 1: in the area and then people who own coffee houses
18:41
Speaker 1: or sold coffee started saying, yeah, Saint Drogo patron saint
18:45
Speaker 1: of coffee, and people went along with it. Yeah. He's
18:48
Speaker 1: also often referred to a specifically as the saint the
18:51
Speaker 1: patron saint of caffeine. Great, well, thank you for your service,
18:56
Speaker 1: Saint Drogo. And also, you know, feels like we had
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Speaker 1: to talk about the possibly multiple patron saints of the Internet.
19:05
Speaker 1: Saint Isidore of Seville. Also, you know, just spoiler alert,
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Speaker 1: born way before the internet was a thing. M Yeah,
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Speaker 1: perhaps it had invented the Internet along with al Gore,
19:17
Speaker 1: at least in its in it's its conceptualization. Now I'm joking,
19:21
Speaker 1: but yeah, it was Saint Paul, or Saint John Paul
19:25
Speaker 1: the Second rather who bestowed this, uh, this particular aspect
19:29
Speaker 1: upon Saint Isidore of Seville, because as a bishop, Saint
19:33
Speaker 1: Isidore was a very important figure in creating early forms
19:38
Speaker 1: of what we now know as universities. So more of
19:42
Speaker 1: a patron saint of education, I guess, but it gets
19:45
Speaker 1: a little more specific. Oh yeah, this guy wrote a
19:50
Speaker 1: twenty book series where he tried to explain everything. It's
19:57
Speaker 1: not even hyperbole. He tried to explain every everything, and
20:00
Speaker 1: he thought that's what he books, that'll cover it. We're
20:03
Speaker 1: talking about the origins of language to law, biology, agriculture,
20:08
Speaker 1: history of the church, the stuff like how to build roads.
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Speaker 1: He wanted to be he wanted to kind of create,
20:15
Speaker 1: like you said, a university or a Wikipedia, kind of
20:18
Speaker 1: an omnibus, right, Yeah, it's his magnampus. And so I
20:23
Speaker 1: think there's some sand to this, this patronage, because he
20:26
Speaker 1: clearly was a guy who saw the great potential of
20:29
Speaker 1: sharing knowledge, and that's always commendable. Now, his book series
20:35
Speaker 1: write about everything, of course not there's a lot of
20:38
Speaker 1: things they had and quite figured out yet. But the
20:40
Speaker 1: interconnectedness I think of knowledge is an important factor here too,
20:46
Speaker 1: because it wasn't just you know, specifically how twos on
20:50
Speaker 1: all this stuff. It kind of was attempting to sew
20:53
Speaker 1: it all together in a similar way to what the
20:56
Speaker 1: internet kind of does in a much larger scaled kind
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Speaker 1: of way. Yeah said. And there's folks who heard us
21:03
Speaker 1: mentioned multiple saints of the Internet as we record today.
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Speaker 1: There's there's a person who is not quite an official
21:12
Speaker 1: saint yet but is well on their way. The first
21:16
Speaker 1: millennial who will in all likely to become a saint,
21:20
Speaker 1: a boy named Carlo Acutis, who tragically passed away at
21:24
Speaker 1: the age of fifty. Yeah. I mean pretty impressive though,
21:28
Speaker 1: someone who to have made such an impact by such
21:32
Speaker 1: an early age, and really sad to have been taken.
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Speaker 1: But during his brief time on planet Earth, he was
21:40
Speaker 1: a big help in spreading the teachings of Roman Catholicism
21:45
Speaker 1: on the internet. This is this is again a modern
21:48
Speaker 1: saint before he tragically passed away due to leukemia in
21:53
Speaker 1: two thousand and six, and one of his big supporters
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Speaker 1: was Cardinal Angelo. Bet you I believe b Ecciu, who
22:03
Speaker 1: is the head of the Vatican's Saint making department. It's
22:07
Speaker 1: just the thing, you know, And you got to imagine, Bet,
22:10
Speaker 1: and I'd love to explore this briefly here what the
22:13
Speaker 1: modern saint making department kind of looks like. I picture
22:17
Speaker 1: it being a nomination process and then various members of
22:22
Speaker 1: the clergy throughout the Roman Catholic world vote on who.
