Saints Behaving Badly: The Cutthroats, Crooks, Trollops, Con Men, and Devil-Worshippers Who Became Saints

Saints are not born, they are made. And many, as Saints Behaving Badly reveals, were made of very rough materials indeed. The first book to lay bare the less than saintly behavior of thirty-two venerated holy men and women, it presents the scandalous, spicy, and sleazy detours they took on the road to sainthood.

In nineteenth- and twentieth-century writings about the lives of the saints, authors tended to go out of their way to sanitize their stories, often glossing over the more embarrassing cases with phrases such as, “he/she was once a great sinner.” In the early centuries of the Church and throughout the Middle Ages, however, writers took a more candid and spirited approach to portraying the saints. Exploring sources from a wide range of periods and places, Thomas Craughwell discovered a veritable rogues gallery of sinners-turned-saint. There’s St. Olga, who unleashed a bloodbath on her husband’s assassins; St. Mary of Egypt, who trolled the streets looking for new sexual conquests; and Thomas Becket, who despite his vast riches refused to give his cloak to a man freezing to death in the street.

Written with wit and respect (each profile ends with what inspired the saint to give up his or her wicked ways) and illustrated with amusing caricatures, Saints Behaving Badly will entertain, inform, and even inspire Catholic readers across America.

Takes a close-up look at thirty-two holy men and women who took a less than saintly path on their road to sainthood, profiling St. Olga, St. Mary of Egypt, Thomas … Becket, and other sinners-turned-saint. 20,000 first printing.

Saints are not born, they are made. And many, as Saints Behaving Badly reveals, were made of very rough materials indeed. The first book to lay bare the less than saintly behavior of thirty-two venerated holy men and women, it presents the scandalous, spicy, and sleazy detours they took on the road to sainthood.

In nineteenth- and twentieth-century writings about the lives of the saints,

St. Matthew, extortionist — St. Dismas, thief — St. Callixtus, embezzler — St. Hippolytus, antipope — St. Christopher, servant of the devil — St. Pelagia, promiscuous actress — St. Genesius, scoffer — St. Moses the Ethiopian, cutthroat and gang leader — St. Fabiola, bigamist — St. Augustine, heretic and playboy — St. Alipius, obsessed with blood sports — St. Patrick, worshipper of false gods — St. Mary of Egypt, seductress — St. Columba, warmonger — St. Olga, mass murderer — St. Vladimir, fratricide, rapist, and practitioner of human sacrifice — St. Olaf, Viking — St. Thomas Becket, hedonist — St. Francis of Assisi, wastrel — Blessed Giles of Portugal, Satanist — St. Margaret of Cortona, rich man's mistress — Blessed Angela of Foligno, gossip and hedonist — St. Ignatius of Loyola, egoist — St. John of God, gambler and drunkard — St. Camillus de Lellis, cardsharp and con man — St. Philip Howard, cynic and negligent husband — St. Peter Claver, dithering novice — Venerable Matt Talbot, chronic alcoholic.