22:27
Speaker 1: And then obviously a pope could probably just full scale
22:30
Speaker 1: nominate someone themselves and just you know, make it so
22:33
Speaker 1: with a wave of a hand. Yeah, So there is
22:38
Speaker 1: a defined process. They're not just walking walking around the
22:42
Speaker 1: Vatican vibes. Anybody can become a saint in the Roman
22:46
Speaker 1: Catholic Church, so unlike say a priest, you don't have
22:50
Speaker 1: to be male, etc. But the big thing is, as
22:53
Speaker 1: we said, you can only become a saint after death.
22:57
Speaker 1: And the first the first step is a formal request
23:01
Speaker 1: for an individual to be considered for sainthood. It's submitted
23:05
Speaker 1: to this tribunal in the Vatican, and the request has
23:09
Speaker 1: to explain how the person lived a very pious life.
23:12
Speaker 1: And then this tribunal will evaluate the story of this
23:20
Speaker 1: person's life basically did they live in a saintly way?
23:24
Speaker 1: And if this person passes the sniff test, I guess
23:27
Speaker 1: the tribunal officially recognizes them as a servant of God.
23:32
Speaker 1: Capitalisque capital g that's like level one. Yeah, and then
23:37
Speaker 1: they're not there yet, You're not yet. No, No, then
23:41
Speaker 1: you have to go to the Congregation for the Causes
23:44
Speaker 1: of the Saints at the Vatican. This is a group
23:47
Speaker 1: of cardinals, archbishops, bishops, theologians who study a person's life
23:53
Speaker 1: and writing in depth to make sure it lines up
23:56
Speaker 1: with the values of the Church. So in this second process,
24:00
Speaker 1: to be heroically virtuous, they have the candidate has to
24:05
Speaker 1: be found to have four cardinal virtues and three theological virtues.
24:11
Speaker 1: It goes on, and then you finally get to beatification,
24:15
Speaker 1: which is where you would be called blessed. Harlow acutis
24:18
Speaker 1: is beatified now. And those cardinal virtues, which would be
24:22
Speaker 1: like the opposite of cardinal sins, are prudence, justice, temperance,
24:26
Speaker 1: and courage. And then those theological aspects our faith, hope
24:29
Speaker 1: and charity. This really applies to Carlo because again by
24:33
Speaker 1: you know, at such a young age, he became very
24:37
Speaker 1: deeply religious. He grew up in a middle class household
24:39
Speaker 1: in Milan, which of course is very much in that
24:43
Speaker 1: world of the Vatican. You know, I mean it's not
24:46
Speaker 1: right there, but you know, folks in this part of
24:48
Speaker 1: the world very very very deferential to everything that goes
24:51
Speaker 1: on in Vatican City. He would actually, you know, go
24:54
Speaker 1: and mingle with the city's poor residence and actually give
24:59
Speaker 1: his meager you know, pocket money to poor folks. And
25:03
Speaker 1: he taught himself coding U which is no small feat.
25:08
Speaker 1: And he actually would at the at the time, this
25:11
Speaker 1: is in the early two thousands, set up websites. You know,
25:15
Speaker 1: this was before like square space and things like that.
25:18
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, that stuff was kind of you know,
25:19
Speaker 1: we had like make your own website, kind of templatize
25:22
Speaker 1: things at that point. But then in the earlier internet
25:25
Speaker 1: days you definitely still had to you know, do some
25:27
Speaker 1: HTML or whatever it might be. Um, this is a
25:30
Speaker 1: little kind of on the cusp of that kind of stuff.
25:32
Speaker 1: But he actually set up websites for priests and at
25:35
Speaker 1: the age of ten he started to create like an
25:38
Speaker 1: online kind of curated exhibit about religious miracles, which started
25:43
Speaker 1: to really pick up steam and gain popularity after he
25:48
Speaker 1: passed away. Yeah, yeah, and this and again this very impressive.
25:53
Speaker 1: He's he's a whiz at the Internet, at coding. He
25:58
Speaker 1: specifically created this online exhibit about miracles that absolutely exploded
26:05
Speaker 1: after his death. Hundreds of parishiers around the world have
26:09
Speaker 1: used the site he created for their own real life exhibits.
26:13
Speaker 1: They printed out versions of this. In twenty nineteen, Pope
26:18
Speaker 1: Francis pays tribute to Carlow and says that his use
26:23
Speaker 1: of the Internet to communicate values and beauty was the
26:26
Speaker 1: perfect antidote to the dangers of other stuff on the
26:30
Speaker 1: Internet like social media, and Francis even the Pope quoted
26:35
Speaker 1: this kid. Francis quoted Carlo by noting something he had
26:40
Speaker 1: said during his lifetime. Everyone is born in original but
26:44
Speaker 1: many die like photocopies. And after he cited this, Pope
26:48
Speaker 1: Francis said, don't let this happen. I think it's pretty
26:52
Speaker 1: amazing to be quoted by the Pope. It doesn't matter
26:54
Speaker 1: whether or not you were Catholic. If the Pope was
26:58
Speaker 1: ever like, I was listening to show Ridiculous History and
27:02
Speaker 1: they introduced me to the term beefed up, and next
27:07
Speaker 1: your camera went out for a second. I think the
27:09
Speaker 1: Pope probably has more important stuff to do. But the
27:13
Speaker 1: point we're getting to here is support for making Carlo
27:16
Speaker 1: a saint is pretty widespread and unanimous. The beatification ceremony
27:22
Speaker 1: was put off due to COVID nineteen but eventually got held.
27:25
Speaker 1: Right now, he's on the way to canonization. Canonization is
27:31
Speaker 1: the step after beatification, and when you get to these
27:34
Speaker 1: areas of becoming a saint, we're talking miracles, posthumous miracles
27:38
Speaker 1: that occur because someone prayed for your intercession. The miracle
27:42
Speaker 1: attributed to Carlo occurred in twenty thirteen, the rapid and
27:47
Speaker 1: inexplicable healing of a six year old Brazilian boy suffering
27:51
Speaker 1: from a deformation of the pancreas. And you can read
27:54
Speaker 1: a great La Times article all about Carlo. This is
27:57
Speaker 1: from Tom Kington, June twenty eight, twenty twenty. A patron
28:02
Speaker 1: saint of the Internet. The Pope is on it, so
28:04
Speaker 1: we will soon have not one, but multiple saints of
28:09
Speaker 1: the Internet. That's good, that's all. That's all well and
28:12
Speaker 1: good because the internet's a big deal. But what about
28:16
Speaker 1: another human pursuit, Noel, what about murder? We see that's
28:29
Speaker 1: not a good one. But again you know it's uh,
28:33
Speaker 1: everyone needs a saints, even even the most despicable amongst us.
28:38
Speaker 1: And uh, you know, perhaps folks who are are in prison,
28:41
Speaker 1: you know, for doing the most heinous of acts. Yeah,
28:44
Speaker 1: there's a patron saint of not murderer or the act,
28:47
Speaker 1: but of murderers. Right, Um, But again, like to what
28:51
Speaker 1: I was getting at most importantly repentant. Yes, yeah, that's
28:57
Speaker 1: the you have to feel bad about it. This is
29:00
Speaker 1: the thing which I get. You know, you should feel bad.
29:04
Speaker 1: Saint Julian the Hospitaller or Hospitaller Hospitaller patron saint of
29:10
Speaker 1: repentant murderers, as well as clowns, circus workers, innkeepers, fiddle players, jugglers,
29:18
Speaker 1: and people without children. See some of these, I just
29:21
Speaker 1: feel like I I just kind of got tossed in there,
29:23
Speaker 1: not necessarily based on any real life acts of these individuals.
29:28
Speaker 1: I don't know. Man, juggling's cool. That's weird. That's a
29:32
Speaker 1: weird flex. I always thought juggling was weird flex. When
29:35
Speaker 1: I'm hanging out with people and they juggle, I enjoy it.
29:39
Speaker 1: But it's a weird flex. Jonathan Strickling can juggle, at least,
29:43
Speaker 1: surprising thing I've heard today. So can Alex Williams a
29:48
Speaker 1: little bit. At least he took juggling classes for a bit.
29:51
Speaker 1: It's tricky. It really requires some left brain right brain
29:54
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. It's like rubbing your tummy and patting
29:56
Speaker 1: your head or whatever, because you gotta kind of you know, uh,
29:59
Speaker 1: synchronize and right hands and have them do things that
30:01
Speaker 1: are completely disconnected from one another. So kudos to anyone
30:05
Speaker 1: out there that has mastered the art of juggling. Or
30:08
Speaker 1: I wonder if there's a patron saint of yo yoing there.
30:11
Speaker 1: Maybe they're very well, maybe it's a matter of fact.
30:15
Speaker 1: Let's see, you know, I don't believe there is dang
30:28
Speaker 1: it yet, but we have to be the change sometimes.
30:33
Speaker 1: Let's figure out how this guy becomes the saint of
30:36
Speaker 1: repentant murderers. The story starts with a curse. He's born,
30:41
Speaker 1: and he has a curse on him that says he
30:43
Speaker 1: will commit patris side that he will kill his parents,
30:47
Speaker 1: and he says, I don't want to do that, you know,
30:49
Speaker 1: I don't want to be a person who kills people
30:52
Speaker 1: in general, much less my mom and dad. So he
30:56
Speaker 1: pulls a move like remember him forced up when Forrest
31:00
Speaker 1: just starts running. It's like most of the movie, Yeah,
31:03
Speaker 1: how can I forget? Yeah, So this guy, Saint Julian,
31:09
Speaker 1: pulls a Forrest Gump. He walks away from home one
31:12
Speaker 1: day and he just keeps walking for fifty days. Eventually
31:16
Speaker 1: settles down and he marries a wealthy widow, and then
31:20
Speaker 1: he becomes a night and he starts working for a king,
31:24
Speaker 1: and the decades fly by, and sometimes Julian is looking
31:28
Speaker 1: out from the ramparts of his castle and he says,
31:33
Speaker 1: I guess I've outsmarted that curse. But he didn't know that.
31:38
Speaker 1: Throughout all those decades, his parents have been searching for him,
31:43
Speaker 1: and they finally found where he was. They found they
31:46
Speaker 1: came across his castle, but unfortunately, at the time when
31:50
Speaker 1: they discovered the castle, Julian was away on business, hunting business.
31:57
Speaker 1: His wife, however, was there and welcome the family with
32:00
Speaker 1: open arms. She was so excited to meet her in
32:03
Speaker 1: laws for the first time that she gave them the
32:06
Speaker 1: nicest room in the joint, the master bedroom. And Julian
32:11
Speaker 1: comes home much much later from hunting. He finds the
32:14
Speaker 1: couple in his bed and he immediately thinks it's his
32:19
Speaker 1: wife with another man. He thinks she's chilling on him.
32:24
Speaker 1: He goes nuts, he sees red. He murders both those people.
32:32
Speaker 1: Oh wow, that's terrible. Oh that's a bummer. Yes, yeah,
32:36
Speaker 1: it's a bit of a bummer. Yeah, like, yeah, that's
32:40
Speaker 1: the story though. That's some Shakespearean stuff right there. You know,
32:44
Speaker 1: and of his rex kind of stuff. His wife was
32:47
Speaker 1: away at church at the time, and she tells him
32:52
Speaker 1: what he did. Those people you killed, they're your parents.
32:58
Speaker 1: Julian loses loses it, you know, he is sparing. He
33:05
Speaker 1: is convinced that he has bound for hell. But according
33:10
Speaker 1: to one version of the story, his wife encouraged him
33:13
Speaker 1: and she said, well, I know that God is so
33:15
Speaker 1: merciful and so kind and loving that if we serve
33:18
Speaker 1: him all our lives without anger and without envy, I
33:21
Speaker 1: do surely believe that he will grant us mercy. So
33:25
Speaker 1: they spend the rest of their life trying to make
33:29
Speaker 1: up for that. Yeah, I mean this, I get it.
33:33
Speaker 1: This really clicks right with the whole How do you
33:35
Speaker 1: become a patron saint of murderers? How how do you,
33:39
Speaker 1: you know, canonize someone who has done, you know, one
33:42
Speaker 1: of the most horrific acts that a human being could do,
33:45
Speaker 1: one of the most cardinal sins of Catholicism. It would
33:49
Speaker 1: have had to have been an honest mistake and very
33:53
Speaker 1: tragic for that individual, and then led to a life
33:56
Speaker 1: of utter penance and seeking to absolve one's self from
34:03
Speaker 1: this heinous crime. But you know, we gotta wonder too,
34:06
Speaker 1: like would this have been this probably would have been
34:09
Speaker 1: considered man slaughter perhaps or you know, yeah, because it's
34:15
Speaker 1: not premeditated. It's not premeditated, and it is technically you know,
34:20
Speaker 1: I don't know. This guy also should have maybe been
34:22
Speaker 1: the patron saying of jumping the gun. Yeah, a little bit.
34:25
Speaker 1: It's not a bad point. Yeah. This. So Julian does
34:30
Speaker 1: dedicate the rest of his life. According to the story
34:33
Speaker 1: Dependence and Good Work, he starts a hospice at a
34:36
Speaker 1: river crossing where a lot of crusaders travel, and he
34:41
Speaker 1: took on the duty of ferrying people safely back and
34:45
Speaker 1: forth across the river. You can also find one story
34:48
Speaker 1: that says he took it a frozen leper one night
34:52
Speaker 1: and said, look, it's cold. I can tell you've been
34:55
Speaker 1: having a rough time for a while. Why don't you
34:57
Speaker 1: sleep in my bed? And the leoper turned out to
35:00
Speaker 1: be an angel in disguise, and the leper or the angel,
35:04
Speaker 1: now said Julian, our lord hath sent me to thee
35:08
Speaker 1: and sendeth the word that he accepted thy penance. Nice ending,
35:13
Speaker 1: let's get a bow on it. Tricky thing. Though a
35:16
Speaker 1: lot of people think this story is kind of a
35:19
Speaker 1: bit of pious fiction because it's really tough to find
35:23
Speaker 1: an historical basis for the specifics of this guy. Interesting
35:28
Speaker 1: but still, but still, you know, if it's stories have power, right,
35:33
Speaker 1: and there are repentant murderers of plenty throughout history who
35:37
Speaker 1: have prayed for the intercession of Saint Julian. But no,
35:40
Speaker 1: I don't feel I feel like we can't end on
35:42
Speaker 1: it down note this, Let's keep this next one short,
35:44
Speaker 1: but we gotta this is the perfect endingman. We've got
35:47
Speaker 1: to talk about one very surprising patron saint. Correct, this
35:53
Speaker 1: is Saint Lawrence, the patron saint of Comedians. Nothing better
35:59
Speaker 1: than a cut up saints. During the third century, there
36:03
Speaker 1: were seven deacons who served under Pope Sixtus the Second,
36:08
Speaker 1: which is very confusing. Yes, it's like seventh, fifth in Rome.
36:15
Speaker 1: And this was a tough place for Christians to exist.
36:19
Speaker 1: As we know, the Roman Empire did not take kindly
36:23
Speaker 1: to Christians, and they did, you know, gnarly things like
36:25
Speaker 1: you know, nailed them to crosses. Emperor Valerian was was
36:29
Speaker 1: reigning at the time, and he was no exception to
36:32
Speaker 1: this rule, very very anti Christian and did horrible things
36:35
Speaker 1: to them. And their bodies. What put Saint Lawrence in
36:39
Speaker 1: his particular cross hairs and that of the Roman Empire
36:42
Speaker 1: at large, was his belief that the Catholic Church was
36:48
Speaker 1: sitting on treasures untold, not like of the you know,
36:52
Speaker 1: religious varieties, or of the you know, spiritual variety. This
36:56
Speaker 1: is like, you know, golden stuff. A Roman official asked Lawrence,
37:01
Speaker 1: you know, like the location of the church's treasure, you
37:05
Speaker 1: know that kind of stuff, and he responded by same,
37:08
Speaker 1: behold in these poor persons, the treasures which I promised
37:12
Speaker 1: to show you, to which I will add pearls of
37:14
Speaker 1: precious stones, those widows and consecrated virgins, which are the
37:20
Speaker 1: church's crown. He's like, the real treasures are people. This
37:23
Speaker 1: is the original joke, you dirty Roman. And that was
37:27
Speaker 1: a little bit of a snarky response at the time,
37:29
Speaker 1: but he was working with a tough crowd, right. So
37:32
Speaker 1: after he shoots his mouth off, he's put in prison again.
37:37
Speaker 1: The Roman officials, their power structure at the time, doesn't
37:40
Speaker 1: vibe with Christians. So Lawrence is sentenced to a cruel
37:44
Speaker 1: death and the executioners strip him, They layhim out on
37:48
Speaker 1: an iron grill. They pile all these coals under it.
37:51
Speaker 1: They press heated iron pitchforks on his body and this
37:55
Speaker 1: guy looks at them and says, look, wretch, you have
37:59
Speaker 1: me well done on one side, turned me over and eat.
38:04
Speaker 1: So that more of a medium, rare kind of guy.
38:07
Speaker 1: But do you know, yeah, that's so that's the line
38:13
Speaker 1: that made him the patron saint of comedians. I gotta
38:19
Speaker 1: tell you he went out like a g Yeah, no doubt, man,
38:24
Speaker 1: that's pretty amazing. Yeah, it reminds me of there's a
38:28
Speaker 1: really great scene. There's some problematic language in it, but
38:31
Speaker 1: I do think it's a very well acted scene in
38:34
Speaker 1: True Romance where Dennis Hopper is character who is the
38:38
Speaker 1: fat plays the father of Christian Slater, who's like, you know,
38:41
Speaker 1: really pissed off them mafia and he's on the run.
38:44
Speaker 1: And then then Christopher Walkin and his goons are grilling
38:48
Speaker 1: Dennis Hopper's character and he just, you know, he tells
38:52
Speaker 1: this story that has a punchline that is just you know,
38:56
Speaker 1: like the most offensive thing to the people in the
38:59
Speaker 1: room that could possibly be, and they all just start
39:02
Speaker 1: laughing and laughing, laughing. But it's so they're laughing at
39:04
Speaker 1: his audacity, you know, because he knows he's gonna die
39:08
Speaker 1: no matter what, so why not go out with a
39:10
Speaker 1: bang and say something that you know these folks basically
39:14
Speaker 1: can't unhear. Oh, it's pretty pretty excellent scene, but it's
39:19
Speaker 1: through the story and the thing that he's actually pointing
39:21
Speaker 1: to is something that's a little it's that kind of
39:23
Speaker 1: peak Tarantino, like, Oh, why you gotta use that word
39:26
Speaker 1: so much? Guy? But it's it reminds me of this
39:29
Speaker 1: one hundred percent. And this is just the beginning of
39:33
Speaker 1: the story. There are many, many patron saints for many
39:36
Speaker 1: many things. As a matter of fact, we paused off
39:40
Speaker 1: air to check whether there was a patron saint of
39:42
Speaker 1: Yo Yo's. I don't think any of us knew, but
39:46
Speaker 1: there's so many out there that it was possible. So
39:51
Speaker 1: we want to thank everybody for tuning in. We hope
39:54
Speaker 1: you enjoyed this. We'd love to hear about your favorite
39:56
Speaker 1: patron saints. Big big things as always to our super producer,
40:00
Speaker 1: mister Backs Williams, big big thanks, Chris frosciotas here in
40:03
Speaker 1: spirit as always Eaves, Jeff Cooke, Alex Williams who composed
40:07
Speaker 1: this theme, m Yeah, and Jonathan Strickland. Aka The Quister.
40:13
Speaker 1: Of course, Casey pegram who who may? Maybe I'll listen
40:17
Speaker 1: to our spet Lana conversation with Dan k Rosser and
40:21
Speaker 1: have a maybe it'll brighteness day a little bit. But Casey,
40:24
Speaker 1: if you're listening, miss you, Bud talk soon. What would
40:28
Speaker 1: Casey be a Patriot? Same time film? Oh yeah, no, wait,
40:32
Speaker 1: that's that's an easy one. What about Jonathan Jugglings take
40:35
Speaker 1: it peschi lence, there it is. We'll see you next time, folks.
40:49
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
40:52
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows